Hound

Examples of spells to go with my suggestion: Earth Stonefist (Invocation) - single target physical damage with knockdown Bombardment (Invocation, global) - gives target city a rock barrage Stoneskin (Enchantment) - gives more armor Summon Xorn (Summoning) - summons earth creature that burrows through ground Fire Fireball (Invocation) - AoE damage + damage over time, tactical Flaming Weapon (Enchantme

Winnihymn your suggestion has merits too. I like the combining of books and shards for spells. The one thing I dislike with the spellbooks is how in that system the map generator chooses what type of spellcaster you become. I just played a game where I started next to two fire shards and that forced me to specialize in Fire when what I wanted was Air. I would move that choice into Sovereign creation. So you could create a Sovereign who already has a magical identity and a look to matc

[quote who="Lonemessiah" reply="29" id="2846030"]I am not sure if you understand the point i am getting at. Lets address your points seperately. 1/ Turns time; At the moment the seasonal turn time fits well with every aspect of the game except map movement. To change the turn timing would make every aspect of the game not quite work.. including map movement. Let's be honest you would probably have to reduce the turns to days to actually get the map movement right.

I find myself wondering what the new magic system will be like. This one is the big deal for me in Elemental. Myself, I would like to see a change in how spells are categorized so it would be possible to specialize in major domains like Fire or Life magic. What we now have as books (Summoning, Enchantment etc.) could be changed into techniques or subcategories. At Sovereign creation you would choose your focus in magic from 7 major domains: Fire Ice</l

[quote who="Lonemessiah" reply="24" id="2845954"]Yes Civilization spans 1000's of years. Elemental spans decades, rather than a 4 year period. The things you are asking for change the fundamental foundations of what makes Elemental unique. If these are aspects you don't like then, as i said, this probably isn't the game for you. There are many of Empire/War games that you will find right up your street.[/quote] How about trying to be a bit more constructive? The game is still

[quote who="Lonemessiah" reply="21" id="2845504"] Quoting Hound, reply 20I still think it's a bigger, more glaring issue that it takes years to travel a short distance than it would be to be able to build a small city in "only" two years. I think you are playing the wrong sort of game if this bothers you. It is the same in every other game of this type. Hell, in the Civ games it can take several 100 years to make a two square journey. As has been said, changing

I still think it's a bigger, more glaring issue that it takes years to travel a short distance than it would be to be able to build a small city in "only" two years.

[quote who="Lonemessiah" reply="6" id="2844345"]The main problem for me with weekly turns (and there is another topic on this posted today) is the loss of the epic feeling. We are bringing a civilization back from the brink of a mighty cataclysm (sp?). Doesn't seem right the we should be able to achieve global domination from nothing in the space of 3 to 4 years (or 150-200 turns). It SHOULD take many years to win the game, it should take decades to build cities up to their former

[quote who="seanw3" reply="1" id="2843907"]You need to spend time reading maps from the medieval era and a little more thinking about quantum theory. Maps often depict cities as much larger than they are compared to their surroundings. In most maps, unitl the modern era, open areas with little value to the maker were shrunk to make room for more detail in areas that the cartographer recognized as important. Entire villages were obscured due to lack of cultural significance to the m

First of all, let me say that it's awesome seeing Elemental slowly becoming a better game. But there's something that has been bugging me now that I've taken another look at the game. A Sovereign moves 2 squares per turn. That's basically a very short distance on the map. Your starting village will span two tiles immediately. In one turn, three months, you can travel a distance that seems like a five minute walk. It will likely take 'years' to take the shortest route to the closest in

[quote who="marlowwe" reply="69" id="2834180"] Quoting Hound, reply 65Winning becomes more important than enjoying the game. Like I said earlier, winning and enjoying the game should come hand-in-hand IF you have a well designed game. A player shouldn't be able to distinguish between 'playing to win' and 'enjoying the game'. Winning is the anchor which defines how the game is played, balanced, and enjoyed. If winning is not the end goal it adversely affects both the game desi

I've never cared for rankings and the meta gaming they bring. They hurt Sins MP too. Winning becomes more important than enjoying the game. But you can't really blame the players. Who would want a bad record? I hope Devs of online strategy games would make MP without rankings. Other possibility is to make rankings optional, or play separate tournaments that put players on a ladder.

