Sareln

Longer answer from here . Same concept applies as both gamestop and amazon are not-stardock. [QUOTE who="Sareln"]Longer answer: Like most things in life, it all depends upon how you look at it: Gamestop and Stardock mean different things when they say "Pre-order". Gamestop is offering you a pre-order in the traditional sense. You pre-order the game, the game comes out, is shipped

If you have n types of resources and then spend all of a resource so that you have n-1 types of resources, the box resizing works funny. debug Going to another screen forces a refresh and then the box looks fine again. <img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/Elemental%20Beta/Res

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="4" id="2691687"] That might easily cause issues, especially for people with eyesight problems. The text is black, and if the infocard is semi-transparent against the Fallen's dark terrain, there's going to be little contrast to the black text.[/quote] Maybe just make it so that we can click under the card then? EDIT: Alternatively, make it so that if you click on something's infocard, you select it. That way you don't have folk hunti

Maybe make the infocard semi-transparent and let us mouse under the card? We can't click through an infocard anyways, so I don't see why we shouldn't be able to mouse under the infocard.

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="14" id="2690861"] Another note is how small the sample size is. Games are a multibillion dollar industry, you can't get an accurate representation even by 180,000 people even if it was not an online survey (which as you mentioned is strongly biased towards digital already). Bottom line: NPD doesn't actually have any real data, they're just talking out of their collective asses [/quote] You can take a decent poll with a relatively small

Alpha Centauri did something similar for mindworms - they ate population instead of taking "control" of the base. It's a solid idea and definitely deserves a good looking at.

[quote who="arstal" reply="11"] Quoting arstal, With Diplomacy- why would the player want Diplomatic Capital in return for giving up resources? If you can bribe the AI with Diplomatic Capital, there needs to be a reason for the player to offer something for Diplomatic Capital from the AI, and the AI needs to offer such trades. Maybe Diplomatic Capital should be spendable to get minor civs to join your empire peacefully, and the AI should do this also. ... <

[quote who="TheBirthdayParty" reply="1" id="2690713"]That's a good idea. Something that would make champions a lot more useful also would be to give them spell casting capability. Right now they're just a slight bonus i drag around with me to get them experience.[/quote] All spellcasting is supposed to come from the sovereign (channeler). There are systems in place where sovereigns should be able to imbue their champions with spellcasting abilities at the cost of essence (?

I too would like to see some sort of talk/writeup on Elemental's AI at some point in the distant future. It can help inform those of us trying to mod the thing.

[quote who="Star Adder" reply="1" id="2689881"]Actually it would be nice if his Essence would add to one's own. At least to a certain degree. Something similar to the effect in Highlander...[/quote] I'd worry about it creating a cascading effect if it was purely additive. Maybe only part of the vanquished essence is claimed by the victor?

Here's a brainstorm for you then, italics are the current names naturally. Empire: Create Caster Empower Enforcer Empower Agent Empower Proxy Imbue Agent Mark Agent Imbue Proxy

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="11" id="2687201"] You find no problem with Dungeons/Crypts/Temples/Quest_Locations_In_General popping out of thin air when you get a Quest? Or should all those locations be spawned also at World Spawn? There are some reasons why Spontaneous Generation is good for Inns and Quests Locations.[/quote] I found inns to be the rawest point, so I aimed to address that first. I do think that if you're adding a location to the map, you should have

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="25" id="2687044"]And indeed, Sareln, your ideas are interesting. I only wish there was time to test them all (my 3 rough ideas, Larienna's 2 ideas, and your 1 idea) My first idea was basically to first assume that Cities WILL cost maintenance (and to state that they should), and then to have various ways that large empires can lessen their maintenance fees at a loss of research. 2nd Idea was to have "free cities"

[quote]Well, I find it interesting that you couldn't simply disagree with the OP, but instead needed a "reason" to latch onto. And that reason was whatever "X" I inserted into Reply 3.[/quote] What can I say, I'm a goal-oriented kind of guy... [quote]That being said, my current preference is the Dark Horse Candidate ... where your primary Research City produces at 100% capacity, and your secondary produces at 50% capacity .... third at 25% ... decreasing exponentially. <b

Larienna, thank you for putting together a clear and concise analysis. I don't buy your scenario, namely because I have not experienced my 4x games that way. Rather, I have had to be clever to orchestrate a come-from-behind win against AIs, especially in CIV IV, where the outcome was most certainly in doubt the entire time. I know that that kind of experience is not necessarily common, but to say that your three stage scenario is the only way, or even the most typical way,

[quote]Again, I think the main purpose veiled behind my secondary suggestion is to remove an undue advantage in the realms of Knowledge and Arcane from Larger empires.[/quote] Aside: You changed the thrust of your initial response (reply 3) twice, I responded as if you had given the second. Please, if you're going to edit your posts, at least leave some indication that you've done so, so it doesn't look like we're talking quite so far past each other. I have no way of hittin

[quote]Agreed. In terms of tactical combat, I really think AoW:SM had it done well. Had cover, high-ground, movement penaltys by terrain or spell... And takes care OK of the retaliation without abusing...[/quote] pedroente, how did the AoW:SM system work?

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="3" id="2686783"]to avoid steamrolling[/quote] How are you defining steamrolling? If I plan and expand smartly and then decide to crush a smaller kingdom, is that steamrolling? [quote who="Wylaryzel" reply="4" id="2686785"]I can only speak for myself: Currently it gets very costly if you try to build a lot of cities by your own. If you have a decent income because you were lucky and have a good amount of gold mines this is not an issue and

What problem are you trying to solve? I have a decent idea of what it might be, but I think it'd be good for you to clarify what you see as a problem.

I have three quick thoughts about the tactical combat UI. We should let the player mouse over enemies and get an infocard about them. I know screen space is valuable, but I think the system should help tell me what I'm seeing so I don't have to zoom in real close and check out if that guy's equipped with a spear or a sword etc. If the terrain inside the tactical combat does anything (+25% defense, no first strikes when attacking into or out of, etc.) then the pl

Right now we're using infocards on mouseover, which is a fantastic idea for communicating a ton of information to the player at a quick glance. However, we're also using shortened, or chopped down, inforcards for notable locations and unimproved resources. <img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/Elemental%20Beta/Infocards/Bones_of_the_Beast_Infocard.jpg" alt=

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="7" id="2686548"]Or inns could start as refugee camps and then upgrade to Inns naturally over time. But I think there should be a "crowd factor" where quest locations have to be at LEAST 2 tiles away from the nearest other quest location.[/quote] Yeah, the implication of making inns --> refugee camps, or more like resources, is that it enables you to control how closely they appear with the map generator instead of trying to c

[quote who="Malloreon" reply="12" id="2686526"]Speaking of Inns, isn't it funny that the whole thing just dissappears after you visit it? Instead of having many randomly spawning/despawning Inns, could we have just a few randomly placed, but permanent Inns? These Inns could be places of refuge for a wide variety of people that require help. A quest hub. There won't be quests available all the time, but every now and then a new quest, or new quests, appear. As

Managed to repeat the feat, so I have a debug file for you now. Debug Autosave

[quote who="Demiansky" reply="5" id="2686404"]Good suggestions, but I'm sorry, inns being on the map at all at the game's start seems just completely laughable to me. The world is still smoldering after the Apocalypse, there aren't any cities on the map, but there are inns all over the place? Nuke inns on the map all-together. Instead, make emmerging "inn" tiles temporary "water holes" or some other thing that can naturally emmerge that would attract adventurers and such.&nb