Simsum

1. In September we will release v1.1 which will be the first major revision to the game that takes into account the feedback we're getting from players. This will be a pretty substantial change. In particular, character creation, magic (think, shared mana pools), Please drop the "percentage modifier" & "modified values as random ranges" system. There's a reason you're the only ones who've ever use a system that simple and elegant, and it isn't that

[REL] is short for Release. [REQ] is short for Request. [WIP] is short for Work In Progress. The tags are used to make it easier to do forum searches.

[quote who="Supreme Shogun" reply="2" id="2742283"]Yes. A lot of "Balance" or "UnBalance" people want can come from editing some XML files.[/quote] I don't think so. Granted, everything needs a balance pass and that can be done by anyone. But the way the game applies modifiers and calculate outcomes means the various improvements of stuff in the game can't really be gradual enough. Every step up is a giant & game-breakingly unbalanced leap ahead of previous generations. Almo

Brass1983, allegedly the game supports a variety of damage types and corresponding resistances, so perhaps it can be handled that way. However, I've just been looking at some of the xml files, and unless I'm missing something the functionality isn't in use.

Ranged attacks could be turned into "move or fire" special abilities. That way archers can do melee like other troops, and archery gets a much needed nerf. One addition to the combat mechanics proposed in this thread I'd like to see, is a reworked morale system - including the ability to & consequences of disengaging. Warhammer too does this.

So do I. I don't have the know-how to h[quote who="db0" reply="4" id="2740478"] Quoting rancmiller, reply 1I think this is actually good... Can you make it into a mod? Dunno. That's what I'd like to know too. Don't know if the things I need to modify, are modifiable[/quote] Neither do I, nor do I know how to modify them if it's possible. But if anyone can enable me to help realise your mod, I'm ready & willing to do so. The combat mechanics you outlined are ex

[quote who="Tridus" reply="30" id="2740609"] Quoting penlin, reply 29IMHO, the shacknews comments are well thought out. So much of the game feels superfluous when all that matters is building that big military stack. The game (so far) is a simple exercise in building a strong stack of units ... with a whole ton of other bells and whistles (e.g. questing) to tempt/distract you away from this single winning strategy and give you the illusion of choice. That's just a balance

The AI isn't very intelligent yet. GalCiv2's is the second best (AI Wars is even better, but that's a very different kind of strategy game) I've seen in a strategy game, though, and I'm confident Brad will keep working on it until it's even better than GalCiv2's. @ Phazonfreak: I'm unaware to what extent the core mechanics are modable, but I wouldn't expect Stardock to fix them. Why? Because since the earliest days of the beta lots of people have written at length and in great detail

@ Feelotraveller: I forget the faction name, but the red Kingdom faction, the one with the starting bonus materials, almost nailed the quest victory against me yesterday. I managed to wipe them out in time, though. @ Gormoth1: The fact is every player in a match is in a competition to use a limited number of resources to win over all the other players. This isn't particular to Elemental, it's true of every 4X game. What that fact means, is that ideally, the greatest value any & al

[quote who="Sythion" reply="6" id="2723013"]Although I agree with ddd that some things do not have to be explicitly explained, this game does leave FAR too much to trial and error.[/quote] Everything has to be explained to exhaustion. The point of the game isn't to try to guess how X, Y or Z works. The game is about being the best at exploiting X, Y & Z. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the lack of in-game tutorials. It's a RTFM kind of game, just like any other Grand Stra

Thanks, lwarmonger. But Raaargh! Stardock you damn tease: "Sorry, this product is not available in your region". Does anyone know if Impulse can filter out US-only stuff? - Trust me, trying to buy stuff you can't is way, waaay more annoying than it sounds. @ Bilskis & Annatar11: it's a bit funny you guys call it

I think I sort of gave up on the series with Civ 3. Is it worth getting Civ 4 for Planetfall alone?

