[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="13" id="2282184"]I'm not sure about the last part: seems like a lot of people would still be "forced" to do them.[/quote] Not if their requirements are drastic enough and rewards small enough. In such a case, only people who want to play that way, or close to it anyway would get the little bonus.
[quote who="landisaurus" reply="11" id="2281831"]Some people like achievements. Achievements provide micro-satisfaction as well as "bragging rights". You certainly have a point though, and I agree that goals should not be some arbitrary list of things to do. That being said, some games are starting to intigrate a reward system with achievements so that having achievements gives a direct in-game result. For PC achievements can be avoided, and I support doi
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="23" id="2281743"]I did not have problems with application. However, the numbers provided using application did not help me understand why something happened. Any one can mindlessly follow an equation and arrive at the right answer. Theory is where the real heart of physics is in my opinion. If the logical theory behind the math doesn't make sense to you it doesn't matter if you can do the calculations or not. Once I understood the logic behind the t
[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="8" id="2281775"]Am I the only person who has never liked achievements? I thought they were a dumb idea when they first started appearing. I always felt the goals of a game should be part of the game, not some artificial list of tasks..[/quote] I'm with you.
The major misconception here is that if an EMP goes off, all electronics will be fried. Anything that's turned off is likely to survive an EMP. Anything that's underground or hardened is almost guaranteed to survive. Most electronics surrounded by an ample amount of metal would be fine, too (such as cars ). Being surrounded by lots of metal is in effect a form of hardening. And even when you consider things especially vulnerable to EMPs, there would not be total failur
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="21" id="2281692"]Suffice to say I disagree with just about everything you have said thus far piegeonpigeon in terms of both the game and physics. For the time being we will just have to leave it at that. I would also point out assuming I needed someone to explain the equations to me is a faulty assumption. [/quote] Your words: [quote]Personally when taking physics classes looking at an equation or the math behind something rarely helped me underst
[quote who="Robbie.Price" reply="17" id="2281605"]I think some variant on this would be best. tell a troop to do something, confirm before taking any serious action (yes no questions only) has a small set of optional 'if this then confirm a change to do.'[/quote] Ohhh, no. Yes no questions are terrible - they assume that the computer is as creative as the player. If a dialogue pops up with the options to either proceed or retreat, but I want to hold my ground - what then? I have no ch
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="14" id="2281449"]I just don't see how you think it will affect game-play. If I have a 10 tile map 5 of which have forest on them and I set one forest tile on fire. Using physics based calculation the fire would spread to other tiles adjacent to the one that has been set on fire. The path fire takes is very predictable and linear in nature. It couldn't jump over a tile unless a programmer took the time to create such an effect. Even if you expanded this to
[quote who="psychoravin" reply="20" id="2281412"]10) Are you really going to make a NEW fantasy strategy wargame or just another repeat of the ones past with some new glitz and glamor?[/quote] I just have to respond to this. Elemental is not a wargame . Jesus Christ in a handbasket how many times do we have to tell you that?
[quote who="WildBoarPie" reply="19" id="2281290"]It does, sort of - It's just that rather than -forcing- victory, your research grants you the ability to set up the end-game, giving you an important strategic advantage over your opponents. I agree it's a mutant conquest victory. This is how it should be, IMO. You use several game elements (which can be advancing 'tools' provided by research) in combination to secure victory through complex moves.[/quote] I couldn'
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="10" id="2281034"]Setting fire to a forest does one of two things from my point of view it either destroys a resource or damages building / units inside if forests are passible terrain or if they are impassible it creates a new path to march troops or whatever. The physics calculations for this have no impact on game-play. The hill / mountain creation is similar it creates a natural obstruction to the player that either needs to be removed or gone around. The p
[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="13" id="2281257"]What does the "spell of making" actually make?[/quote] It makes victory. From the last FAQ: [quote]Players can win the game in a variety of ways including achieving the spell of making, completing the quest of mastery, diplomatic victory as well as the traditional military conquest means of victory.[/quote] You win by achieving the spell of making (or one of the other victory conditions). It seems analogous to the Spe
[quote who="WildBoarPie" reply="13" id="2281097"]Hmmmm... I wasn't attempting to -exclude- 'Non-Conquest' victory conditions, I too am a big fan of several alternative paths to victory. But the path to Victory by pure research is tricky 'cos a victory condition, by definition, must allow opponents to 'oppose' it. eg: -AoE (original and best) A Wonder becomes instantly visible to other players, so they try to destroy it... -MoM Start casting Mastery and everyone finds out...<br
