pigeonpigeon

[quote] You're mixing real world realism with the realistic fantasy definition. In a realistic fantasy one all power demi-god can provide thousands of orders via telepathetic thought. In an unrealistic fantasy the gaming community would quickly protest on the forums how bunnies shouldn't be killing all the dragons during the first round of combat OR how their human population shouldn't be allowed to eat gold.[/quote] No I'm not. I understand the diffe

[quote]I see the current model as reducing variability. I assume that a large portion of life / death magic will be similar across factions. Perhaps not exact replicas but very similar which is a reasonable assumption. My goal with the two different models would be to allow the Channeler to pick what core element he wants. This I would hope affects your spell book noticeably. The way I see it right now everyone will get certain Death or Life spells with some unique ones thrown in. Always havi

[quote]I never said it was a standard catapult... it could be anything!! The words "standard catatpult" were never even used! Heck a CataSling could be a magic sling which receives bonuses in catacombs for all we know or it could be a magical portal weapon for mages used for slinging enemy units into the nearest catacombs. It's so hard maintaining a discussion when you jump to conclusions so haphazardly without any foundation.[/quote] Uhh,

[quote]Brad would consider creating that script fun.[/quote] Well yeah. If he could create a script capable of defeating the AI every time without fail, he'd have just created an even better AI! :P

[quote]Common, one of the very few negative points with elemental today (IMPOV but also genreally speaking when comparing with MOM and AoW) is that it is so narrow when it comes to races to play and apparently also when it comes to the creatures in the world. So this would definately be the number one choice for an expansion, if there is no major problem in the actual game design we still have to learn about ... Anyway, I definately want more races, and more magic is seldom wrong as long as i

That Independent Kingdoms thread is one of my favorites, especially after Johnny5446's post about Geoff the Slug. I'm definitely in support of that idea. Really I think the key point is that 'minor civilizations' (or Independent Kingdoms or whatever they might be called) should be significant powers. They could grow in power over time fast enough to remain significant throughout the game, or they could start out much more powerful than actual players and gain power slower (or not at a

[quote]I still can't decide which one is air and which is Earth! As soon as I settle on one of them, I noticwe some tiny feature of the other that swings the balence back again........ gurrently I think the green one is air, but the brown shard pic looks "airier"..... [/quote] I can help you there. Yellow is air. <a href="http://www.draginol.com/images/Ful

[quote]Man, I really miss the days when Games Domain was really By Gamers, For Gamers. Even the current wikipedia page doesn't make it clear that Age of Wonders eventually attempted to do sandbox maps. And even though I have no real idea what you really like in a TBS game, your preference for the map editor over the random map generator leaves me still thinking that no game since MoM has done that particular job well.[/quote] HoMM III had a pretty good random map generator, I think. I

[quote]If that is a no go then I'd take life/death shards. My last choice would be the current model where the Channeler is the life / death magic shard.[/quote] I actually quite like Channelers being the source of life/death magic. They could even have it that the ability to use life/death magic is what allows channelers to access the magical forces bound up in the shards. I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll say it again: I like asymmetry in games. Most games tend to

[quote]I think a better solution than just drawing in all armies within a tile would be to have any movement points not used by army add to it's interception range. Should an enemy come into range you would have an option to intercept them automatically. Any combat within the radius you could optionally join as well. This solves the problem of people trying to out click the other players during simultaneous turns, as well as the problem of not being able to stop other armies that keep moving

[quote]You make a good point Landi. Let me explain. MoM and AoW were successful because they had a huge diversity of races, spells and creatures. The developer posts here suggest that there will be a great engine, a great game, but a comparitively smaller number of spells, races and creatures.[/quote] It looks like the spells will be as varied as in MoM. The number of races will be much lower, but hopefully the 12 factions will be different enough so that that variety is still

[quote]Put somewhat more differently, if you (and that's a whoever "you," not pigeon, Scoutdog, or Tridus in particular) want to crit a post from someone, I prefer to see you dig into functional specifics and not just whine about MoM being used as an example.[/quote] For sure. But I think it should go both ways. Rather than saying, "This should be in the game, because it was a good feature in MoM" I'd much rather see people say, "This should be in the game, I liked it in MoM because o

[quote]That's exaclty what I am saying. I know very well that it has no bearing on gameplay, and I couldn't really care less if there were five thematic elements (aside from much-needed i-told-you-so ammo against GWSwicord). The people who for whatever reason demand five thematic elements always struck me as a bit obsessed.[/quote] Ok. I still don't agree (I think there are 5 thematic magic elements), but I don't care enough to argue with you on t

