At this point, I don't think there is any way to access those books if you don't start with them. That really needs to change. As a positive, it would give us even more depth to the tech tree if we could make up for early game choices by researching them later.
If they are unable to be developed, they really need to be able to be removed easier than a normal city.
So, I've played another 4 hours this morning. Started a couple games, and have been getting unstable around turn 150-200 in general. Crashes seem to be occurring between turns when there is a ZoC calculation, or after I've re-grouped military units in overland (could just be ZoC coincidence, though). There also seem to be some save-related instabilities yet also, as I've crashed more than once while saving. The odd thing that I've had happen twice now is after a
I captured a recently captured enemy city in a location that I actually wanted (odd, I know). It was level 1, had no upgrades, and the population bar was full, and said "this city has reached it's maximum population". Not "needs x population to reach the next level".
[quote who="Wizard1200" reply="1" id="2836009"] Is the dodge chance high enough to make Dexterity useful?[/quote] In my game last night, I actually saw dodging happening (a step up over last patch), and it was at least once per combat. Though I have no statistical data to back it up, it seems to occur more than 5% of the time (as stats would suggest), which is fine.
First off; Two hours solid before my first crash after install was stellar. It happened just as my economy was about to switch over to negative dollars. On to impressions; {Kingdom-Related where applicable} [b]Stability[/b] - Overall smoother processes, fewer burps and hangs. 2 hours playtime with no crashes. I think we are starting to get really dialed in on this next level of stability. [b]City growth pacing[/b] - Much better. I like tha
[quote who="Achilles__" reply="1" id="2835807"]Just raze the city and build your own in its place if you really need the resources, otherwise leave it empty. Hope i dont scare people now, so they wont play me multiplayer when it works because i simply raze all other cities except mines [/quote] Just hope you've researched how to burn down hovels by the time you go to war... (yes, I think that mechanic is stupid).
[quote who="Rune_74" reply="8" id="2833819"] Quoting Lord Xia, reply 7Anyone else think it's silly to call this a beta? Just seems to be strange to buy a game, and then 3 months later you are playing a beta. They aren't calling the game a beta...they are calling the patch a beta. Which makes sense.[/quote] Yeah, but if you compare the current product to what we were told we were buying last fall... This is Beta for the whole game. Just
The other thing this article does not mention is the cost-to-produce disparity between retail and digital. Once the game is made, you can sell 400 Billion copies for the price of bandwidth and production of the product if you sell digitally. Sell retail, and you also have to pay to print boxes, create DVDs, ship physical products, incur damage loss, etc, on each and every unit.
[quote who="kenata" reply="7" id="2833137"] I am not sure about your conclusions considering that warfare and spell research also contain city improvements which are interesting. As for your second point, I wonder how many 4x games you have played if you believe that a city should always be producing city improvements.[/quote] I didn't say "always producing improvements". I said "always producing something". We have two Production Queues. Since the military aspect has been abstra
[quote who="kenata" reply="5" id="2832888"] CTD ~181; Setting up second city, leaving the square the city was built with the accompanying unit, then reentering the tile to garrison. Ok, This is where your entire point seems to lose all merit for me. You waited 88 turns to set up your second city? Personally, if I don't have an expansion city by at least turn 40, then the game has really taken a bad turn.[/quote] The entire point of this particular exercise was
[quote who="Werewindlefr" reply="3" id="2832863"]The other issue is that the production buildings are too few: workshop, study, labs. The thing is, there is no incentive to use lots of materials for now, so building lots of workshops isn't viable. Similarly, spell research is already very fast at higher levels, so it's not like spamming labs is worth it. [/quote] This was my point, guys. Even focusing wholly on city development tech (so as to increase my opti
