ckessel

Wasn't BoogieBac the Producer for Elemental? What happens to him?

I'd really like to see the mod ability increased enough to work as a general purpose engine. I bought Civ IV due to the Fall From Heaven mod. Regardless of Elemental's release, I think the graphical mod tools, combined with a VERY in depth Python mod ability, would give the ability for major mods, maybe even licensing the entire engine for a full on TBS game. As for Elemental itself, I just don't feel like the gameplay had a vision. Frogboy and others on the team seemed to talk about

I'm really tickled my idea made it into the game in some fashion :). Hopefully it works well and spawns further ideas in mods and future games!

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="10" id="2659560"]One thing about diplomacy we're doing differently from GalCiv (or at least doing right) is the concept of a resource that is used for getting better deals. GalCiv diplomacy was wayyyyy too fuzzy. But that's for another discussion.[/quote] Very cool. I'm thrilled my "diplomacy as a resource" found it's way in to the game in some form :).

I know it's been said before, but I want to vote against the winner take all system because it promotes a serious issue with constant build up and everyone afraid to initiate combat for fear of losing the game in one massive battle. I'd rather build the ability to retreat in as a game mechanic that requires the user to choose that ability. Spells that allow it, troop skills that help support it (a Rear Guard ability) or something similar.

[quote who="StillSingle" reply="31" id="2612243"] I've just realised something about all the diplomatic systems described above when talking about getting diplomacy bonuses for the other team to say yes. They are all based on playing AI teams. I'm not saying this is bad, just, is there a way t omake having good diplomacy translate into benefits when playing with/against human players?[/quote] Good point. I'm leaning more and more towards purely basing diplomacy on phy

[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="19" id="2611156"] But using real units to use diplo would be a nightmare. [/quote] Depends on how it's worked. I'll leave the brainstorming of the implementation to Stardock, but there are certainly multiple variations of a "real" unit. It could be an actual diplomat unit on screen. That could get messy as someone said if you had 20 of them, though depending on how the feature is designed you might never have more than a handful, in which case p

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="7" id="2610668"]But I'd have ever so much more fun with a diplomatic win if it depended on me developing specific 'diplomatic assets' (Ambassador Sarek, etc.) and using them well.[/quote] You nailed it. That expresses the core my feelings on it. Diplomacy in most games now doesn't really vary by kingdom/race since everyone has the same options (barring the +25% reaction type modifiers). If the diplomatic core were modeled somehow, particular as

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="3" id="2610551"] Quoting ckessel, reply 2 Asking for a mutual peace treaty might take a potent envoy I don't know....Why should it matter that what kind of "envoy" you gonna send? [/quote] Because sending someone of a low level would be an insult. My wife is big on the Victorian era movies/books and in those who you sent to represent you often said as much as the message itself. What, you send me your flunky!? I spit a

Always nice when someone like your idea :) I'd been thinking of two axis of diplomatic resource: 1) The type of request. As I mentioned above, more serious requests require a more serious envoy. You could think of it in terms of character level or spell. Only a level 9 Envoy can "cast" Offer Peace Treaty, but a level 2 can offer to Exchange Technology. I shied away from levels/powers in my description because it's more the core concept I wanted to stress, that some diplomatic

In most 4x games, you can pretty much talk to anyone at any time without negative repercussions. Some games have built in the ability for the AI to refuse to talk to you, but mostly diplomacy is readily available and instantaneous in it's results. I've played games (mostly board games I think) where diplomacy was more of a resource. It took a particular figure to initiate diplomacy, such as an ambassador and potentially the more grand the request the more important an envoy would be r

[quote]Here is how to stop piracy. Make it an actual crime. If you are caught, you face a year in prison or a $5000 fine. simple. Sure, your odds of being caught might be less than 1%. But if you were caught you would wish you had never done it.[/quote] That's basically the RIAA's approach. Sue anyone with a mp3 on a server for 10 gazillion dollars. How's that working out for them so far?

I don't see any way to upgrade my already purchased copy. I'll be really disappointed if new purchasers snag all 10k copies before the upgrade path is available so early purchasers like me can upgrade.

