Scoutdog

[quote]When you say espionage victory, I'm envisioning some kind of "you stole the KFC recipe you win" type of deal. What exactly do you mean when you say espionage victory? [/quote]Well, the idea was to become sort of the "shadow government of Middle Earth", where all leaders are under your control, vassals as you put it. If the condition was disabled, you would have to do something with all those vassals, and you could still do that if there was a "continue playing" button a la Civ

I imagine a lot of the "tapping into" will involve name generation: the "Dreadwood" in those cloth map screenshots had to come from somewhere!

[quote]Spies in Elemental should be specialized heroes (and perhaps further specialized within the umbrella of "spy") infused with essence, to give the player the option of employing spies at a significant cost to his empire.[/quote]While you should be able to infuse spies with essance and make them heroes, it should not be required for two main reasons: From the programming perspective, heores don't enter enemy cities, they don't move around within the cities

Banned because I live in the suburbs on Earth (although the two are more alike than you'd think).

Well, I'm assuming that like GC2 the story will be mentioned a few times in various descriptions and things, but I can't see it actually influencing conditions in the sandbox mode.

[quote]I personally don't know who stands to gain from the propegation of the idea of there being a "2012" other than the movie makers but i do know this change Obama speaks of is not the change we all believe it is.[/quote]Ooooooh boooyyyy..... these people again....... Don't you think that if Obama actually was trying to institute a dictatorship or kill everyone over the age of 65 or whatever, he would be doing a bit of a better job of it? So far, he's attempted to institut

[quote]For example, you have two neighbours which are both friendly with you. You ask both neighbours to improve relations with each other in exchange for a trade agreement with you. Or neighbour one has to accept a passage agreement with neighbour two and in exchange neighbour two declares war on an enemy he can only reach through the land of the first neighbour... Don't know how easy something like this would be to implement off course... I guess that would be a problem for Stardock... [/qu

[quote]Well, like I said, I think that diplomacy should be important but it shouldn't detract from the games inherent "epicness".[/quote]Since when has diplomace detracted from epicality? Name one game that was made less epic in scope by its diplomacy system. [quote]You could go through all that to conquer france, or you could utilize those knight spots for merchants, trade with the larger states, build a huge army, and just conquer france.[/quote]Where's the fun in that? Besides, it

Banned for looking like my next-door neighbor.

As always. Face-to-face contact is overrated, anyways.

[quote]I would agree wioth aesir, new, orginal doesnt mean good ...[/quote]It doesn't mean bad, either. Too many people dislike mechainc ideas simply because they have not been done before.

I just realized: One of the screenshots displays a spell called "bridge building":

Banned for being istist.

[quote]bottom line : Searching for a particular tech seems quite unnatural for me... [/quote]Well, yes, seaching for a particular technology is a bit of a leap, but searching for a specific improvement to a technology makes perfect sense: Instead of saying "researchers, develop advanced oxehorn(sp?) bows", you would say "researchers, develop a bow that shoots # times further", and they would eventually come up with just that.

Actually, it had much more to do with the fact that the Europeans were largely immune to Smallpox, but the natives weren't. The disease killed something like 90% of the Noth American natives.... you(general "you") should read Guns, Germs, And Steel by Jared Diamond..... FASCINATING explanation of the colonial system.

Banned for being pagist.

Bad idea: Eating dinner with your girlfriend...... and your wife.

[quote]Scoutdog, I suspect you have an exaggerated idea of how difficult it will be to accrue a respectable 'stable' of champions while also controlling a decent chunk of territory.[/quote]Well, I'm just going off of what we know about essence mechanics: that a champion requires essence to make, a lot of essence to make good, and that that essence is a permanent investment that can never be recovered. As for number 2, a champion is essentially a powerful field unit that behaves as</st

[quote]It would do away with any need for a Spymaster's Desk sort of UI[/quote]Now there's the problem. I want a Spymaster's Desk UI, becuase I want espionage to be a method of winning the game. A champion-based system would Make it harder for players who don't "go Gandalf" to engage in espionage, and Make it just an extension of military victory, as opposed to its own strategy.

I remember the first time I got ahold of one of those books..... I tried to read it cover-to-cover [e digicons]:P[/e] .......

Well, I would rather not see "epic" sounding music on the ambient map. In the tactical battles, maybe, but the regular soundtrack shoud be more subdued.

Banned. For. Not. Using. Periods.

[quote]Coming from a 15 year old who spends the better part of his time on an obscure internet forum...[/quote]Well, I only spend around 5% of my time here.... but you're right: I don't exactly have a social life.

[quote]Spies should be heroes, that's a given.[/quote] While I like the idea of rare spies and specialist spies, the idea of all spies having to be heroes is a bit restrictive, considering that in Elemental heroes will be people in which you have invested essence in, and thus increadibly hard to get, especially for a city-building player.

I agree that it should definately work in reverse, otherwise the rabble/elite balance goes out the window. Perhaps with too many well-trained soldiers, there is risk of insubordination?