Ynglaur

When initial screenshots came out, a few people weren't crazy about the art style (though I don't remember many who outright disliked it). Seeing it with the camera and characters in motion, though, I'm now fully off the fence and in the "I really like it" camp. Mind, I didn't think it was bad before, but I had trouble visualizing how it would work. I know it's still early and look & feel may change somewhat, but that "works", I think. Just my 2 coppers, of cours

No offense taken, mein freund (or meine freunde, depending). :)

Just about every fantasy-themed game out there has some sort of direct attack magic (e.g. fireball, etc.). I think it'd be really cool to see serious utility out of non -combat spells, though. In some ways, I would hope they would be more powerful, when properly used. Things like divination, illusion, cursing farmland, causing an entire city to fall asleep (sorry - daughter was watching Sleeping Beauty the other day), etc. would all be cool, imo. Do most peop

I really like Landisaurus' idea of having the engine grab screenshots. Since Elemental will be using a content distribution model, you could see loading screens of other people's games...perhaps with characters, units, and buildings you've never seen! Sorry: just realized it was NTJedi's idea.

Not a bad idea, though I'd want to avoid feeling like I was playing Tetris. :) What about doing something simliar to Total Annihilation 2, I mean, Supreme Commander, whereby buildings get different bonuses depending on what they're next to? Such approaches always feel a little "gamey" to me, but can be fun if done well.

Rather than have Leadership apply some arbitrary bonus to 'attack', 'defense', 'damage', etc., what about allowing Leadership to affect the responsiveness of units? Some of the old paper hex-based wargames use a simliar approach to reflect good command and control structures. Higher command & control ('leadership') allows units to move further, engage in more battles, react to enemy movements, etc. Morale bonuses for certain units should also be on the table: everyone

I'll buy off on the idea of needing a spell. It's the concept of deception I like: the method of implementation doesn't matter that much. Alternately, it might be cool to have the color scheme seen be setup by player. Thus, I see my forces in blue and yours in red; you see mine in orange and yours in green. Seriously: how often do we say "look out for the blue army!" We usually refererence sides by name. This would have the nice side effect of helping out

NTJedi - I kind of like the idea of mis-guiding your foe based on appearance. Then again, I'm all about fog of war and imperfect (or even downright lying) intelligence: a feature which I love, but I know others detest.

I like the idea a lot. I wouldn't necessarily be that much more difficult to implement. See Shadowbane for an excellent example of good, customizable UI design that still comes with a good default setup out-of-the-box. Stardock - What do you think? Will we be getting details on the UI prior to beta? I know SoaSE went through several UI iterations. Is the intent to follow a similar development process for Elemental?

Having a way to quickly/easily apply custom textures, or change the tint on existing ones (WindowsBlinds color changing anyone?) would be cool.

Retreat is nice, so long as retreating units are easily killed. Historically, most battles in the ancient world were very one-sided in terms of losses, because the side that broke first suffered the vast majority of casualties. Even nicer is to allow retreat by unit, so you can sacrifice a covering force to allow others to escape (a la Hurin's folk allowing the army of Gondolin to escape).

ShockMeSane had a great idea over in the General forum: research results in a chance to learn a spell, rather than a guarantee. I'd like to see this further expanded by borrowing from MOO3, and have research slide. Sometimes you can get a spell at Level 2, other times Level 4. What might be interesting is to have the chance to get a given Spell increase with Research Level, but never be 100%. Example: Nature's Pity is a mass healing spell. For ever

I really like the idea of non-guaranteed research. I.e. research results are based on expertise in a given area (perhaps with the ability to increase expertise). MOO3 provided a simliar effect with sliding research: sometimes you got a tech early, and sometimes you got it late.

[quote who="FlyGuy" reply="25" id="2056156"]...I like how they are, but aren't the trees to big? The pines are much taller than the walls and even taller than the multi-floor buildings. I think they would give more dimension being smaller, they make that place look like a very small village (or more than it is). Anyway, maybe there trees grow bigger.[/quote] Maybe they're very small walls...:p If you think about it, historically many city walls were between 10-40' high (a few we

FWIW, I'm okay with isometric. GalCiv2 is fundamentally isometric. I know you can roll the camera and so forth, but I would bet most people find the angle they like and just zoom in/out from there.

I think one of the keys to good UI design is not having minimal (or "just enough") information on the screen/in a window, but having all relevant information for a given process/workflow. Thus, the "town" viewer should have everything needed for managing a town at your fingertips. The "army" viewer should have everything for armies. GalCiv2's GUI is very good, but I think it fell down here in some areas. To manage a planet, I had to use 3 windows (Colonies, the Plane

See the sub-title... (but I updated the main title anyways)

I like Noctilucus' idea of oppression by geography a lot. Oppress some peoples, and coddle others. I figured black markets can thrive at either extreme. Under very oppressive regimes, there's a strong incentive to avoid The Man. In very open regimes, there's lax oversight. It's probably lousy economic theory, though...:p

Good point Wintersong. UTF-8 character support would, in addition to helping our friends outside of N. America, allow for nice "fantasy-like" names, full of accents, umlauts, and other fun.

It'd be very nice to have a configurable random name generator included with the various world-building tools, and to be able to associate a given random name configuration (let's call it a "dictionary") with a given custom object. For example, I create a custom light infantry unit. But seeing "Light Infantry Unit" is boring. I'd like it to be called "So-and-so's Light Company", where "So-and-so" is a name that sounds "Dol-Sirionish" to me. Maybe each Kingdom/Empire

GalCiv2 had a very rough allusion to oppression in that certain Government Types could raise more in taxes at the expense of requiring higher approval levels to stay in power. I think it'd be interesting to see this taken a step further, and allow rulers in Elemental to have varying levels of oppression on their people. Higher or lower oppression have different costs/benefits: Oppression: Pros: Lower chance of rebellion Can cut off trade to other kingdomes<b

Historically, Rome had to import "Corn" (more properly, various grains) from Sicily and Egypt, especially in the Late Republic and most of the Empire. I understand Cities in Elemental will have trade and bring in resources, but will they be able to do so from other Kingdoms/Empires? If so, does such trade require both sides to accept, or is "Black Market" trading possible? Does war between two Kingdoms/Empires automatically cause all trade to cease? I think it'd be n

I understand if Stardock doesn't want Elves and Dwarves because they don't want to go down the classic high-fantasy route. However, it'd be nice if the world building tools allowed the creation of new races. I assume that would require adding artwork and 3-d models, but it'd still be cool.

A starting location like this wouldn't necessarily be bad if lots of resources exist nearby. For instance, if you could turn it into a major port, or if you had just a bit more land with some useful resources. Turtles might love it. I'm sure Gondolin wouldn't have looked like a good starting location, but it worked for a few hundred years. :p

I like the artistic style a lot. I was a little on-the-fence at first, but as more artwork and semi-screenshots have come out, I can see how it works well. The style should lend itself to easy-to-see UIs as well, assuming UI placement and workflow is decent.