cephalo

[quote who="LDiCesare" reply="90" id="2741015"]- More Maps Duh. You cannot provide enough map seeds to give variability and replayability. Even with 100 seeds for 1 map size (and land/water configuration ideally), a player will play the same map again within 12 games, which is too little. You must provide a good random map generator, and the easiest and cheapest way to do this would be to expose map scripting to python (or any other language), so we coul

Some of these tunes are really good. My favorite is the one for normal gameplay during the beta, with the low flute and the drums.

I decided to climb the diplomacy tree a little more, and I think I agree that dumping it is a bit harsh. Natural interactions with other kingdoms/empires needs to be kept out of it though.

Thanks!

Thank you this will help.

I'm going to be making some maps, and I want to verify that the AI can handle them well. Is there a way to reveal the whole map and see everything that's going on?

I don't see an option to turn this feature off. If the computer thinks the battle would be easy it doesn't give the choice to fight the battle! And then my ranged fighters in the rear end up dead because they aren't designed for enemy contact. Anyone know a workaround?

You might hold of on any major AI work until multiplayer goes in. MP will crack open any design flaws and make them plain as day, and you know there's going to be many. There's probably going to be major rule changes in the immediate future, and you don't want to write the AI twice or three times.

I have also noticed the AI fielding many units and aquiring negative gold. Maybe they are not able to afford the maintenance? I don't know if that affects them negatively or if they just cheat in regards to gold.

There is also a minor issue(1.06) that when you press the big round picture to get to the heirgemenon, if you sov is by himself you can press an equip button there. If he is with other troops, even if only he is selected, the equip button isn't there.

Keep in mind also that anything you change in the Program Files directory in Vista will not take hold unless you have full permissions in the directory. For example, if you tweak something with notepad, the OS will make a different 'secret' copy of the file for notepad, and leave the one that Elemental uses alone. I ran into this nightmare in my Civ4 modding days.

[quote who="Seboss" reply="5" id="2738261"]Admittedly, the diplomatic tree is pretty weak compared to the others. It's not such a stretch to merge it in the civilization tree. Or not In any case, it definitely needs some more work. [/quote] I guess the only problem with that is that the civ tree is packed full of stuff. It's definately the most robust tree as it is. Still, you could probably spread the important stuff among the other trees. The warfare tree has alot of room

Those yellow bars are completely unreadable on my computer. Maybe just write them in bold?

Diplomacy is based on interests, and while it can be said there is a certain amount of science involved, that tends to go into some pretty dry details for a fantasy game. Playing as Gilden with Relias as my neighbor, he repeatadely begged me for help against the powerful Kraxis. I was ready to form an alliance and go to his aid, but alas, such assistance had not been invented yet.... I have no options to form an aliance or to gain any kind of military access, and his territory blocks me from

I was really hoping the unit designer would be more like MOO2, where you had actual decisions to make. Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 is just busy work as the OP said.

[quote who="LDiCesare" reply="5" id="2727364"]I only said 6 months from completion myself! No map gen api for the moment but writing an external map generator is possible, as the maps generated by the map tool are xml files. The format is not that good however, and some information's a bit murky. [/quote] Thanks for the tip Laurent, I already have an external map generator for DF I can use as a starting point. I might be able to cook something up before Civ

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="23" id="2734425"] If you bring up the city details by clicking its portrait when selected, it will show you which bonuses it has. [/quote] Can you do that when the game asks you what bonus you want next? I always just pick a random bonus lol.

[quote who="tlvs" reply="1" id="2734032"]What's wrong with the UI? Other than that it's not explained enough. But that's not the UI's fault. [/quote] It doesn't communicate the information you need to enjoy the game. It's fixable, but totally inadequate at this point. As far as pulling the release trigger now, I wonder if Brad just sensed alot of burnout in the office. Making a game like this is an ungodly amount of drudgery. It's like those religions that try to reach en

Oh, someone please tell me what stat regens mana!

[quote who="rossanderson48" reply="248" id="2733905"] Hey if you had read Brads comments long before the game release he said "The game will NEVER BE FINISHED". But, your comment that it was untested is fail and wrong of course. That it is a great game is correct though. [/quote] The game was untested. I'm a beta tester and I haven't seen most of this stuff cobbled together for the last minute release. You can't flesh out a whole game, AND test it 'in house' in a month. I su

As I play the game more I'm finding more to appreciate, but I believe the only real problem with the game is that it wasn't released in February 2011. Giving this version to the beta testers instead of the general public would have eliminated all of the current negativity and would have seen quite the opposite reception at a later date. (Easy to say that now, heh.)

ETW is still broken, I've been struggling with it recently when my campaign suddenly got corrupted and ended my game. However the design of the game itself is very good, and you can really see it shine in NTW. I can't say that for Elemental. Even as a beta tester theres stuff I haven't seen until release. Why does every sovereign have every spellbook? Why should I choose fire damage over electrical? Why should I use an expensive sword rather than the much cheaper mace that does twice

[quote who="Tridus" reply="139" id="2731382"] Honestly, I really believe if it was a choice of August or October, they'd have taken October. But February? That's a LONG time when the game doesn't need anywhere near that long. You'd get to a point where the wait for release just drags on, and on, and on. It's bad for publicity and word of mouth to have it drag so long when people are eager to play. I'm not saying this worked out so well either, but they only had two optio

[quote who="Demiansky" reply="128" id="2731255"] The bottom line is that Elemental is neither up to the standards we expect and it isn't up to the standards that Stardock has set for itself. [/quote] This is what I find unsatisfying. I've been reading the dev journals for a long time and that's where my expectations were formed. I was very much looking forward to this because of what I had been reading here. All of a sudden, befor

[quote who="cwg009" reply="15" id="2731026"] Quoting cephalo, reply 12 Like every job that is unfinished, there is still work to be done. Stardocks reputation for making games is really on the line here. This is an emergency. Forget about Elemental being profitable, every penny coming in needs to be thrown back in so that in 6 months you have the game that was promised to us and more. If Elemental is less than we expected, it had better be alot more than