[quote]That's more than a few posts from landisaurus and more than a few sympathetic replies from other MoM lovers. And it's another good example of how "Elemental must be like MoM" talk is a red herring. landi is very involved in discussions about *lots* of ideas that MoM didn't (and couldn't have) included.[/quote] Not to disparage Landi or his contributions (after all, he's one of the biggest contributor to these forums), but I agree with Scoutdog and Tridus here. He has on many oc

[quote]Actually realistic is a good reason because the more unrealistic qualities the less gamers are drawn into the gameplay. The Elemental community would not accept swords being made of candy, dragons being afraid of mice and water mixed with fire creating mud. As I've also written in the developer journals this provides more strategies. It's funny how you try to disagree with me even when you agree with me. lol[/quote] Haha, well I agre

[quote]I'm also praying the limit is somewhere in the 20s. The option for more than 20 would be great as well. Perhaps gamers can specify any number they wish and the game can provide a warning that it's not supported, but still allow the gamer to continue. This feature would allow a high number of players to be tested and eventually made more stable and/or only available for those with powerful systems.[/quote] Yeah I think that's

[quote]That is misunderstanding what I wrote... let me provide you a more clear detail. My explanation regarding the popular fantasy creatures can be compared to a game using the popular weapons. While a game may create new types of weapons such as something called a CataSling... the gamer won't know whether it's a siege weapon; monster weapon; or race specific missile weapon. [/quote] No, that's a terrible analogy. If the devs were to make a unit or weapon that

I forgot about something... So now we know for sure that we'll be able to mix and match life/death magic with whatever faction we want - will we be able to mix/match revived terrain type with life/death magic, too? Because really, I'm one of those people that prefers lush environments over burned and decayed ones - even if just for aesthetic reasons. If playing with death magic means being forced to stare at a barren magma wasteland the whole game, I'm not going to play death magic. T

[quote]Smack me. I suppose it's all in interperetation..... I still feel that since it doesn't behave like the others, it shouldn't be classified with the others, but so what. As the game evolves, I will be able to make more accurate destinctions.[/quote] Really it comes down to this: the only real difference we know of between life/death magic and the other four elements is that there are no life/death shards. So if you don't consider life/death magic to be a magic element, then you

Thanks for the information - great clarification. And, does that mean all human factions but one use life magic while all fallen factions use death magic (just talking about the canon factions in the campaign)? If so, I applaud the asymmetry! A lot of game developers seem to be stuck in the mindset that they need to make factions/groups as similar or symmetric as possible while still making them seem different. The result is after you play the game for a week, you realiz

[quote]I realize there are many options to consider regarding the battles on the battlefield. The main recommendation I have regarding battles is allowing multiple players to all fight at the same time on the same battlefield. This feature is currently available within AgeofWonders:SM and is more realistic than each player taking turns to fight plus it's more fair gameplay. [/quote] Being realistic isn't a very good reason for it to be in the game, being fair is a pre

I'll be extremely sad if the number of AIs is limited to anything in the single-digits. I would love to play a massive 64-bit map with the same player density as you might find on a regular "huge" map. Empires here and there will dominate over regions, slowly swallowing up smaller ones, resulting in a final clash of the titans. Things like magic and master quest victories would mix this up a bit, of course, but still. Playing on a really giant map with only as many players as will comfortably

[quote]All I'm saying is that life/death is seperate from the other four true elements. I used to think it was a "synthesis" of them, but now I realize that it is completely different.[/quote] It's an element like the rest, it just happens to have a different mana source. That's my interpretation, anyways. Life/Death is a type of magic, with its own spells and mana type - just like earth, fire, air and water. There is a thematic difference, sure, but it looks like life/death will func

[quote]Okay, you've really misunderstood my previous post. I NEVER said "games should just use and reuse the same old cast as every other fantasy game". In fact I even write about how I would create my own unique creatures for a game. What I was saying is that the popular fantasy classics should not be completely ignored.[/quote] Ah. Seemed that you were arguing that popular fantasy is inherently better than more esoteric creatues. My bad. [quote]

[quote]Usually researching 3 items at once will only split the research efforts thin, - researching one at a time would yield the three techs in the same amount of time, but the player benefits from the effects of the technologies earlier.[/quote] It really comes down to how it's implemented. If it's a straight up "you have X research points and you can split that up into however many different technologies at once" then yes, it would always be better to to research one at a time. But