Off the top of my head: Fallout: NW Age of Decadence ZRPG Elemental One of the upcoming UFO clones/new version of existing ones. Blood Bowl: LE BB:LE is probably my "most anticipated" pick, but that's because all the jobs, husbands, wives & children my BB playmates and I can't seem to stop accumulating, increasingly gets in the way of playing the board game. Oh yeah, and SMAC2. I'm really looking forward to that one. And I'm

If you're "just an engineer" I wish more game design hotshots were. Sure, it would be cooler still if it was possible to merge you and, say, pre-Spore Will Wright. But as it is, there aren't a whole lot of people other than you who can honestly claim to consistently make interesting, challenging and fun games. Neither (either of the) Chris Taylor(s) nor Will Wright can, for example. Don't sell yourself short, Brad.

Damage types are great, but what about unit types and special abilities? I'd like guys with pole arms to stop mounted charges, but I also want guys with bows & daggers to get crushed by mounted charges. And eh.. It might be cliché, but I'd like dragons to breathe fire, golems to be impervious to magic, swamp monsters to be able to move unseen & ambush stuff in swampy terrain, and so on. Special resources that give stuff like super-powerful units or great, big piles of m

[quote who="Ellestar" reply="51" id="2641988"] Quoting Orvidos, reply 8"Human cheese." Interesting way to put it. The day the AI is able to figure out how to counter me doing absolutely batshit things that would leave me defenseless/dead against human players (but yet, maybe not!) I'd call it ready. Basically: When it can adapt at human speed. It's difficult to to implement. At best, it will look like AI is adaping, but it will be programmed to do so, it

Depends on your definition of cheese. A common strategy in this type of game, is to tech for a tech switch, so you can trick your opponent to waste his energy on the wrong stuff and give him a false sense of security. I've never seen an AI capable of such a ploy, nor have I seen an AI that would look for it, recognise it, or know how to respond to it. I'm very, very, very, very much in favour of letting the AI use stratagems. Especially if it can be done in such a way that the AI can

[quote who="TucoBenedicto" reply="101" id="2637661"]Wow, what an embarassing bunch of Captain Obvious Superfriends we have here.[/quote] It's just a guess, but you probably won't get the discussion back on the topic of graphics (rather than the "dev time should be spend on X" derail) this way. That said, I agree with you. The current screenies look boxy and lifeless compared to the early concept screenies. I don't think it's the art style as such, it looks more like it's a mat

[quote] Combat Speed. Your combat speed determines how many “moves” / attacks you get during a particular turn. In the begging of Lord of the Rings, what makes Sauron such a bad ass is that he can attack so many units at once. He has, in game turns, an incredible combat speed.[/quote] Hmm... I like that idea, I think. But how does it work exactly? If a combat turn is, say, 20 segments, the initiative rating is the number of segments that must

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="133" id="2629409"]I cringe every time someone says this. Have you ever played a Total War game, or a game with similar combat? At least in single-player, actions per minute has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with combat. Nothing. There is a really handy feature called "pause" that lets you give as many orders as you want, as often as you want, while taking as long as you want. There is a little bit of micro, but because of the ability to pause it's n

I'm thrilled real time is out. Winning because of superior micro/APM is cool & stuff, but I would really, really hate it in an otherwise turn based game. And eh.. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but TB is what I signed up for. That said, tile & turn base combat isn't exactly my fondest wish. Ideally I'd like a distance based WEGO/phase system. Grids, whatever the shape, limits manoeuvrability and tends to make things like facing, reinforcements, flanking &

[quote who="Zoe_E" reply="181" id="2623729"]I don't think anyone suggested quaestor.[/quote] Best suggestion yet, I think. It's a pretty obscure title, that most people probably won't associate with a ton of un-Empire-like things. Even better, I'm pretty sure it's only ever been used by dogmatic, inflexible & highly corrupt authorities. So the associations it does evoke, I think, are the right ones.

I don't really like any of those systems. How about using something closer to a tabletop wargame system instead? My issue with RPG systems is that they're very random. Tabletop RPG stats typically have a range of something like 20, are further modifiable by somewhere between 20-100% of that from stat modifiers, and then modified even further by a random value that typically range from 0-100% of stat range. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing in games where you want a handful of huma

I like the uncertain info thing, but I think it needs to be taken a bit further. And by a bit, I mean: apply the idea to everything. Turn the stats of all the game elements into variables, have the game settle on the exact numbers during match creation, and display more-or-less accurate representations of the actual values based on relevant player skills. As for the AI itself, I suspect it will probably be a really, really good idea to let it use scripted strategies/counters, at least