pigeonpigeon

Yeah we understand that the beta wasn't delayed because of features of the actual economic system, but because the UI hasn't been made to include relevant economic information.. And of course releasing an "economy" beta with a UI that doesn't really tell us what's going on wouldn't be very helpful for you and would be needlessly frustrating for us! However, the discussion that started up here is just a tangent... We haven't seen the economy model that's currently in the game, but you

[quote]But why not change the info card behavior, so that it stays on the screen when ou "select" something? [/quote] Because that would be exceedingly annoying? The point of infocards is to provide you with information about things without having to drop what you're doing now and select them. They are not meant to provide information about what you currently have selected, because that will (or should be) displayed elsewhere on the GUI (currently it's usually displayed in the bottom

I think Stardock did mention at some point that since your population is drawn primarily from people coming out of the wilds into your cities, spamming lots of cities next to each other would limit their expansion potential. You might end up with a bunch of smallish cities, but your achievable population might not be much more than a player covering equally as much land with fewer cities. It doesn't appear that such a mechanic is in-game yet, but I would love to see them follow through on tha

[quote]Zigzag was being ironic; none of those really had morale such that you could win a battle by routing the opponents. The only games I've played with prominent battlefield morale are Dominions, Europa Universalis, X-COM, Jagged Alliance 2, Lords of the Realm, and the Total War series. Most games don't bother because it can annoy the player. HoMM has something called morale, but it has nothing to do with battle odds and units fleeing and thus is a different concept.&nbsp

[quote]Perhaps in games where the world has become developed and connected, there will be cities in central locations where players might often buy and offer for sale the special items they have created and found (as discussed in another thread). Using the same system that offers to sell special items, a player might also offer commodities they want to sell. Send your carts of excess wood, stone and iron to the market in Minas Tirith and offer it for sale at a price you want.&nbsp

[quote]I personally am disappointed in that direction. 1 man's opinion. If you got no wood, spending an extra 15 turns building a wood building with wood you don't have is, um, well, there isn't a nice way to put it. Now applying a gold cost for getting the materials and some additional time for acquiring it rather than having it from your own sources - that seems like it would be equally easy for the lightweights to deal with and would seem a lot more "real" which I think it importan

Yes, you should definitely go for the job Cephalo! Your work on the Civ IV map generator is amazing, I would love to see some of that talent make it's way into Elemental :P

[quote]Max starting races is 32. Yep the total # of stardock build civs in elemental is 24 total 12 human and 12 fallen... which leaves 6 for you to create.... or 32 customs races, your choice.[/quote] :O My version only has 6 human and 6 fallen, which is what they told us it would be all along. Do you have some super-secret version?! Or are you just confused :P

[quote]Well beta started and lo and behold, I got charged again, they didn't use the first charge which still remains. So now I'm stuck with that for a month or two, oh well..[/quote] Then your bank is pretty stupid.

[quote]However, I notice in SS #2 above, that there are both red and yellow rooftops in one asset - so that leads to the question - is roof color going to denote faction?[/quote] Interesting point... Although I for one would not want technicolor straw-rooftops... :P

[quote]But everyone seems to be forgetting that the game will be highly modable, you could make and edit the tech tree as you see fit[/quote] AAAAAGH. WHY must people insist on this horrendously flawed argument?! "It doesn't matter what Stardock does! They could make a crappy, worthless game. But you can mod it! So you can make it better yourself!" It's utter garbage. The game should be good and extremely enjoyable to the vast majority of people who like this kind of game. The

[quote]That is, of course, assuming that they know you're there....... it drove me NUTS that those borders worked through FOW........ and that they made war, trade, and exploration miserable..... you want to lock down your borders? Do what us mortals do and actually defend them![/quote] Was there FOW within your own cultural border? For some reason I remember anything within your border was always visible... But I agr

[quote]I am not trying to be rude, but I would have to disagree. Most researchers head out with a goal in mind, and a general understanding of what will be involved. Consider the atom bomb, the researchers wanted to make an atom bomb and that is what they got. Consider a lightbulb, though Thomas Edison didn't know all the components, he knew most of them and in the end he got a lightbulb and not a fusion reactor. Consider cancer research today, I would be really surprised if a scientist excla

[quote]Even the victors should have their weapons and armor degrade in that case - with possibly having magic equipment degrade more slowly if at all. Magic weapons, however, can degrade in that (for example) a +5 weapon eventually becomes a +0 weapon and then degrades normally until it rusts and falls apart. If the weapon is wielded by someone who can also wield magic (or is maintained by a "magical smithy") the rate of decrease would be considerably to totally slowed. It w

[quote]BUt there is only one Today and that is the one you live... constantly.[/quote] But today will be yesterday tomorrow. Does that mean we all live in the past?