[quote who="tjashen" reply="13" id="2830628"]Managing 15-20 cities makes the game more interesting.[/quote] Heh, that would be a total nightmare for me. I loved MoM but I couldn't stand the city spam. And the city building was very straightforward in MoM. I'd much rather concentrate on one capital and then perhaps one or two other cities. And those cities should benefit from or be forced to have some heavy specialization that would give them more meaning and flavor. Th

I would like it if tech and arcane research from different cities wouldn't stack much, if at all. It would make sense too since coordinating research over great distances wouldn't be possible anyway. Basically it would be cool if just having one big city and focusing heavily on magic would work. With only the capital doing research. Multiple cities could bring you more population and resources that you could use to build a bigger and better army, if that's your cup of tea. But I hope

[quote who="UltimateElemental" reply="39" id="2830027"] Quoting Hound, reply 13I'm glad one of the stats is gone. This is not an RPG. I would still like to see the stats made more straightforward and renamed. I have to strongly disagree with this post. MoM (EWoM is MoM's spiritual successor) had many RPG elements, and they helped make the game great. The main character and their heroes should be interesting,

I think most if not all +X to Y city enchancement spells should be mercilessly axed. If I enchant my city, I want it to be surrounded by a circle of fire, bask in holy radiance or eternal darkness, be hidden inside a persistent illusion, rise up in the air or sink underground. Some spell ideas there for the devs. ;) +X to whatever production is the most boring use for magic imaginable and something that should be accomplished by mundane means instead.

I forced myself to play and I must say it is really starting to go in the right direction. Good job devs. Can't wait it to realise its full potential. :)

I'm glad one of the stats is gone. This is not an RPG. I would still like to see the stats made more straightforward and renamed. Constitution -> Vitality. Instead of influencing your HP it could effectively be your HP. No need for 2 stats if Con only affects HP. Intelligence -> Power. It just sounds cooler for an all powerful Sovereign. You don't have to be booksmart to cast powerful spells. Charisma -&

Well I tried to play Elemental again but couldn't make it past Sovereign creation. The magic options are still very underwhelming and you can't customize the magical identity of your Sovereign. In a game called War of Magic that's inexcusable. It still feels very unpolished to me. Like a spear or whatever crappy piece of equipment costing you the same points you use to buy stats. The game needs to start with creating a COOL Sovereign with distinct magical powers and decent equ

Very good post and one I could sign without hesitation. I'm in the same situation except I still haven't touched Elemental after beta. I expressed my concern on the lack of personality regarding sovereigns, factions and their units back then and that is still the reason why Elemental does not appeal to me at all. I just want the game to be great but still can't play it at all. I truly hope some major expansion will introduce cool, immersive races as factions. And also complete

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="6" id="2768296"] 2. The magic system in Elemental needs to be overhauled and, over time brought more in line to its original inspiration - MOM. There are a lot of practical reasons that I think users can think of as to why we didn't just copy the MOM magic system for a 2010 game (same as to why we wouldn't have dozens of radically different races -- think: cost of low resolution sprites vs. fully realized 3D models). But I think we're just going to

Polish, polish and more polish. On all levels - gameplay, lore, sound, art, UI.. nothing really feels polished enough yet. When I first played Sins I was instantly sucked in by the cool factions with a solid backstory. After the rock solid gameplay I was totally addicted for a long time. With Elemental, I sadly don't feel any of that. There are too many factions that are way too similar and lack any kind of personality. Creating a custom Sovereign is equally bland as you can't select

This is not a purely cosmetic improvement. It would be easier to surround a large 3x3 unit with smaller 2x2 and 1x1 units. While a lone 1x1 unit like a Sovereign would be more difficult to surround with bigger units. It's only fitting that 8 squads of infantry can't all fight the same person simultaneously. With this suggestion, only 4 2x2 units could target the same 1x1 unit. This would give Sovereigns and Champions some survivability which I'm sure will be much needed at the later s

The grid looks pretty clumsy and oversized as it is. Perhaps it would look more elegant if the tiles were be quite a bit smaller and units would take up different amounts of space: 1 tile (sovereign, champions) 2x2 (infantry unit) 3x3 (giant, dragon)

[quote quoting="post"]Magic vs Non Magic: Make sure that your magic system is not proportional to empire size. Which mean that your player's sovereign must have the same power level even if they had 1 city for the whole game. This could be explained by the fact that magic is centralized around the sovereign, so he does not need a large empire to do research or improve his skill. He can do that by himself. This implies that there must be no building or resources that will be necessary to have