Myles

[quote who="caross73" reply="73" id="2645293"]"Fire doesn't/can't do that." The original life killed itself off by creating oxygen as a waste product. I'm not sure I would say that those primordial organisms weren't alive. [/quote] Stromatolites are thought to have produce most/all of the oxygen we use today, and they are still around in Shark Bay, Australia. However, I'm over this discussion. Were arguing over the definition of purpose an

[quote who="caross73" reply="65" id="2645275"] I agree, but if they didn't DO it, they wouldn't be alive. So its not like its some additional trait added on after the fact to give us a reason for them, for why they do the things they do. Its just what they ARE already, independent of what we may think of it. Life is essentially defined by the ability to reproduce. Of course the line between it and fire is pretty narrow. There are other traits but reproduction is the

[quote who="caross73" reply="65" id="2645275"]If life didn't do things to survive, life wouldn't BE. Survival is what grass is. Green is what grass is. If survival wasn't what grass is, grass wouldn't BE. If photosynthesizing wasn't what grass is, grass also wouldn't be. It would be something else. If life didn't survive, it wouldn't be life. Purpose is something you have attributed to it. A reason. It doesn't exist outside of your hea

Everything life does is to survive. Grass is green so that is can survive, thus survival is is purpose. If grass were red it would have harder time getting energy from the sun, but it's purpose is to survive, so it's green. Purpose explains why things do what they do. Life does things to survive, thus that is it's purpose. Purpose does not require rational thought. All it requires is is external forces. Asteriods have no intended 'purpose', they were left around for no reason

[quote who="Myles" reply="58" id="2645256"] Quoting caross73, reply 56 Myles, when you can demonstrate how a bacterium cares whether it lives or dies, then I will admit that life has a 'purpose' other than just a 'defining characteristic'. [/quote] You seem caught up in the process of rationalization and understanding, which I agree animals other than ourselves lack

[quote who="caross73" reply="56" id="2645250"] Myles, that is a purpose you gave it. Life itself doesn't care. If it doesn't reproduce, it doesn't reproduce. The universe doesn't have an opinion on it.[/quote] Ah, the universe=/=life. Life does care, life does reproduce, life does have an opinion. Look at any primate. It will let it's offspring die so that it may survive and produce more offspring in the future. It's a painful choice in the process of survival. The univer

[quote]Or to put it ANOTHER another way, survival is what life forms ARE, its not what they DO.[/quote] No. Surivial is an action, a process, a choice. Survival is not a state of being. You actively pursue survival, you don't just survive because you are. I also don't like the ethical quandaries this raises, and I'm one who generally supports fringe ideas such as this. But there's a difference between harvesting stem cells from embryos and creating a living, breathing, THINKING creat

[quote who="VladimirVladimirov" reply="2" id="2642130"]Great!!! i couldn't be happier... now a few more popped up in my mind.... 1. do i have to be online to play singleplayer? ... i think it was NO .. but to make sure 2. do i have to be online to play LAN? 3. Steam(sux) doesnt allow modding.... every time the game is launched it restores the files to the original state... so any mods i made go to waste.. i hate that... i lov

[quote who="Anomander" reply="6" id="2638574"]I've read and seen that too... 'Simple Combat' its not really what I want to hear. We've been promise 'Tactical combat' but it seems its taken less of a priority now. At this rate it will just be for show only! [/quote] This is the kind of crap we don't need. There was just a developer journal on tactical battles and their importance has not been changed. Places like IGN like to jump on one word and make it seem more meaningful

I like it. It would add a unique feel to each game and potentially provide points of interest.

Guys, only believe things straight outta the horses mouth(aka a Stardock developer). Gaming sites get things wrong all the time, so don't think for a moment that the tactical battles were removed and we weren't told.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="5" id="2636265"]Starcraft 2. [/quote] I would agree. Even if he doesn't like extra competitive multiplayer like on ladder, there's so many possibilities for user map settings games that I'm sure there would be plenty he likes.

I figured it was used in a different context, but after reading I'd say it was a straight up mistake. There are definitely different resources needed to build up cities with infrastructure.

Agreed with john_hughes. It'd be a nightmare of building and rebuilding to get optimal researching done. All I really want is a more interactive tech tree. Right now it seems like were just given a list and we pick one every once in a while. After the initial research into a category, it seems like endless opportunities open up and there's no real flow to the whole thing.

[quote who="Nikitosina" reply="31" id="2634775"] That doesn't make any sense. Game AI will always be inferior to a human player (at least for the foreseeable future and without a supercomputer to back it up), so the devs do know that their AI is not particularly smart by human standards. There is no avoiding that, other than denial. Having only "tutorial" and "normal" means that a lot of people will find the game either too easy or too hard with no recourse. If you don't like the idea of

[quote who="Tridus" reply="455" id="2633087"] Quoting Myles, reply 449 EDIT; On further review, resources apparently equal 1. Not 1 per turn, or whatever, but 1 iron resource is enough to build 1 swordsmen. Now, unless resources are just everywhere, how the hell is someone supposed to have any kind of army. Guess lbgsloan was right and it becoming completely non-militaristic. That sounds like something that will probably change (via number tweaking), but units don't stack. You

I was 8th in platinum, but a bug reset my account and now I need to redo my placement matches. I'm hoping to make it into diamond this time.

So wait, you don't like it because they are semi-explaining the backstory of a planet in another game while telling a completely unique story? It's not like they are referencing the game at all, in fact, if you never played Gal Civ, you'd never know they were even related.

[quote who="Demiansky" reply="109" id="2626723"] If Elemental were a straight strategy game, the units and landscape could be represented by abstract geometric shapes for all I care. But it's not. It's a strategy game in an RPG setting. In civilization, suicidal barbarian that appear out of thin air is fine. It's not fine for Elemental. [/quote] I think making things have a 'reason' is good. Random trolls attacking for no reason

The problem is that this is a Civ type game, and that's where the focus must lie. I'm all in favor of including things that make the world feel alive, but not at a higher priority then other parts of the actual game. And the fact is, a lot of these ideas have been completely unfeasible for Elemental, and yes, belong in a simulation.

Elemental is the SPIRITUAL successor to Master of Magic. It is not, and was never intended to be, a direct sequel or have any similar story elements as MoM. I like the fact that they are not using the bland old fantasy story elements, and the fact is we know hardly anything about the lore except for the Great Cataclysm that destroyed the world, and some snippets about individual factions and entities. To say that the story is just Galactic Civ in space is not only jumping the gun, it'

[quote who="charon2112" reply="402" id="2625813"]This doesn't affect my desire for Civ V in any way. Of course I'll get it. Who cares if you have to use steam? That's like complaining that a game is only available on DVD and not 3.5" floppys. This is a non-issue. This is no different than having to use Impulse. [/quote] For like the umpteenth-billion time in this thread alone, there is a difference between games using Impulse and those using Steamwo

[quote who="XeronX" reply="1" id="2620565"]Man this makes me want Beta 2 even more since you "SAID" we would be getting the in-house build [/quote] Not to be a killjoy, but I'm pretty sure Frogboy said in another post that we wouldn't be receiving modding tools in Beta 2.

[quote who="Orvidos" reply="290" id="2616804"]. . .Wow. So they sell it only over Steam. It's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before. It's like the new Ubisoft DRM all over again. If you don't like Steam, fine. Congratulations. I'm happy for you. You can't install it, and leave it off 23/6 because you aren't playing the game at the time? Is this just elitism? Is this "OH NOEZ! TEH GUVURNMUNT IS

No. I can't create new games after leaving an old one, and am having random, unreproducible freezes.