One thing that typically happens with these traits is a few end up just clearly inferior or superior and always chosen. Maybe not by a bunch, but such that the community consensus always ends up with something like "Never choose ugly." However, that leads less variation in actual characteristics used. I'd like to propose the computer randomly assign 1 positive and one negative attribute you're stuck with. You can then spend points on more if you want. Perhaps an optional thing or some

Thanks Brad. I know you get a lot of crap from places (like Qt3) for various reasons, but Stardock's efforts with Elemental have been something beyond anything I've ever seen as far as community involvement. I have, and I think with good reason, hope this will be one of the all time classics in the 4x and Strategy genres. Keep it up, tell your team we love what they're doing.

I'm curious what the prevalance of heroes will be as that impact some choices. If heroes are plentiful, then it'd be neat to form groups (sort of like Majesty 2 had) and have them go off and do things. If they're rare and powerful, then that's not really feasible, which may not be a bad thing as you likely can't expect Elemental to have that level of detail on heroes and still be playable as a 4x game.

Given marriage/bloodlines/whatever are an important part of the game, I'd like to see some quests related to that. "Why yes, your son can marry my daughter! Once he brings me the head of the Dragon ScaleyBalls who hides in the mountains nearby."

Leaves me a little flat. The un-PCness of gender inequality does bug me, even if it's historically accurate for feudal culture. It also feels a little to much all-or-nothing as far as inheritance. I think, as others have sort of mentioned, I'd like a like it more along the lines of ways to influence minor factions. You might be able to get a portion of an opponents area to rebel if you marry your son/daughter into their noble house (e.g. think of the Bear Island clan in Stark's in GRRM's worl

Given one of the main choices in the game is whether to divest your essence or keep it, I'd like to see some powers/traits related to that. Something like "innate wizard", where you have some incentive to keep your essence. Or "life synergy" where you get bonuses related to divesting your essence. Perhaps traits that aren't purely for or against, but have tradeoffs. Something like "willpower domination", where it costs you extra essence to create a new follower, but their loyalty is h

I'd like to see something beyond modifiers. I get beneath the scenes it's all numbers, but I'd like to see something more extreme. Things that cause dramatic differences in playstyle. Something like "descendents of gods" where every citizen is quite powerful, but you have much fewer and they breed slow so you'll end up fielding fewer armies that are individually very potent. Or "Nomadic heritage". You have some extra affinity for plains: bonuses to combat, movement, farming, etc. <p

[quote]You're wrong.[/quote] You're blunt response and equally poor tone certainly didn't aim to reduce any potential flame fest, but point taken. [quote]In other words, names define mechanics.[/quote] A rose by any other name is still a rose. Names don't define mechanics. A mechanic exists outside of whatever name is chosen. Once chosen, a name provides flavor and something for the user to latch onto as a way to get some instinctive

Boy, a lot of whining about the wording of mystical versus arcane or lightning versus electric. People, pull the focus back a little bit. We're interested in game mechanics, not exercising the thesaurus. They could call the damage types "ouch, painful, and boo boo" for all it matters at this point.

I should clarify, I don't want to limit turtling. I tend to turtle. But I'd like to have your kingdom interact a bit more with the world than your typical strategy game. I think I was inspired by a book I read recently where key technologies were found in ancient cities and it was those tech that turned folks to a new way of thinking. We already have goody huts giving away tech and quests for killer items, this concept just extends those a bit. Rather than getting an immediate freebie

For whatever reason, this came to me today as I was thinking about Elemental. Classic technology trees are pretty much entirely under the players control as far as being able to research them (barring random techs). You research Tech A and you can get to Tech B (or C and D, etc). Occasionally it'll have something like "build a mage tower" before you can research it. What I'd like to see is some techs or maybe entire trees/subtrees depend on accomplishing something in the game wo

Anyone know what Impulse's download speed is? I could swear Brad had touted it as blazing fast due to it's being backed by a cloud of systems, but I've got FIOS with 25M/sec and I'm only seeing about 4.5M/sec on my Impulse download.