pigeonpigeon

This sounds amazing! The marriage alliances and dynasties in general sound great... Economy and diplomacy are two facets of this game that I'm really interested, and I'm really hoping that Stardock takes both much farther than any similar type game has. I'm really excited that alliances will not end up being temporary friendships of convenience, but relationships built up over and time and with substance. If Elemental manages to capture some of the spirit of A Song of Ice and Fire's diplomati

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="44" id="2332716"] Lying isn't wise when there's written proof on the very same page.... Here is the exact quote from the first time I mentioned the Rakshasa: There was no lying... as referencing your response to my comment on reply# 35: NTJedi Writes: 3) New fantasy creatures require genuine creativity from the developer... which is good, but naturally a little more difficult than creating a fantasy creature from his

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="42" id="2332325"]Unicorns/Vampires/Popular types wouldn't get just a couple of sentences, that's an incorrect assumption with no foundation. Obviously new creatures require more detail and description because players never heard of a "Chakaloomz" as compared with a "Vampire". [/quote] You're sort of contradicting yourself. If you didn't catch it, I was exaggerating (or.. I guess the opposite of exaggerating) when I said "a few sentences." I simply want

[quote who="Tiefling" reply="48" id="2332302"] I am wondering about this having to build on fertile land thing... Although I understand that this makes sense within the story of the game, it seems like a fairly arbitrary limitation. It sounds like the game is basically forcing me to build cities in rare, pre-determined locations. Is this the way it is supposed to be? [/quote] No, because your sovereign can turn wasteland into fertile land -

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="54" id="2323981"] Actually the extra variables of magic, diplomacy, structures, items, etc., etc., etc., from the game Elemental allows larger maps to provide more strategic options at a much larger rate as compared with a chessboard from chess.[/quote] I give up arguing with you about this, because you misunderstand most of what I say, ignore most of the rest, and misconstrue the remainder as something I never said at all. [quote who="NTJedi" r

[quote who="ChongLi" reply="193" id="2323901"]To me, if you are commanding 1000 men with one click of the mouse, it really is no different than 8 men. It's just a graphical abstraction.[/quote] But it isn't necessarily just a graphical abstraction. I could train a single 'unit' of 500 swordsmen, and you could train a unit of 100 identical swordsmen. They'd both be units of swordsmen, but they wouldn't be equal... Therefore, 'units' consisting of multitudes of individuals is not</e

This could be really cool, although I suspect it would take a lot of tweaking to get it working right (but then, so do most of the features that are worth being included). And like Psychoak said, it'd be hard to wean even this idea off of the RNG.

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="2" id="2331331"]I'm hoping to see a variety of terrain features by the final release. So far, the primitive maps we've seen generated in things like boogiebac's ascii videos don't seem to have any real sign of elevation (other than perhaps signs of beaches) but I hope that by the finished version we will see such things.[/quote] That screenshot in one of the FAQs has a giant hill with a city in the background. I presume that the hill is pas

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="12" id="2328375"]Obviously not everything, but obviously since most games don't offer 70+ players like Dominions_3 it's not a big assumption when Elemental doesn't match this number.[/quote] Except that the magic system is intended to be, from what I can gather, the crowning jewel of the game; and so expecting it to depart from the norm is, well, sensible.

[quote who="Aesir Rising" reply="37" id="2328305"] If I don't have a point of common reference and experience to draw from, it becomes too alien for me. This in fact is why I didn't enjoy Planescape: Torment as much as other people did. I just didn't like the setting. Yet many people consider it to be the pinnacle of the Infinity games.[/quote] But are you saying you don't like settings that you aren't familiar with in general? It doesn't seem like it. It seems

[quote] What I've implied is the developers don't need to spend time writing a more detailed description and history for customers to learn the unit. That's significantly different than what you've read as being, "The customers don't need to spend the time reading to learn the unit." The point here is time developers are spending. [/quote] But they do . If Stardock skimps on the unit descriptions and histories o

[quote]I provided special abilities of what could naturally exist on units. When I begin creating units I'd like to see these available. Even Black Dawn listed Possess / Infect which can be a natural ability for specific units... best portrayed from the movie "The Hidden" which had no ma

[quote]Well, if you happen to come up with anything functional that isn't batshit insane, or really really boring, let me know. I can't.[/quote] What he said. So far, no one anywhere has proposed a functional espionage system (that incorporates more than just plain old spying) that wouldn't be a micromanagement nightmare, a money/resource sink (throw money at it and your problems will go away), or a combination of the two.

