brycex99

I'll also throw a recommendation out there for GalCiv2, it's a pretty incredible game with a lot of different possibilities for victory which make it fun for me. I love replayability, but more importantly, I like having a solid reason to replay other than "I just want to try and win a different way". Each victory condition is equally valid and difficult to accomplish with the right map and AI settings. Unlike Civ IV which was always, either win using military, or use my military t

Domicron, You're just linking me to the 1 mostly negative review I've found myself. That doesn't mean it's "right" but that it just conforms to your opinion of Civ 5, so I'm not quite sold on the hate yet. It isn't just in reviews that I've heard good things about it either, but actual players that have enjoyed the game. I'm not one of those guys that just trolls Metacritic and buys any game that is 90 and up, I generally like to get a variety of opinions before purchasing a g

Okay, this is kinda confusing to me... Civ 5 has been out for awhile now right? Thing is, I've only heard good things about it. Where is all this Civ 5 hate coming from? I actually haven't played the game myself so I have no way to judge, but is it just a few people that loved Civ 4, so no matter how Civ 5 played it was going to be bashed by these people? Or was it one of those.. 2 months later people suddenly realized they actually DON'T like it? It doesn't make

Yeah, Rebelito kinda grossed me out with that post. Oh, almost forgot, welcome to the team Jon :)

I think spell cost balance will remove a lot of these issues. It might be easier to cast Arcane Arrow 7 times in one battle and not risk getting hit or losing a unit, but if the spell cost is correctly balanced, using it 7 times in one battle should cripple your mana pool in the early game.

I really love the idea behind being able to manipulate the land too, and I've used it a few times on different maps to gain access to resources that the AI intelligently (or randomly) blocked me from, but I felt a little guilty using it. I agree though, this could be solved with some balancing of the mana cost or even a timer on the spell to make it not usable as often. For me it was kinda like having a cheat book while playing Myst... you could sit there, figure out the riddle/pu

I know the number itself will be in red if you're in the negatives, but the only resource that is ever in the red is Gildar in the early game. You'll only ever be gaining Metal, Tools, Mana, Crystal and Diplomatic currency.

Kenata, My big issue with it, is that it takes out any strategic element to using cities as choke points. The terraform spells are cheap enough in mana that you can just create your own land path to get around any obstacle to avoid a fight, or get a jump on a resource, whatever the case may be. Ultimately, if the AI used it themselves, I wouldn't have a problem with it, or if I was playing against another human player. But I see it as a huge advantage that we get aga

I agree with you on this, it should just be available from the get go. Unless there were some game breaking things you could do in the early game with creating and razing settlements? I can't think of anything though.

Yeah, you can Raze a settlement by opening up it's info card after researching Fortifications in the Training line of Warfare for Kingdoms or Warrior Castes in the Garrisons line for Empires. A new option appears "Raze Settlement" and it tears it down. Definitely nice for some of the more useless AI settlement placements.

A fortress / outpost type of building would be amazing! This would allow the AI or player to create choke points without having to build up a new settlement and go through all of the effort of making it "right". Not only that, but it would increase the challenge when playing against the AI, because we would have to go through maybe a couple of fortresses / outposts before getting to the main settlement. Maybe you could even treat them as "mini-settlements" and have levels to

I had the same happen to me, the Build button is gray, but I can still click it. Mine didn't end up Completing it's build cycle though and became unused the next turn. I wasn't paying enough attention when I clicked on the button to see if it used resources up.

If that happens to me, usually it's some kind of stuck unit... another way to try and find the "offending" unit is by hitting Tab to cycle through idle units with moves, then just hit the Space Bar to pass their turn. Once you've found the unit, just make sure you tab to it every turn and Pass it's turn or move it. When it happens to me, it always ends up being the same unit every turn.

Yeah, it's definitely annoying, especially when half the time they look like tools in their default gear.

I would love the ability to invert the camera, I get confused as well at times. Especially when I'm zoomed in.

For my research priorities, these are the things I try to hit first and in this order: Warfare > Equipment - Level 1 Warfare Usually the first Tech I research because, like Nick said, it offers you some fairly powerful stuff for early game, and they're not too expensive and require no metal. It helps you create a small force to go about with your Channeler to pick up all the goodies around you without risk. Magic > Shard Harvesting - Leve

That begs the question, if all the spellbooks fall under research (which I think should be the case) what do we do with the rest of the Magic tech tree? It seems like we could really separate out a lot of it into the other tech trees and drop the Magic tech tree altogether. So, this is how I would see it: Shard Harvesting moves to the Spellbook; maybe give it a new name, then dump the Shard irmprovements and Temple into a Civilization spot. Arcane

Not sure if anyone has ever played the earlier Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, but I thought they did a good job of making diplomacy fairly fun, and I think the ideas they put forth could easily be improved upon. You could convince a General (in Elemental's case, a hero or someone in the dynasty) to rebel, attempt to take the throne for themselves or switch allegiances and create a pretty significant swing in power (they wouldn't even have to switch allegiance to y

I think if they added the "buy" option for build queues, they would need to reduce the amount of gildar available, or just greatly inflate the prices of rushing a build, because it's easy to get crazy amounts of gildar in the course of a game.

Naruto, in terms of research and tech, there are quite a few ways to bump up research to high levels. If you make the jump to libraries (6 or 7 in Civ tech), you effectively double your research output (give or take a little bit) and tech starts flying from that point forward. Also, make sure you're using Schools effectively, and put them in settlements that have a high amount of studies or libraries in them. I've been able to pretty much research a new Tech every 3 - 5 turns (except fo

Yeah, it's right around 25 years old, I checked because it seemed like my son wasn't "of age" yet and he was 23 and still a "baby". It seems like it would be nice to be a little more involved in how that child is brought up, either as a warrior, some sort of diplomat, an administrator or a caster. It's not necessarily a deal breaker to have the son or daughter just spawn with stats, but it seems like it would be nice to sort of direct in some way how those stats will play out.

I agree that there should be some indication that the group is doing (individual unit) x group size rather than just the base attack. It is definitely misleading. Also, ships in general are acting weird for me, and I can't seem to delete the unit either. It gives me the message to confirm, click yes, and the ship is still there, it's a bit wonky for sure.

Yeah, I don't think you can legitimately be mad that 8 peasants can't hurt a dragon :) Time to design some new units with actual weapons.

I've liked that randomness and rarity of the resources to be honest... it adds a nice level of replayability for me and makes each map unique. On top of that, the whole "end of the world" thing that happened in the game's history lends a lot of credibility to a lack of resources. I'm not sure I would want tons of resources all the time anyway, as it would make the game far easier to just coast through every time. I enjoy the back and forth nature of warring for resources, an

It's true, some companies do that from time to time, but more often than not these days, companies are licensing engines and building upon a pre-existing foundation. Very few companies create engines from the ground up while developing a new IP, but for an independent developer, it's even less common. I would still say the scope of the project would be considered "ambitious" because of the various things they're trying to accomplish within one product. Agree to disagree.