pigeonpigeon

Combat Speed As long as combat speed is separate from movement speed. A guy on a horse can't swing his sword any more frequently than a guy on foot; the only speed-related difference between the two is that the guy on the horse can cross distances faster. I suppose a guy on a horse charing enemy ranks technically has more opportunities to hurt enemies in the same amount of time, but that is best achieved through other mechanics... Also, Sauron didn't have high

[quote] yes i admit i never played combat mission BUT what i said remains true i want to shot a fireball AND decide after it if finish the guy who resisted or run away or throw some arrow i dont want to decide at the start "fireball on his summoner, arrows on the paladin, wyvern on the small drake" and hope all goes the way i planned its just bad[/quote] You're oversimplifying the possibilities, though. There is no reason Stardock couldn't implement a s

[quote][What was the population growth value called? Influence or prestige or something.. can't access Elemental atm and I'm getting my games/beta versions confused.][/quote] Yeah, it's prestige. Also, I think Frogboy somewhere not too long ago even made a comment that you have to spam houses too much and they're looking to fix that.

[quote]I'm thrilled real time is out. Winning because of superior micro/APM is cool & stuff, but I would really, really hate it in an otherwise turn based game. And eh.. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but TB is what I signed up for.[/quote] I cringe every time someone says this. Have you ever played a Total War game, or a game with similar combat? At least in single-player, actions per minute has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with combat. Nothing. There is a re

Ok, it's official. The forums hate me.

[quote]I'm not sure anyone saw my previous post, but after reading the last page of posts I'm more convinced that Stardock should implement TBS like Combat missions. Where you program the moves and actions of all your units and then submit your turn. ....After both sides put in their orders you can watch the result of the tactical battle for that turn. This approach would give pure TBS tactical combat, but would make the battles far more interesting and cinematic (like RTS,

[quote]You do not have more control of RTS than TBS. It just looks like you do. But most of your time is spent "Reacting" in a RTS and not "Acting". Yeah are you not limited to an entire square, But you also just don't have fine control. I do not and cannot have the time I need to make sure what is attacking what is what it should be. More often than not RTS means grabbing a large blob of units, pointing them at a mass, and sending them charging. there is no fine contr

Has anyone else been having this problem lately? At least half the time I try to post, the forums go Boom and my post is eaten. And it's periodic; for example, I've tried to post something like 5 times in the past 10 minutes but it won't work. But I posted something earlier in the day and it worked just fine, but the day before I couldn't post anything either. Also, if this post works, I will cry.

Damnit I wrote up a big wall of text but the forums ate it! Oh well. I'm worried that the promised grandeur of tactical combats will be lost by going to turn based combat. I've probably spent a full year's time worth of my life playing games with turn-based tactical combat, and I can't recall a single situation where I've thought "Ohh I can't wait to watch this battle!" There is just nothing exciting about watching one stack do its thing while everyone/everything else patiently waits

[quote]Yea, originally the battles were continous turns, pixel-based ala Baldur's Gate. The problem users pointed out on the forums and we eventually agreed with is that it's kind of bait and switch. [/quote] ...And it isn't bait & switch to, well, you know: announce that tactical combat will be continuous turns, and then change it to completely turn-based and tile-based because you're afraid it might be too much of a bait & switch? I don't ge

Thank god the semester is over, is all I have to say!

I like the current system, although there are probably still improvements to be made. It's been a while since I've had time to play a long enough game in Elemental to remember what happens when you get far enough down the tech tree. Is there any mechanism to research some of the more basic techs when you're far along down it? I remember lots of discussion about it but can't recall anything being done about it. While I definitely want to keep the system so that you really have

Awesome idea! I mean, what you're suggesting is basically a TW-like diplomacy system, but one that actually works :P (I liked the concept in TW but trying to get a diplomat good enough to accomplish anything was an exercise in frustration, and by the time you get one he dies of old age). I am definitely opposed to expendable diplomacy points, though! That would be terrible. It is not an abstraction of ckessel's idea, it is a completely different method of limiting diplomacy - and an i

