lambdaman

I guess that's one way to do a "soft cap"...

I could run Elemental just fine (aside from that eye-bleeding thing) until the update last week. Now it just sits at the splash-screen forever until I kill it from Task Manager. I've read that this could be a network problem, but my network works just fine for everything else, and Elemental was able to start until recently. Here's debug.err: DebugMessage: Version 0.295 last updated on: Thu Mar 4 12:20:30

[quote who="Tridus" reply="104" id="2555475"]If I'm trying to reinforce a town and you're trying to attack the town at the same time, is the town attacked before or after my reinforcements get there? Both orders were given the same turn, but the order will drastically alter the outcome (namely if the town survives or not). One solution to that is to make it so all movement happens, then attacks, but that creates a problem where it becomes impossible to attack anything that's moving

Personally, I like the idea of queuing up orders and then resolving them simultaneously. The "simultaneous" games I've played in the past did the thing where moves take effect instantaneously, and I always feel like I'm playing an arcade game instead of a strategy game. (hah, moved my unit away before you could attack it!) One thing that I think would be nice regardless of how turns are resolved is a "grace period" before the next turn starts. i.e., on

[quote who="MichaelCook" reply="18" id="2551121"]If your holding out for "all or nothing" then you will be getting nothing, for years to come.[/quote] Having read a few of Island Dog's more political comments, I'm pretty sure he's holding out for "nothing or nothing".

It seems like all the poses that are available right now are very oriented towards combat units. Whichever one I pick, the unit is either getting ready to swing his weapon, or standing with a very "look at me, I'm a tough guy" posture. That makes a lot of sense for warrior-type units, but I found it a little "off" when I was creating scouts. For scouts I'd really like a unit that's in a more relaxed pose, maybe scanning the horizon a bit, or maybe stealthily sneaking around

"Quick Learner": the Sovereign has a small chance of learning a spell outright every time he/she sees it get cast (possibly subject to it being a spell he/she "nearly" learned already, to avoid abuse). "Brittle": the Sovereign takes extra damage from melee attacks. "Double Trouble": once per combat, the Sovereign can cast two spells in a turn (if this makes sense; it's not yet clear what the mechanics of tactical combat are AFAIK) Maybe allo

More... "Will to Live": bonus to mana pool and maybe casting points when the Sovereign has low HP. "Eternal Wound": the sovereign's essence is slowly draining due to an uncurable wound. Shouldn't ever *kill*, just reduce the essence asymptotically. "Fastidious": the sovereign refuses to engage in hand-to-hand combat (his hair might get mussed, dontchyaknow). "Thaumaturgic Analyst": the Sovereign'

A few non-statistical ideas, probably not all balanced, just thowing stuff out there... "Haunted": "evil"/"demonic"/"ghostly" creatures and/or hordes randomly attack the Sovereign and the city he's in. (probably should give little or no XP if this is supposed to be a drawback) The inverse of the above would make supernatural creatures occasionally show up to help you (either permanently or for a battle). "Renowned": he

[quote who="Tkins" reply="3" id="2550443"]Do you have any idea how Science works?[/quote] Never mind science, what about elementary-school mathematics? [e digicons]:|[/e] (primary school for you UK-ians) I live in the Pacific Northwest of the US. This year we've had a particularly warm winter, with temparatures barely dropping below freezing at all. Therefore, no-one must be getting any snow. Those news reports abo

The one danger with having a "general" counterspell is that it can lead to a nasty asymmetry. While the other players have to divert their resources into researching a whole pile of spells to pursue their strategy and counter their opponents, the counter-magic guy has to learn ... counterspell. What, you're buffing your army? Here, have a counterspell. What, you're raising a volcano under my city? Here, have another counterspell. What, you want to dispel my

[quote who="Cauldyth" reply="76" id="2546322"]Well, here's an idea I'm going to propose, just because it's 1 am and I can't sleep. Feel free to tell me it's stupid. Perhaps what's needed is a more natural way of limiting city spam and city size. In the real world, the limiting factor is the land. It simply can't support more than a limited number of people, be they in a handful of metropolises or dozens of small villages. [/quote] This see

