Fearzone

Same here. I'd like to see more character among the heroes by having a broader array of powers and abilities, and then having their entire army take on some of the qualities of the heroes in the group. Just giving buffs, like movement speed, is a good start--but maybe also certain static abilities or elemental resistances across all units in the army the hero occupies. One might then choose the composition of units around particilar heroes based on their power(s

It is better for the soul to stay lean.

I don't use teleport. It feels wrong. If should be like a level 10 spell if it exists at all, not a gimme. If heroes can cast spells from a single realm-wide mana pool then teleport shouldn't be particularly necessary. But the OP makes a good point about city defenses. Sure, you can buff up and garrison your cities on the border, but then the opponent's main army runs past those to the lightly defended cities as the core and starts knocking them down

Things are obviously tighter. Generally I hate games with a weak trickle of resources. I think a big problem here is the UI failing to explain what is costing what, making it harder to economize. Agree that the current version could loosen up things a little though. Disagree that the fun is sucked out--I'm still having fun with the latest game in the latest build, I'm just not building up gold in the thousands anymore.

I'm glad to hear Stardock hasn't succumbed to the grinding crucible of reality and is still keeping hopes and dreams alive.

I also thought it would be cool of cities looked more like keeps, particularly the admin buildings and fortifications. Maybe shape cities as they grow such that admin buidlings look like tall castles at the center, shops at the edges of the keep, and houses in the periphery.

I don't see any problem with the adventure tree. What's wrong with buffing the "off" trees to the point where people actually start using them? I noticed last night that the creeps are a lot stronger and it didn't take them long to start overwhelming my usual garrison of a hero + squad of 4 observers. Even higher level soldiers were running into troubles on auto-resolve, while the other AIs seem much more passive. Just a quirk of this particular version of 1.08. Where there used to be AI

I'd like to see an even mix of random spells and researched spells such that if you really want your favorite couple of spells each game you can acquire them if you build enough arcane laboratories and go deep enough into the magic tree--otherwise, you can get spells fairly freely through adventuring but you only get whatever you randomly stumble upon. Such a system would depend on all spells being well-developed and useful, and until that point is reached we would have to stick wi

Yeah I just created a game to test it: he cost 23 gold (I was playing Markinn who has a low charisma), but produces 1 gold per turn, so whether listening to his advice is something you are willing to put up with is up to you but pays off if the game is longer than 23 turns. I would rather your right-hand man get mixed up among the different heroes and not always be Janusk. He seems a little too eager... almost creepy...

If Stardock wants to start small, then flying creatures could behave exactly like ground based creatures, except their animation puts them a little ways up in the air, and they would have to be invulnerable to melee attack (unless they land). I don't know if there are any examples so far in the game of creatures existing in Elemental in two or more different forms, say like a spell where one polymorphs into a bear, I don't recall any examples, so a dragon flying vs. landing woul

^^RE: Earth & Life: that's fine, if there is both. But there are only four types of crystals, so all magic is going to have to get shoehorned under those four, and according to the fluff in the intro movie, crystals should be pretty prominent in regards to spell casting. Maybe keep earth and life/nature separate but have them both powered by the same crystal, or have life magic powered by, I dunno, a combination of crystals? I'm seeing precious little healing or druid-li

I wonder if acquiring spells could be made similar to a formula like Magic: the Gathering. Finding a spell book through dungeoneering, or buying it at a magic shop, would be like buying a booster back, with several common spells like lighting strike or fireball, and then one or two of the rarer spells. "Cards" could be traded with other factions through diplomacy. It means spells would have to be balanced according to rarity so it is not an automatic win for the first guy th

In presentation only. I hope the Stardock team is playing Civ 5 right now and picking some ideas around presentation, like UI and combat animations. But in terms of the gameplay I'd like to see Elemental LESS like Civ 5 and more its own game.

More dragon suggestions: When a flying dragon dies, it's death animation MUST be as close as possible to the scene in Dragonslayer where... Spoilers... The old wizard exploded and the dragon fell into the lake. End Spoilers. *** Also I propose different dragon races that can be recruited: Fire: Red, breathe fire, direct damage + damage over time burn effect. Similar to the young dragons now but

Search your heart Stardock... you know it's true. Look at Elementals own intro screen. Dragons should either hover in the air above their tile, or fly in a radius around their tile. On the strategy map, flying units--other than graphics and animations changes--simply means it can occupy the same tile as a land unit or structure, and can cross tiles that land units cannot, and probably travel faster than land units. Mounting a sovereign on a dragon would be cool

Easy fix. Kill them.

Probably you want to have three to five cities up quickly, then in the military tree be able to make squads of four, then have 2 or 3 equipment upgrades, and fortifications never hurt, then make sure you have at least a couple squads of guards in the cities getting hit with AI spam (and at least one squad of peasants elsewhere), and then you can sit back and look at the line of attackers as an easy stream of gold revenue. All of the pop-up windows get annoying whenever you get atta

Same here. I say: keep monsters of all sizes there, even at the beginning--a little danger adds some flavor--just make them unlikely to attack unless a unit or army is stationary for a turn or more, or builds a city nearby. Even high level monsters can be present at the beginning and cleared over the course of the game. A strong stationary spiders could always spawn baby spiders that move around and cause trouble.

Ack, nevermind, I didn't see the date of the OP.

Agree with the OP. (Disagree Blizzard is evil: they put out good stuff. I like SC2, and liked its polish but thought it was a little bland.) Due to stability issues, I just started playing (or more precisely, finishing) with 1.08. Since 1.08 it's been running well with crashes maybe every 200 turns that can be autosaved around. Not bad for a new release. Each game I keep discovering new features and new angles to supreme power, and get a little bette

Yeah, a lot of variability in resources. Once [1.08] I had a game with no gold node at the start, and none nearby, even with exploration tech. If you are weak enough 30 or so turns into the game with sparse, disparate and poorly defended cities, the AIs tend to gang up on you I think. A way the adventure tech could compensate for lack of a certain resource is to allow the player to choose what reward they get for a quest, i.e. either a silver flute, gold, food, materials,

Just like in real life: what do you do when your nation is starving? You build more caravans! This is the kind of logical non-sequitur common to B-grade adventure games, that all games do better to avoid. Here's how I see it: you get a certain amount of food production, in units per turn, from building on food resource tiles. Various buildings, heroes, researches, and caravans enhance food production per turn. Houses consume food at the rate of 1/turn, a

So much for my fire/water giant rush.

Some great ideas. I'd like to see some more of a Keep on the Borderlands vibe (AD&D module), particularly in the early game, with more depth to wilderness encounters in the early game. Having people tell you about those sorts of "quests" mentioned above would be like adventuring tech level 0. Additionally, for adventuring, if one goes that route, I would like to see the ability of a sovereing and party to sneak across the borders of other realms and move about

Thanks for keeping it short.