[quote who="WildBoarPie" reply="10" id="2280966"]Agree that victory by research feels incomplete. (Tho in MOM's day, this kind of multiple victory condition was thrillingly advanced).[/quote] I totally disagree. I love non-conquest victory conditions and I'll be extraordinarily disappointed if they just become the hated step-children of victory conditions compared to conquest. I don't want to always be forced to destroy all my opponents - be that their entire kingdoms or just their ch
[quote who="Denryu" reply="12" id="2280874"]Now there are valild concerns with simultaneous moves, such as you might give orders to attack a city, and reinforcements arrive, concerns about moving into FoW etc. I think the best solution is still have an orders phase but then have some interaction during the moves phase. In other words, if you are attacking a city (or another stack) then during the movement phase a confirmation window comes up that shows your forces vs their forces and confirms
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="7" id="2280492"]Just out of curiosity how do you think the "physics calculations" for spreading fire or creating a hill / mountain would affect game-play? I can see what they represent affecting game-play but not the physics calculations themselves for this sort of game.[/quote] Umm... If physics calculations are used to spread fire, then how fire spreads will be determined by physics calculations. And how fire spreads is definitely an aspect of gamepl
Considering this is a TBS game, Stardock would be downright stupid not to have a fully functional pause button in combat. The demographic of people who buy TBS games is heavily biased towards people who don't like the twitch factor in real-time games (whether RTS or FPS or whatever). They (we? I?) like to take their time and think everything through before acting. So in my opinion, if combat is in a form where a pause button makes sense, then there will be a pause button.
There are so many flaws with this scenario I don't know where to begin... I guess I'll start with the unlikely scenario that anyone would be able to launch a nuclear warhead high enough into the atmosphere to cause anything more than a localized EMP. It's not very easy to get ahold of a missile (and a launcher capable of launching it) capable of sending a nuke hundreds of kilometers high. And even then, you proposed that they be launched from cargo ships, which would also require them to trav
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="5" id="2280382"]What I was trying to convey is we don't know what the smallest unit of game-play for lack of a better word will be in Elemental and how it will function. It could work like your normal grid based game or it could be something we haven't seen before. I was saying if it works like a standard grid based game it wouldn't matter so much but if it is something more complex like grids within grids or joining multiple grid sections together to make an
[quote who="Robbie.Price" reply="7" id="2280213"]as i see it now, to not undo what frogboy said, you cast the spell of making, given the credits, scored, and then offered an option to really finish the game [probably not for score, but just to finish it (i don't know about you, but winning by tech/research always feals incomplete to me. If i am now all powerful, let me BE ALL POWERFUL! . . . you know?)][/quote] That, I could go for. If you win in such a way that enemies (or even
[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="3" id="2280043"]As for the grids within Elemental do we know exactly how they will be handled? I mean is the smallest grid the one the player interacts with on the cloth / tactical map or are there smaller grids within those grids that only the program interacts with? Are grids treated as open or closed systems when something like battles or magic spells take place? I personally had though each grid could be linked at the cloth map / tactical level then treate
[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="4" id="2279874"]However, I would VERY much like to knwo where you got ahold of thqat info on the "spell of making"![/quote] From the FAQ dev thread : [quote]Players can win the game in a variety of ways including achieving the spell of making , completing the quest of mastery, diplomatic victory as well as the traditional military conquest means of victory.[/quote] Frogboy has mentioned it before offhand
I prefer regular turn-based for singleplayer - Player 1 goes, then Player 2 goes, then Player 3 goes, etc. I prefer a two-phase simultaneous turn system for multiplayer. I will play singleplayer much more than multiplayer, so if we get only one I'd pick the regular turn-based. Although I wouldn't really mind the two-phase simultaneous turns for singleplayer, either...
This is one of those things that would be great if done well, but I don't see how it can be done well. This idea as formulated relies on the assumption that once you reach a certain point in magic research, you are guaranteed to win. But that is most definitely not the case in general. It might be true once in a while just by coincidence - it might even be true more often than not with careful planning from the devs; but there will definitely be cases where reaching that point in tech will ac
[quote who="psychoravin" reply="8" id="2279422"]Well I'm talking more about the PLAYER CONTROLLED units not about how the developers gave it the illusion that each individual little man plays a part in the whole. You only CONTROL 16-20 units period. Wherever you tell or what you tell to those 16-20 units is what they ALL do in that stack and that is all you get to do. Same with MOM you had 9 units you controlled not each individual little man or creature unless that is all they