Noctilucus

You'll need to ensure you're all playing the same version, saved games will probably not translate well from one version to the next...

The infinite replayability, thanks to the variety in maps, quite well-balanced races that were really different, the vast array of spells and units, going far beyond the overly used "humans, elfs, orcs" And of course the good balance between different tactics even if some at times could seem overpowered, e.g. would you go for a huge army of strong standard units, expensive beefed up heroes, massive spellcasting or summoning powerful creatures? Also worth noticing is the m

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="63" id="2332670"] ... I don't remember any direct statements from dev-land on the wilderness theme, but it appears that there will definitely be indepenent ("neutral") cities. My two favorite old threads on the general subject are Independent Kingdoms and Will there be wild space. [/quote] Aah yes, the "will there be wild space" topic, that's probably the one I had in mind, well remembered :)

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="32" id="2319137"] ... I'm interested in how the game might manage to produce some truly massive battles, but I'm just as interested (maybe more interested) in having an end-game Ludicrous-size map with most territory either wilderness or controled by Independent Powers. If the basic mechanics enforce or encourage traditional TBS city-spamming, I'll be disappointed. You don't need wall-to-wall cities to enable battles like NTJedi describes. It's just a

Speaking about allies and diplomacy, I'd want more diplomatic options to request a safe passage through my ally's territory in order to attack another AI. And an AI or player that's under attack should be able to invite allies to send some troops to the invaded territory. GW Swicord: very well put, though it would have to be very clear from the beginning that your ally will consider that creature to be an abomination (e.g. by having your ally tell you as soon as you start ca

I think I can understand where that idea is coming from: a devious player can be allied with an AI, then suddenly backstab it and take it down. On the other hand, a player can use diplomacy to befriend a superior AI and in a lot of games not worry about that ally anymore. However KnutAreMykland if that ally you're talking

Oh, but give nature a few years or so on scorched earth and you'll see vegetation flourish again - in fact the ash can often work as a fertilizer.

Tenchifew: there were a few spells like that in MoM, with land-altering abilities for the good and for the worse. GreatVolk: your regeneration comment reminds me of the undead ability in MoM. In fact it's funny how much things we all bring up that were already implemented in some form in MoM, no wonder it's been the "standard to beat" for so long :) By the way, building on your idea of unknown versus known spells: how about an additional spell research tree (next to a rather stan

Seems a little harsh though, it would be nice to add the option that first everyone casts his vote. Then when at least 1 player or AI rejects the supreme leader, others still get the chance to join him. Otherwise being up against all AI's at once might be very tough, just because some guy started the election to become supreme leader :p

I don't really see the problem, as long as the cost of units (whether economical or magical) is well-balanced. True, in MoM you could beef up a few heroes and make them almost invincible but then again with the same kind of money you could have trained and maintained hordes of berserkers / paladins / ... And if you manage to get a superior economy up, you should be able to pour that into military might, with a good time delay of course. Troop composition can be a tricky thing to

It would be a huge exercise to incorporate all of that into a reliable rating. It would be an interesting task for that type of organic/learning artificial intelligence: let it gather all kinds of statistics on all armies and see what the outcome is of each war. Based on that it could come up with some statistical relation between those parameters and the real army's effectiveness. Of course this would have to be done with identical AI's fighting, otherwise the player tactic

I think after Elemental is released, someone should harvest all unused ideas and come up with a completely different game just based on those ;)

Of course, the random element shouldn't be too big. But some variety in the spell research tree (or at least in the order you can research them) would work fine. Cfr. MoM where you also had a random factor determining which new spell became available next. There could be some more intelligent mechanics rather than just a random factor, e.g. if you could research "offensive fire spells" you don't know exactly which one will come out but at least you determine the direction you want to

1. Wide variety in how the game evolves (and therefore huge replayability), for example by having the AI respond and act in very different ways. Here I particularly want to mention random map generation + a sandbox mode as opposed to only a limited number of scenarios. 2. Plenty of different units and spells, cfr. Master of Magic. From what I've seen being discussed here on the forum, both seem to be well under way to be satisfied :) Also, having different victory

I really like DrGuppies idea, you indicate in which direction you research but you can't say which specific spell will be found.

Spells that give you information about the other empires; I would like to see a more intricate mechanism than for example Master of Magic where you just had to bring a unit within range of an enemy's city to see the military units defending the city. The same with those graphs we're so used to where we can track our economical, military, research and other progress versus other empires: while it's very useful information it's a bit too easy, so let's see some crystal ball spells :) Wh

Landisaurus: that could be slightly harder to implement though; I like how it goes against GalCiv II's mechanic where morale would slowly decrease over time (in case you were in debt or too long at war). Ynglaur: so the conclusion is that the black market always thrives? I think that's pretty much consistent with reality :p

On the other hand I would think a lot of development time (and hence cost) would go to creating these tools that allow players to create their custom graphics for additional races - I'd rather see that time being spent on game mechanics :) I would already be happy with something like the custom race creation in GalCiv II: a wide variety of parameters to fiddle around with, without any need for custom graphics (I'm obviously talking about the race setup, not the ship designer aspect).<

True, but it would be nice to see a slightly more complex mechanism than the one we had in GalCiv II where you simply had happiness, population growth and taxes; I really like how Ynglaur's suggestions enrich this aspect. Another thing is to consider oppression in captured areas, which could work in a similar way as Centurion or Master of Magic as you mentioned it: some people are more resistent to oppression or will revolt faster. Or something a bit akin to Alpha Centauri, if we cont

Yes, there should be a limit to how many autosaves are kept. There's more than a few games out there that tend to fill up a huge amount of hard disk space with autosaved games due to the sheer number of saves generated.

An autosave per X turns sounds like an easy and solid solution, maybe to be sure switch between 2 autosave names (e.g. first save in slot A, then slot B, slot A again, etc.) If in the worst case your last autosave has become corrupted you still have the previous one (of maximum 2*X turns ago) to return to. Also I just want to comment that my experiences with GalCiv II have been very positive in the aspect of regaining focus (whether it was after alt+tab, another application su

[quote who="Ron Lugge" reply="25" id="2049206"] your 21 is almost offensive too. How do you justify limiting design options? Becauase I have yet to run into a finite-resource system that works once the resources run out -- it ends up just ugly once resources run out. I'm going to guess his point is the same. [/quote] Exactly that was my point, once resources run out you typically reach a point where whichever "sitting duck" happens to have the best

Interesting and detailed ideas! Personally I'd like to see different types of magic rather than the classic 5 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Life/Death) Or at the very least more original creatures/races and spells than the ones we've seen in every magical game so far (you know, elves, trolls, dwarves, fireballs, etc.) Custom spells remind me a bit of Master of Magic's mechanics where you could forge your own super weapons. Through a simple

A bit less technical but applicable for almost any strategy game: 21. No severe resource limitations (e.g. not like any of the Dune series where you're supposed to fight over a planet of immense wealth but you run out of resources in almost every scenario). Just use other levers to force someone to finish the scenario without endless resource gathering and building up a huge army. Limitations to food production would work to impose an army limit for example, without limiting