cephalo

I find this acceptable. Awsome concept art too. At some point this will start becoming fun.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="59" id="2540721"]I should clarify there: Being an Empire does not make one inherently evil. By most moral human standards, the Magnar, Urxen, and Trogs are pretty evil though to varying degrees (I'd say the Magnar are the ones who would be most classically "evil"). [/quote] In my opinion there is nothing wrong with dark scary evil empires vs. shining light good kingoms. I think that if you try to get away from that it's clunky. Fall from Hea

Will it be possible to wall off areas of the map by building a wall-like city around it? I'm not sure what map objectives will benefit from such a strategy, but I just thought I'd bring it up. The city building so far has been very free form, possibly enough for some strange explots.

I agree with almost everything posted so far. One thing that I think will be a challenge for Elemental is that because there will be many non-traditional elements, it will rely very heavily on it's back story. MoM didn't need any kind of backstory because they used all the usual lineup of races that we all knew from DnD manuals/ancient mythology. The advangtage there is that each game played had it's own unique fantasy story created by the player, without too many spoonfed ideas

[quote who="DivineWrath" reply="9" id="2534818"] Incidentally, it has not been named yet so feel free to suggest names. I shall name it a "Bog Wolf". The stories of "The wolves of the bog" are a common camp fire tale used to scare young kids. Creatures lives in the swamps. Anyone traveling around swamplands late at night become their prey. No one has managed to survive once they become their prey. Victims who ran to the "relative safety" of a nearby town only

I think that the earlier this stuff is introduced the more it will be accepted. There are going to be many strange game mechanics that will greatly benefit from a fictional backing. For people who aren't consciously interested in backstories, I think it is more important than they realize that there is some fictional glue holding the physical laws of the alternate universe together. Context is important, even without delving into the story.

If they want a inter-marriage mechanic to be a viable strategy for winning, then it has to be possible to defeat a player while some of his territory is still intact and valueable. If you were playing as the 'civ' and not as the sovereign, then there is no reason for the player to surrender until his last city is gone.

[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="53" id="2528027"] I don't think you are. I do think that the system should have a method to allow each settlement to make its own decision about who it follows. The likelihood of a whole empire going moving as whole to the same ruler seems pretty slim to me. [/quote] Since they are presenting this dynasty system as a path to victory, a marriage strategy would have to have elements that you can count on, or else it's a bad stra

[quote who="ubernaught" reply="33" id="2527358"] Hi cephalo, can you explain that a bit more please? Why on Earth wouldn't you want the choice? Cohesive integrity, as you say, would surely be maintained if you never chose the one you didn't like? [/quote] In my opinion, this question is fundamental to the game. How you present the players role will decide how you design nearly everything else. I think that you are basically talking about two different games over this q

Are you looking at the right tab?

I gotta say that the only option I don't like is both. For cohesiveness sake you have to pick one. They can't both make sense.

More than other examples, this really shows that the chosen art style can be really successful. That looks great!

[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="44" id="2527104"] I disagree. These Sovereigns are not just immortal emperors, they have the very rare power to make land habitable. It is through this power that people are able to survive. Allowing your non-channeler, son to take over your empire without the ability to imbue the land with his essence would ensure the demise of all the people who live there. The people need to swear fealty to a Sovereign in order to survive.<b

[quote who="xGhost4000x" reply="40" id="2527052"]Gah I hate it when people use the term "gamey" as though it's a bad thing. Last time I checked this is a game. [/quote] I think that gameyness is ok in things like puzzle games, but when I play a game and I can't do something that makes sense or something happens to me that doesn't make sense because "Tahts da rulz", I always think of this sound...

I think that either way can be done well. For me, it depends on whether it makes sense with the story.

I'm still bugged by the idea that a sovereign who hopes to live for centeries can have a 'dynasty'. I guess you could say that family members could be more easily trusted with important tasks, but they must always expect to be subservient and never inherit anything other than their allowance. If their sovereign should die in battle then they must obey some distant relative that they don't even know. Would that be acceptable to the son of the sovereign? Says who? If he can't stand on

[quote who="xGhost4000x" reply="25" id="2526185"][quote who="cephalo" reply="23" id="2526140"]In previous games with dynasty mechanics like the Total War series, characters age and eventually die while the new generation takes over. Will that be the case in Elemental?[/quote] Kinda and kinda not, characters will age and die, but as far as we know your sov (You) cannot die of old age. Or as some people claim he can but it will take so long that he may as well not.<

In previous games with dynasty mechanics like the Total War series, characters age and eventually die while the new generation takes over. Will that be the case in Elemental?

I'm sure all this is already decided, but I was thinking that one way you can fictionally avoid all these breeding mechanics, is to have the channeler not be the actual sovereign, but actually a respected, immortal servant of a normal royal house, kindof like a Merlin type character. The kings think that the struggle is all about them, but really it's a battle between wizards. If the channeler needs a king for legitimacy, then all of a sudden you have a reason for sons,

Lot's of good posts in this thread. I have a question. Do games involving magical spells always have to have 'mana'? Why not just have each spell have some more or less hard to find/create ingredients?

I think that this method really is better for gameplay reasons, but I wish that there was a way to explain it better in fictional terms. I hate the word 'points' in games. Points are for stand up arcade games. What are these 'points'? There's gotta be a name that's more fun. EDIT: I also like how this kinda separates tech research from spell research. I was kinda skeptical about that. I still am, but the more differences between spell research and tech research the better.

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="30" id="2519474"] Quoting cephalo, reply 29 ... So you say it might be possible to be a kind of "Octomom". Well, I was mostly being silly because I don't expect to see much reproduction-oriented magic in the initial game. But yea, a female sovereign with Life magic strenght should be able to make herself an 'octomom plus,' the plus being she can outsource some or all of the gestation work. Not the best way to build a

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="28" id="2517816"] Not really....... just accelerate gestation/mensturation to unreasonable speeds, and let nature take its' course. (I get the distinct impression that it's actually a bit more complicated than that, but we don't really cover "creative biology" in health class, and I'm sure you all get the gist.) Surely a mistress of Life magic would be able to cast spells to ovulate as large a group of ova in one cycle as she liked, selecti

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="25" id="2517467"]A male Sovereign could spam many children. Quite more faster than a female one (without magic methods used). [/quote] Yeah, you would have to alter yourself to become some sort of twisted brood mother that lays many eggs.

Another thing that will be interesting, is exactly how these sovereigns breed. I would guess that the women, or female whatevers, have much shorter lifespans, and their windows of fertility would be even shorter still. It would often be the case that the old man would need a new young wife, or perhaps a harem of concubines. This whole thing could get pretty hedonistic, expecially if there is a strategic advantage of having many children. It might even take some s