pigeonpigeon

Map expansion could be pretty fun. Although, if you're playing at the right difficulty on a very large map it should achieve similar results. After all, if the AI is good enough/cheats enough to present you with a challenge all the way through the game, by the time you've become a truly massive empire, chances are you won't be the only one. Nonetheless, it would be a fun option. Maybe it would have to be an option you choose ahead of time. That way it can generate a very large map ahe

[quote who="Rhishisikk" reply="23" id="1958313"]And YES, I'm saying that lots of the animals are RARE. But we've seen elephants, alligators, snakes, and even attempts at training DOLPHINS for war in the real world.[/quote] Actually, dolphins and sea lions have been successfully trained by the US and Israeli navies (and some others) to do a variety of tasks. The two that I'm aware of are sea mine detection and retrieval, and anti-swimmer defense. Their natural sonar abilities are

I want big populations because I want big armies, once my civilization is well established that is. Frogboy said that their goal is to be able to have battles encompassing thousands and even tens of thousands of combatants. I'm all in favor of that because of how epic that would make battles later on in the game feel, but it would only really be practical/possible if we can have very high-pop cities. 1 million people might be a stretch but we need tens or hundreds of thousands at least.

[quote who="Anomander" reply="14" id="1958069"] Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 12 I can't speak for others but I don't take your criticism personally. Enough to annouce I was a 'fake' Spartan when I clearly never proclaimed to be anything other than myself and my opinion. Why attempt to discredit me with the term fake?[/quote] As a facetious way to differentiate you from the other Spartan, with whom probably 99% of the people on this board are familiar? I'd have cal

[quote who="Anomander" reply="9" id="1957939"] Quoting Luckmann, reply 13 I wouldn't call the current art "cute and cartoony" at all, I've explain before what I class as cute (candy floss trees etc) and as you can see people did dispute my cartoon reference![/quote] Though I could be wrong, I got the impression that Luckmann was saying it doesn't look "cute and cartoony" (False and True = False :P) - not that it doesn't look "cute" and also not "c

[quote who="Anomander" reply="6" id="1957872"] Quoting mittens, reply 6 This creates a really defined set of shading values that give in-game assets a very cartoony look. Just a small post for those that bulked and argued against my reference to a cartoony style, even the artists admit this is what they are trying to achieve. [/quote] No one argued that it doesn't look cartoony (or if they did they need glasses, badly). What I and others have a

[quote who="Vandenburg" reply="17" id="1957745"] While that's true, we don't know what kind of system they have allready in place, so we've no idea how sensible our suggestions are, if they would be totally contrary to what they envision for the game or if it would fit very well. So I don't think they'll change anything they've now in place or will add until the beta and then they'll listen to feedback and consider ideas. [/quote] But we don't know what they have

[quote who="lwarmonger" reply="1" id="1956484"]Personally I think that you should be able to convert one type of animal resource to another within reason; it should just be expensive and time consuming. Two animals that rely on a similar biome should be interchangeable as you could gradually readjust the farming of one type of animal to another by introducing the new type and slaughtering the old. This would be expensive and would take a while, however it has been done in the past

While I wouldn't necessarily mind this as an option, I worry that it would present a LOT of work for the devs to get anywhere close to being right. If that's true, then I'd rather they focus on gameplay. The easy way would be to base it off of score, but that is extremely flawed... For example, turtles often take a long time to win (which usually results in fewer points), but that doesn't mean they can't wipe the floor with a very tough AI. Personally, I don't usually have this proble

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="23" id="1956882"] This is cartoon, but I'm not about to pretend its cute or not-serious. (by clicking the above link you are agreeing that you are over the age 18 and that you do not mind blood and gore) [/quote] I'd suggest sticking that warning before the link. It really is quite disturbing...... On topic, I agree with everyone that the art style, while colorful and reminiscent of watercolors, is not at

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="16" id="1956326"] A turn limit I think would improve the game since in some multiplayer games, the battles really turn up the game length. Everybody who has played HoMM multiplayer knows that the event of a battle ganertees at least 5 min extra turn time, which seems like a long time if you are just staring at a 'waiting for *green* player" message. Which is why I want to find what we can do to better limit the amount of time spent waitin

Hmmm, I just read this over in frogboy's latest dev journal, and this seems like the best place to discuss it: [quote]A player who wants to design a horse mounted knight will need to have researched animal husbandry which lets them train horses. They will need to have a city that has used one of its tiles to make use of a herd of wild horses on the map. They will need a mine on a metal deposit to create the armor. And once they have all those things, it'll be a matter of

It would also be able to choose which downloaded content can appear in any new game. Also, I seem to recall one of the devs mentioning that player-created content would have to be approved by them before it becomes available. 1) I can't remember where I read this so I might be making it up, and 2) given the number of people I'm hoping will buy this game, I don't see how the devs will be able to get through all of the submitted content without making it their full-time job... so we'll

