Tridus

No, the actual battle calc was working correctly, in theory. What he meant was the tooltip that showed you before combat what your odds were. In some cases it was completely out of sync with what your odds *actually* were, which makes it worse then useless. That was actually possible in GC2, if the fight happened to go such that the ships rolled high and burned your ships defenses. 0 means they didn't do damage, but the defenses had a limit before being ovewhelmed (either turn or comb

PBEM - not sure yet. If your plan is to play one turn a day, PBEM is a much better method then direct online play, yeah. You do your turn when you feel like it, and the other person does theirs when they feel like it. It leads to very long games (real life time wise) and not a lot of people tend to use it, but for the people that do there's really no way to recreate what it does without it.

[quote who="Tyrrell" reply="9" id="2259980"]So what I'm looking to do is just be able to log in for a few minutes, give my instructions and save the game. If my buddy Pat hads already done his turn then the game would move to the next turn and I could fo that turn as well, if not, then I'd need to wait until Pat logged in ad updaed to go forward. [/quote] So effecctively, play by email (PBEM).

He keeps bringing Brad. I'm looking forward to when Brad shoves a ban stick up his ass.

[quote who="Luckmann" reply="18" id="2259121"]Quoting Tridus, reply 17[...] [...]Not that I entirely agree with the sentiment that AoW wizards were meant to sit in the capital, but I do hope that it'll be a possibility for those of us that intend to primarily go the 'builder'-type, spending essence on the nation rather than 'going Sauron'.[/quote] Given how fragile they were, you really couldn't do much else with them past the very early game. Once tier 3 units started showing up

Well first of all, the wizard dying in AoW 2 was game over, because the only way to actually kill a wizard was to kill them and control every one of their towers. So you've already taken all their good cities. If you kill a wizard and they still control a tower, the wizard just reappears there next turn. Second of all, the AoW wizards were meant to sit in the capital lobbing spells at a distance, not to get into combat. Far as we know the channeler will be a much stronger beast in com

[quote who="Luckmann" reply="14" id="2258228"]I would actually say that it's more the avid/hardcore TBS players that don't want tactical combat. Are there any other kind?[/quote] The last time I heard someone use an argument like that, it went along the lines of nobody would buy a Wii because only hardcore types played video games. The time before that, it was people saying that no MMORPG would ever be bigger then Everquest, because only hardcore gamers would play that type of game.</

[quote who="Paradoxnt" reply="20" id="2258618"]Is to me an anyone else who wants the ultimate challenge out of their wargames. Anything less is just carebear play style. [/quote] It seems you made a wrong turn somewhere. The forums you're looking for where other people share your l33t epeen mentality are over here. (Days like this we need a negative karma button.)

Frogboy's post with June 25 came after the Demigod stuff was over . So while it's possible it could be delayed again, it shouldn't be due to that.

For research, what might be better is simply having techs get easier to research as more people have them. That's more in line with how things actually work (its easier to "invent" crossbows when four other empires already have them), and doesn't completely devalue growing your empire like #4 does. I really dislike that sort of idea, if I've got 3x more researchers and spend 3x more resources on research, why would I be exactly the same as some guy with one city? Hell, given that the

I don`t really see why not, as long as you`re both on at the same time. The multiplayer stuff hasn`t really been detailed yet though, except that it exists.

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="9" id="2256360"] Auto-resolve questions aside, I think it might be a good idea to limit essence-using spells to the main map and have only mana used in tactical combat. (Of course that would be a moot point if essence use is limited entirely to imbueing places, people, and things--an idea I like even better.) [/quote] Well, if the only thing essence is used for is imbues, doesn't that kind of remove the idea of a strong combat channeler woh kee

This is just one of the problems with auto-resolve. If it loses a fight it could have won because it won't use your spells, people will complain. If it wins a fight by using spells, people will complain. If it wins a fight by using essence, people will really complain (probably with some justification in that case).

[quote who="Denryu" reply="1" id="2256157"]Another thing to consider - in MoM the channeler could often cast powerful and decisive spells during Tactical Combat, whether he was physically present or not. How can you not have at least a tactical option in a game like this - I assume auto resolve is going to remove the capability of the channeler to cast during combat, or if not how would a channeler cast spells during an autoresolve battle? [/quote] Presumably the AI channelers w

[quote who="Denryu" reply="9" id="2255204"]Back to the tactical vs strategic discussion... I have been thinking about it, and I think that auto resolve that does nothing but number crunching is lame. Units should have a default behavior. I would love if you could give each unit within an army specific instructions like "protect unit y" or "advance until you are in range then fire volley at nearest enemy", etc. The capability to "program" your units to fight effectively w

[quote who="Campaigner" reply="20" id="2254463"] Do many of you guys like Civilization and GalCiv and want the game to take like 100 hours..? [/quote] Yes. That's what the big map settings are for.

[quote who="Luckmann" reply="12" id="2254674"] Grand strategy is about more than whatever military units you have at your disposal at any given time. What you're describing is true for any game. It seems that you consider the loss of a single combat unit in a game like Civilization 4 the same as loosing an entire army on a tactical battlefield in a hypotethical E:WoM.[/quote] No its not true for any game. What he said is that in auto-resolve, the superior force will pretty well a

[quote who="Luckmann" reply="6" id="2254397"] My losses is invariably higher in auto-resolve compared to that of tactical combat. I'd shudder to think what would happen if I'd auto-resolve against an opponent that takes tactical control (if at all possible). This inherent flaw is made even worse by the fact that the AI will not only be sub-par compared to myself, but never be able to know what I prioritize (i.e. if need be, sacrifice all my peasants just to keep a single bear knight aliv

[quote who="psychoak" reply="13" id="2253270"] Gay influence mechanics. [/quote] Really? I didn't realize that influence mechanics favored other mechanics of the same gender. (sorry, pet peeve) Borders extending outward as a town grows makes sense in this case, because the world was just shattered in a cataclysm. An effective border is going to be the area you can exert influence over, and larger populations create more areas

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="2" id="2252690"]I would hold off on considering essence levels until we knew more about if and how it will come back. [/quote] Agreed. We don't really know what it does, how it works, how you get more, if it regenerates, or just how much of an impact using it has.

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="21" id="2252754"] That's why I've become interested in the idea of champions as alternate 'production points' for things like research. Especially for something like magic, there's all manner of precedents for great minds working with few or no material supports like libraries. A champion researcher posted to a mages' guild would boost their output, but she should still have a basic output of her even if you just let her hang in a cave and meditate for a se

[quote who="lordkosc" reply="18" id="2252083"]I wish the surveys were a 1/2 as long, I find my attention span not wanting me to complete them... [/quote] The last one was less then five minutes long. You might want to work on that poblem.

Well... how does spell research work? Can the channeler wear equipment like normal units? If you need libraries to research spells and to create some gear for yourself, the "uber channeler" won't be uber for very long compared to a city builder. That's all but impossible to balance properly. So, by the end of the process I don't expect it. You're going to need some cities. The question becomes do you imbue some really powerful generals with your essence, or act as your o

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="20" id="2250924"]Can't make undeaders out of thin air though, so a whole mess of people have to die first! [/quote] I prefer to think of it as "early retirement". [e digicons]:borg:[/e]

[quote who="aLap" reply="16" id="2250869"] This kind of bothers me. Life is full of shades of gray, different philosophies, all sorts of points of view, with paths dependent on the choices we make. Gal Civ is an interesting example of a way to let players choose which side they want to take based on game interaction. A clear-cut Good or Evil dulls game immersion IMO. I'd say that no player-chosen faction (at least)&nbsp