So, I've decided to test out the city building limits by rushing Civ Techs. I started by setting up a Sovereign who had 1 tech and 1 arcane research per turn (to get started fast). I built a city on the square I started in, and amazingly enough had a Lost Library right next to me. I elected to try to build cities in as balanced a way as possible (always leaving room for growth and never allowing loss of money) and always elected to build Tech build
I can also confirm this. I've had spells consistently show 10 or more damage and do 4-5, or in the case of Arcane Arrow, it always, always, always gets resisted. In two games it has never successfully struck anything. Archery seems to be doing the same, but at least it consistently does some damage. In terms of functionality, the spell may be checking Resistance, posting resistance damage, then dealing that damage to armor r
So, after a couple more games of 1.1 Beta I've noted a couple things that the city build screen really could use to be more informative, and more intuitive. [b]1: Buildings Already Constructed -[/b] At present, there is no way to really tell what has been built aside from being able to identify them from top down. A UI that looks pretty much identical to the "build this building next" screen on the other side with the list of "Houses x3", which would then highlight wher
I'll get in on this. First off, to the Dev Team. Thank you so much for all the work you have done since release! The game is in a state that I can play and enjoy now, and I am very hopeful for the upcoming content and the impending state of "Elemental-to-be". [b]The Good:[/b] -Threading good! I like fast turns. -The overall UI cleaned up nicely. It looks good, it is largely intuitive, and it is clean. -The Spellbook; I fina
Alternately, heavy armors could just as easily apply either a "max dodge" or a multiplier to the dodge score. Leather = Dodge*1 (or "nomax") Chain = Dodge *.9 Light Plate = Dodge*.75 Heavy Plate= Dodge*.5 Masterwork Plate = Dodge*.8 And so forth. I personally think this will be a really solid method for working out basic combat stuff, provided that the balance is set correctly.
Thank you guys so much! The above is starting to look like a really solid baseline to build Elemental atop! I'm still anxiously awaiting the full tactical work of the first expansion, but this is a REALLY exiting start!
[quote who="Tridus" reply="56" id="2819968"] Squares, though. Yech. [/quote] Squares are easy as well. Just apply the Pythagorean Theorem, and you get a distance multiplier of 1.4 from corner to far corner. Of course, its not as "easy" to count 1.4, 2.8, 3.2, 4.6 as it is to count 1,2,3,4, but it is still no herculean effort.
I am absolutely against increasing the complexity of the resource pool at the moment. All the economic refinement games wind up feeling WAY too complicated, and punish early game carelessness dramatically in the end game. Not a good thing when you ALSO have to worry about military issues. The Wood/Metal/Gold/Crystal setup is great for pretty much all our needs. I would not mind seeing some nodes which provide modifiers the local cities, such as Stone speeding up buildin
So, we are heading closer to 1.1 and the shiny new magic system. With that, we can start looking towards the shiny new combat mechanics of the first expansion. A concern for me, with the upcoming magic, and subsequent combat updates, is with the handling of damage types and resistances. I think that it will be key (especially with magic) to implement correctly, but used properly in tactical combat, would really improve the types of pre-combat tactical decisions that the
In terms of Flanking attacks, I dont know if it makes more sense to give a unit sides, or to penalize its defense for having more than one of its primary sides (flat sides, not diagonal) in contact with an enemy unit. If facing matters, then you're going to have to deal with what happens when the unit turns to counter attack a unit. In other words, you will be able to game a unit into exposing its backside to a strong unit by simply having a fast unit move up and attack
I will personally be quite bummed if support for various other AOE effects isn't built into the 1.1 update with revamped magic.
[quote who="trcanberra" reply="32" id="2794147"]I'm kind of curious about the expectations for 1.1, it's almost as if people are expecting to see a new game. I am expecting the same game with some better AI, balance changes, and a few new features. If that will make you like the game more, great, but if the game is boring for some folks now I don't see how 1.1 will radically change that.[/quote] 1.1 is the point where they will introduce the new an
Thanks so much for all the hard work Stardock. This patch looks rich and compelling, and I think I'm going to have to revisit my decision to let Elemental sit until 1.1 came out.