[quote who="Nights Edge" reply="18" id="1954850"]Which is not to say that a game tower defence stylee isn't fun. Rather, it's that going out of your comfort zone and moving to put pressure on your opponent can be a really enjoyable part of the game. Give it a try.[/quote] I agree with you. And like I said, I do occasionally enjoy to play aggressively. But I quickly get tired of games that force me to play in any given way. If I'm forced to turtle it's not so bad because that's usually

I'm opposed to a time or turn limit for battles (unless it's an option, of course). For one, if all my units are sitting in their spots waiting for the opponent to come to me, why would they all of a sudden become fatigued after 10 turns? I'd much rather there be a Total War style fatigue system, where units become tired based on their movement and actions, and their fighting ability degrades. If a unit is totally overworked they could become "collapsed" and be unable to attack and hardly def

I definitely agree that there should be a pretty wide variety of common mount types in the game. Horses will obviously be in, at this point SD will have a gamer strike on their hands if they don't include bears... I think camels should definitely be in, as generally inferior to horses but with significant movement and combat bonuses in the desert (Camels are by far the superior mount in deserts). Add in one or two more, but preferably not more than that. I don't think there should be any comm

I prefer to turtle more often than not, but I do enjoy shaking things up and playing aggressive sometimes, too. But nonetheless I'd also prefer immovable shards. Like multiple people have already said, being able to hoard shards wherever you want would cause some pretty big problems. Honestly I don't like the idea of a very small nation gathering up a disproportionate number of shards and bringing them back to their stronghold. If you want to control a whole lot of shards, you should

[quote who="Martok" reply="6" id="1954601"]pigeonpigeon probably best highlights why I feel retreat to be so important to strategy games: As a general rule, I strongly dislike "all-or-nothing" battles where the fate of two entire empires are riding on the outcome. Yes, I know it's happened often enough in real life, but it's usually not very fun from a gameplay standpoint. Being able to withdraw your forces (or at least most of them) would go a long way towards insuring said

I'm also a bit split on this issue. In Total War, retreat was a mixed blessing for me. On the one hand it was nice to be able to pull out before all is lost, hopefully to get my troops to a more defensible location or to join with another of my armies. It did create options, which was nice (retreat was not always the best option if things start looking grim), and it allowed you to save a portion of your army, which was nice. In fact, every time *I* retreated I was happy for the feature.

[quote who="Nights Edge" reply="12" id="1953028"]I think part of the thing with having the shards immovable is as an anti-turtling measure. You force players to come out of their shell and compete for limited resources.[/quote] I hope it will be possible to turtle. I hate it when games try to force you to go out and be aggressive. Sometimes I want to play aggressive, sometimes I want to be isolationist and defensive, let me play the way I want to play! The devs have also said they're

[quote who="Luckmann" reply="3" id="1952859"] I completely agree, although I can see how it'd be hard to implement in a satisfactory manner, without the tech trees becoming overly confusing to read. But definately not impossible to do, and I do hope that there are select spells that require advancement in multiple elements, or multiple points spent in multiple elements.[/quote] I don't think it'd be that hard to implement. For example if there's a spell that requires fire m

[quote who="bleeba" reply="9" id="1952372"]Pigeonpigeon-Thanks for saying I spell better than most but I have deceived you-I just try to avoid the words the give me trouble.[/quote] Well nonetheless, your vocabulary of words that you know how to spell ain't too shabby! [quote]paradimes (that can't be spelled right)[/quote] paradigms [e digicons];P[/e] [quote]I also hate to give up on the idea of finding movable bits of power. So if the 5 main shards are

[quote who="Torynn" reply="7" id="1951964"]Honestly...the combat looks awful...a tiny little map and sprite looking figures? I played MOM back in the day and enjoyed the game for what it was...but that doesn't mean that I want to play it again with slightly updated graphics. If I wanted that, I would download DOSBox and go play MOM. Speaking as someone who played MOM...the tactical battles were limited and would be considered 'crappy' by gamers used to tactical bat

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="5" id="1951775"]I think they should be hard to take from other players. Like you should be able to fortify them or something to make it harder to steal. If nothing else, stealing shards requires a certain amount of culture or channeling to occur to "change the flow of magic" and allow the new channeler to assume control.[/quote] Maybe stealing a shard that's outside of the owner's territory should just be a matter of defeating whatever

[quote who="bleeba" reply="2" id="1951431"]Thanks for the reply. In answer to your first question- its not really a mystery. I am a horrible speller.[/quote] Ok then! Although I disagree, based on your posts you seem to be a better speller than the average american. Anyways - is it possible for you to change the title of the thread, though? People will probably take this thread more seriously if Shards is spelled correctly in the title. [e digicons]:)[/e]