[quote]Razing a city should have some negative impact in the kind of game I've seen described here. With all the talk of gifting and blood relations, I can't see how razing a city would leave no impression on your allies or enemies. Razing a city is some pretty serious stuff; killing or making homeless an entire city's worth of non-combatants. It's not going to make a favorable impression I think.[/quote] Razing cities (or at least towns and villages) was common practice in ancient an

[quote]That's why I hope this pre-charge is what they actually use to charge me when the beta starts considering I have like ten bucks left in my bank account so another charge of $49.95 is out of question for the next few weeks [e digicons]:)[/e] [/quote] Yes, if they maintain that hold on your money, then when the charge actually goes through they'll just use that. That's sort of the point of putting a hold on it in the first place. Alternatively, you could contact sale

[quote]I was going to suggest something similar. Basically, make the dungeons rich in Shards. The reason that they are usually infested with monsters is due to magical radiation. Supreme Kudos if you can make the monsters and dungeons reflect the shards they hold.[/quote] I'm not sure if that would really jive with their current implementation of shards (although I'm just guessing at that, all I really have to go on are the screenshots). Shards appear to be immovable

[quote]But, if you have 32 races, and then say 10 minor races, 20-25 cities is obviously too small. Assuming that you spread out some before going to war, and establish, say, four cities, then at four a piece you have 128 cities, just for the main races. Plus say another five or six for the minor races. Let's just say 135 for ease of computations. So, if you're a huge sprawling empire by turn 500, and have crushed a few players, you probably have say, 40 cities, pretty easily. I don't

[quote]Yes the sum of $49.95 still remains "pre-charged" but either way, I'm not able to use that money because it has been deducted from my bank account even if it still remains pre-charged. I don't know if banks elsewhere do it some other way, but here pre-charged means the money is out of your use, no longer in your bank account and no longer usable by you.[/quote] Yeah, like Ron said we don't know how your bank works - but many times banks will put a temporary hold on the sum that

[quote]Nevermind then. I obviously need to reread the Silmarilian (I hate trying to spell that[e digicons]:P[/e] )[/quote] It's spelled 'Silmarillion' :P

[quote]But the effort required to gather full information makes it different than a pure mana for results scheme. It does put the defender at a huge disadvantage against an opponent they're unaware of, but I don't feel that to be a bad thing. If a channeller gets to the point of being able to cast a devestating spell against your forces, and you're unaware of it, then you probably deserve the results of a sneak attack! They're usually more damaging in D&D for a reason.[/quote] I'm

[quote]Doriath is already on the list Right now I'm leaning towards having Doriath being playable. If I remember correctly, they did send out an army once. I might be remembering this wrong (so tell me if I am) but I'm pretty sure they sent out a force to help the Noldor in their "final" assualt on Morgorth. When they all amassed their forces for a massive assualt on Morgorth, and even Gondolin se

[quote]It would require knowledge of your opponent and their tendencies to properly counteract their abilities in such a case. It'd be far more dangerous to try and counter an unknown in this case, giving increased credibility to something I saw elsewhere - questions about spies/scouts, and therefore intelligence.[/quote] Well, if you have full information about your opponent then the result would be exactly what you don't want - spending essence (although I imagine it would require m

[quote]A real time battle system would just not fit this game.[/quote] You said that so matter-of-factly that I almost agreed with you for a moment! [e digicons]o_O[/e] I think TW-style tactical combat (with actual pathfinding, though) would be amazing in this game. I get such a visceral feeling even thinking about watching my enemy's hordes slamming into my godlike channeler and the light show and human rain that would follow :P Or that "Oh shit o