[quote]It's not a big assumption since the majority of TBS games have many instant spells with no counter option. [/quote] By that logic, we should assume that everything about Elemental will be just like most other TBS games and that it will not depart from the norm. ;) Anyways, looks like we agree on what's important, so I'll leave it at that :P

[quote who="Razgon" reply="7" id="2327259"]One way to do it, would be to set up your mage against the opponents mage, and select "Countermagic" for instance, rendering the other mage countered - the one with the higher power level or however it will turn out to be, will be able to counter the other[/quote] What I really want to see is a non-binary counterspell system. Binary counterspelling has some significant problems - either it always works or never works, depending on the strengt

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="5" id="2327077"] Mages canceling spells from other mages would be quiet difficult... except for battlefield curses/blessings. Most battlefield spells are instant such as fireball, lightning bolt, acid spray, etc., which cannot be countered.[/quote] This a big assumption there, Jedi. Personally I would love for 'instant' spells such as fireball and lightning bolt to be counter-able. They are so in pretty much every book that has magic - it's a bit

[quote who="piderman" reply="13" id="2326649"]I don't understand this line, what does "closed" mean? Not able to play, no new people? I didn't get into the alpha, but I do have the game preordered, so I should be able to beta test come september until the game is released?[/quote] Based on Stardock's previous beta tests, my guess is that it means there will be a short window after beta 1 goes live for people to order the game and still get into it; preorders that come in after that wi

An evolving world with little tidbits of information like rumor, people's opinions, descriptions and that kind of stuff would be great. Much of it wouldn't be functional, but it would definitely make the world feel more alive. Things that do change the actual world would be great, too - huge battles, particularly where lots of magic was used, could gain some sort of importance. How such an area might change as a result of such a battle might depend on the nature of the battle, who won and los

[quote]If the spy system is well done, based on training your spies in various abilities/skills (just like you train a warrior), there is not much difference when it comes to "luck" and "bad luck" compared with the usual combat system. For a fighting unit you train it and it goes out in the fog on the map, meets another unit and dies are rolled ... One is killed and one survives (much depending on your earlier military investments). [/quote] No, that's completely false. Yes, ultimatel

I'm all for an awesome spy mechanic. Being able to send someone in to another kingdom and gather information about it would be wonderful. What I am opposed to, unless Stardock comes up with something truly revolutionary that makes all the things I hate about subterfuge in TBS games go away, is actual subterfuge, sabotage, assassination. Sure, doing those things against the enemy can be fun... Except it's usually like hitting the slot machines. You succeed or you do

[quote who="Tourresh" reply="12" id="2324184"]The only penalty for failing a quest I support is the loss of any time or resources you already put into them. It wouldn't really make any sense for someone to be punishing you, the Lord of the Land. The example I provided kind of has built in punishment, but no more than any random event. Any negative aspects like that would have to be looked at very carefully.[/quote] Oh? Well or one there are the types of quests that could be

[quote]Since an important goal for this game seems to be community added content, I think the game will grow at a much faster pace after release then before. Take the time you need to get the core features working well, and the let the players fill in what content they want.[/quote] Stardock should not assume that the community will make Elemental the game it should be through mods. I, for one, am paying for Elemental - the content and tools created by Stardock - not ran

Oh, one thing I'd like about quests: one thing I hated about the quests in SoaSE is that they were often unreasonable or just entirely undesirable. But if you didn't do it anyway, you were penalized. I'd much rather have the option to accept quests - if you do not accept the quest then it just goes away. If you do accept a quest, then I would accept a penalty for failing, if appropriate . I might not mind the occasional quest forcing itself upon you, but in gene

[quote who="heretic613" reply="8" id="2323736"]Damn, that sucks. So if I want to create a new troll or something I have to take an entire class of Maya or some other **** like that? It's not like I plan on releasing it to the public or something.[/quote] Creating graphics for new units is always the most challenging part... I'd extremely surprised if Stardock develops a spore-like creature creation tool; it would require an immense amount of time, effort and money... Not to mention, t

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="24" id="2323608"] Of course Chess provides significantly less options than Elemental, but for you I always have to use the most basic comparisons available. These are both TBS games and the main differences is one has only two players, fixed amount of units, no diplomacy, no magic, no structures, etc., etc., which are all extra variables which reduce strategic options... however the point is the size of the chessboard clearly reduces or i