[quote]Yes, and you do that by making a fun game. Strategy gamers don't care about story, they want to make their own. Compare the success of the civ series (the only "story" being a vague tie-in to history) to... um... I can't really think of "lore" heavy grand strategy games. I guess the scope of a GRAND strategy game is beyond a "story". Look at MoM, the game this is the spiritual successor to. There was NO story, and you could customize fairly extensively (it wasn't spore, but for its tim

[quote]This is all nice and good, but the people -who will buy this game- are different. Some players don't even care about the lore or story. Some players do. Some players will buy Elemental only because of its powerful modding features. They want to create their own little magical gameworld. Some players will complete the original campaign more times. Some players won't even try out the original campaign. Some players won't care about modding at all...and the list goes o

[quote]Yeah, I can see that, it's pretty much true too. I understand we do only represent a small faction of people. Over-all though I'd say "Strategy Gaming" in its-self is a "niche". If you take all the FPS gamers and count them then count all the Strategy Gamers there would be Tons more FPS Gamers. I think if Stardock wanted to cater solely to the masses to maximize profit margins they would be making shooters. They made thier mark in gaming with strategy games and they exploited a niche f

[quote]On an unrelated note (although some-what similar to having no hotseat) ... I find it very odd that a game with Online Campaign COOP will NOT allow for split-screen COOP. Its ... quite frustrating for one, such as I, that rarely likes to combine gaming consoles and the internet.[/quote] I don't understand. Even with a KVM, you cannot have multiple people control the same computer simultaneously. And what is the point of split screen if each person can't control their par

[quote]No reason to be sorry, Pigeon. I agree with you on everything but me being "in the minority". Go back and count all the replies to this thread alone and you'll see it's more like 50-50 at this point. Aside from that I agree mostly with what you say. I still want some customization though.[/quote] But see, you have to take into account the demographic. If Stardock were making a game meant solely to appeal to the people that are likely to frequent these forums or participate in t

Raven - I commend you for your dedication towards creating customized races complete with backstory (in your head or otherwise) that feel at least as complete as the official races or factions included in games. But the fact of the matter is, you are in the minority. Sure, I play using custom races/factions more often than I play straight-up unmodified stock factions in games, but I'm still strongly in favor of fleshing out the stock factions and leave more customization features for

[quote]Why can't we have race distinctions without custom races?[/quote] I'd also like to know that... I'm in favor of "...build out the Factions with more lore and artwork. Current customization of factions would remain." But, I don't understand why we would have to eliminate race distinctions for that? (To be honest, eliminating race distinctions seems like it'd do the opposite of building out the factions'...). I mean, after all, why not implement all the canon race

[quote]It'll increase longevity of the game. It'll allow players to "fix" things even if Stardock went "Puff!" any time after release. If you have skills, it allows you to create a game of different genre if you must really do that.[/quote] But adding in further customization is something that could relatively easily be done in an expansion, increasing the longevity of the game just as well (assuming the game doesn't fizzle and die before a first expansion can be released *crosses fin

Ah, I see that I misunderstood your previous journal now. I thought you meant getting rid of current factions all-together, and replacing them with just two factions, corresponding to human and fallen races. I am a little bit conflicted on this. On the one hand, it would be pretty awkward to have all the Fallen factions represented as a single race in the game, but as different races in the actual lore and book. Generating lore for a game and then contradicting that lore in the game i

We have at most a few sentences of lore and backstory behind most of the factions. The only exception being Pariden, which you might notice is about twice as popular as the next highest. We have absolutely no connection to these factions, and honestly I don't think the game has reached a point where their differences can actually be noticed; either that or they just aren't different enough to begin with. I'm not surprised custom races are vastly more popular than the stock races - the

[quote]I think the idea here is supposed to be that the building limit represents the limit of your logistical capacity to support a structure of that type in that particular city.[/quote] Ok, fine. That's a slightly better reason than I had thought of, but it's still pretty laughable IMO. I'll point to the real world again - there are plenty of cities, even plenty of regions/states/provinces/nations, that are extremely specialized. I am quite sure that Detroit didn't be

[quote]That never seemed to have been an issue in say Civilization where you can only build 1 of a given thing in a city.[/quote] That is a largely meaningless comparison, though. City building is a completely different beast in Elemental. In Civ there is no such thing as running out of space to put another building; you can put down one of every building in every city and the entire process is abstracted away into oblivion (not to mention, there are 102 unique buildings in civ IV). T