Scoutdog

[quote]I wonder if we'll even have a full list in the 1st round of beta. (probebly I guess)[/quote]Probably not. New spells are one way to balance imbalanced things, and the devs would probably like to add in some new content as things go on....

Well, in realtiy the spy would probably desert, and considering their stealth skills they could probably get back with little trouble..... probably wouldn't affect the unit much, so yeah, ignoring the spy would probably be the best option...... although a few feautres like "backstab", "begin rout", and so on might be fun.

Well, I think this would be a great idea, except for one thing: there will be no integrated creature designer, so the enhancements couldn't be graphical (except for whole models pre-created by SD or a modder with the appropriate hardware software). EDIT: a little bit of a difference.

[quote]Would also be cool if you could spread rumors either with spies or something. [/quote] Posit it here .

[quote]My wonder is "is it good or evil that holds the power of resurection?"[/quote] Hopefully both. I made a post about that a while back, where I said that Death undead would be primarily offensive while Life undead would be primerily defensive, but now I'm beginning to lean towards it being the other way around....

[quote]Obviously anybody who says anything in this thread is concealing that they're in the alpha.[/quote] HI!!!!!!!!!!!!

Banned because the first time I played Zelda I thought Link was female. True story.

Now, this join army thing is interesting... what if the spy went into battle against you or your allies? Sooooooo many possibilities....... One thing I thought of is since people are a resource acquired largely through immigration, you could have spies be special population units that the victem cannot easily see as spies.... you could have an enemy city where all the people are spies for you! (I think I saw an episode of "Mission Impossible" like that once....)

ERK!!!!!! Guess I'm gonna have to be stuck 'till PAX... andf the worst part is, the beta will probably come out at the second most homework-intneisve time of year for me! (Late January is the first)

Ok, so minors definately can't sign the NDA, right? (Please say I'm wrong).

Oh, yes: an evolving map. TRhe only reason not to put that in is because of the dev time, but it wouldn't take that much , and if they tried to pull a "no time" I would see it as an excuse or lack of imagination.

[quote]Instead, I finish researching long bows level 5 (my choice), and suddenly have an option for 25% range increase on long bows that is totally random. It doesn't sub the range increase in for what I already got. It just gives me an extra little side tech out of the blue that I could chose to research.[/quote]Well, considering that it's the bonus that you actually want , it actually makes no difference whether the randomness is in the appearance of the tech or the

Well, if we were to make spying optional, which it would pretty much have to be), there's no reason not to make sabotage optional (seperately) as well....... I'm currently trying to think of a non-dice-roll system...... Perhaps something could be done with the people-as-a-resource idea..... all depends on how you control your population, and how much....

[quote]Secondly, I cannot think of a single game that attempted to alter anything based on the qualities of your starting location. It would be a nightmare to code for sure.[/quote]Well, I have not seen one either, but just generally getting an AI of any kind, game-playing or game-making, to value things that don't have a set number in them usually does not work all that well. [quote]And no, you don't wind up with a no strategey at all effect, you wind up with a fluid strategy effect

Where did you hear that there will be random spell research? We have heard NOTHING about spell research in any way, shape, or form. [quote]I would suspect there will be plenty of time to test the tech trees to the point where no one is going to get screwed by the random generator.[/quote]The fact is, once random elements become significant aspects of play people will be screwed by them. With mapgen it's not so bad, since you can usually detect a crappy setup within the first

Ture, but they are being jerks about it....

Banned for ebing a karma hooker.

[quote]Well, I'm not sure how the yes and no parts work out,[/quote]That was the original prioblem: there was no yes/no system. You essentiallty auto-accepted eveything the AI threw at you.....

Banned for having an absurdly long Phazon-colored tongue.

[quote]I am at a bit of a loss on the death mana being generated by the transition from Life to Death though. Does that make Death Magic a form of Vampirism? Kind of sounds like death magic drains life from living things to form mana.[/quote]Well, depending on the game's metaphysical "gospel", there are any number of ways you could get death magic: The act of something dying could generate mana (or something might have to specifically be killed by the chaneler to gen

Indeed. Randomness is a nice "spice", but when you put too much in, things get wacky, and the game becomes "irrational": little to no correlation between the player's intentions and the actions of his/her faction.

TOMATOES Banned for trying the oldest trick in the book.

Taken. How many people do you think constitutes a "good sampling"?

Banned for enforcing personhood.

[quote]It's a balance, having totally random tech would make stratergy in teching impossible, but having totally predicatble tech gets dull and is rather unrealistic.[/quote]Well, randomyl appearing techs on the tree are fun... you could still get nerfed with a bad tree, unless the devs put in a useful weighting system, but they most likely will.