[quote who="clonmac" reply="1220" id="2535424"]Just because Earth is warming (for whatever the reason) doesn't mean there won't be cold climates anywhere. So if you are tired of snow where ever you live, then I may suggest moving south.[/quote] Actually, if he lives in the southern hemisphere, he probably wants to move north instead. :)

Personally, I don't have a problem with accumulating spell points and then spending them. The benefit of doing so should be counterbalanced by not having access to a bunch of lower-level spells (if it isn't, then IMO the "lesser" spells aren't good enough). i,e, maybe you *can* pick the high-level spell that's best for the immediate situation -- but the Bless City enchantment has been boosting my economy for the whole game. I'd like small empires to be viabl

Hopefully the races with four limbs can wield four one-handed weapons at once (or two two-handed weapons, or four shields...) And if you give me a two-headed ogre I want to be able to equip it with two helmets.

[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="29" id="2471540"] Quoting lambdaman, reply 26quoting postThere will only be 1 type of mana. Mana. Control of the elemental shards will be handled ala Magic the Gathering. A spell may cost N mana but also require control of M shards to cast. This way, players don’t have to sit there and hold shards for dozens of turns to cast a spell and creates a much more vibrant game. This is giving me analogy whiplash.

[quote quoting="post"]There will only be 1 type of mana. Mana. Control of the elemental shards will be handled ala Magic the Gathering. A spell may cost N mana but also require control of M shards to cast. This way, players don’t have to sit there and hold shards for dozens of turns to cast a spell and creates a much more vibrant game.[/quote] This is giving me analogy whiplash. The basic mechanic in MTG is that you control land,

[quote who="Climber" reply="6" id="2452261"]Hm... I think some of you do not grasp what I've proposed. lambdaman's Reply #4 seems a like subset of what I've said in my OP. Let me make another example to try explaining.[/quote] I understood it perfectly well. I liked the suggestion that was made in a reply, that instead of randomly casting spells, divination should give you a heads-up on upcoming mega-events that would happen regardless. I don't personally

[quote who="Dr Franknfurter" reply="3" id="2451733"]slight change, have the random actions happen irrelivant of player actions, but use it to find out or change the next random event. Say automatically averting half the damage if you know it'll happen.[/quote] I like that -- finding out what the next global random event will be could be a pretty sweet bonus all by itself. Maybe instead of reducing damage automatically, provide players with the abi

Just to be a little contrary, one problem with cross-branch dependencies is that if it's overdone you end up with basically one research tree that everyone follows, with maybe a few optional dead-end technologies; the only difference is which order each player researches techs in. I haven't played the recent Civs, but 1 and 2 were like this. I don't think it's as interesting as being able to take significantly different research paths each game. I don't thin

My own favorite GC2 moment was when I got a message to this effect from one of my allies... Hello, "ally". We cannot help but notice that you are building up a large fleet of heavily armed ships just outside the orbit of one of our planets. Now, our advisors have told us of so-called "strategy games" that were once popular on your world, in which the player confronted shallow mimicries of intelligence who would not notice such looming treachery

[quote who="NorsemanViking" reply="182" id="2402737"]It's not unluck when your Sovereign dies, you have just taken too huge a risk..... Can't understand those complaining, the powerful Sovereign must be balanced out in some way. Using the Sovereign in 50/50 odds battles in the early game to get early advantages should potentially cost you the whole game.[/quote] I currently have no strong opinion on this point, but I would like to point out

One more idea about sovereign death that I wanted to toss in the "pot", so to speak. I like the idea of sovereigns dying and that being the end. But I do worry that it could force us to play excessively conservatively -- we might be able to send the sovereign off, but it might never be a good idea. After all, if I have an 0.1% chance of failure with an army, there's a chance of one in a thousand that I'll have to build a new army; the same chance wi

One of the least forgiving games I've played, Nethack, still has a 100% guaranteed way to avoid death (which in Nethack also deletes your save files and forces you to start over from scratch, so most of the game is about not dying). It's called the Amulet of Life Saving . If you're wearing one when you die, the amulet is destroyed and you're returned to perfect health. A couple points to note:<

I think it would be more in keeping with the feel of the map to keep the brown background and just turn the waves blue. All the other colored features (that I've seen) are drawn as colored line art, after all.