Nick-Danger

[quote who="Spooky__" reply="65" id="2638523"] ...Why did you sayOr does the "...stable and easily integrate able..." steam only work if no other option to buy the game exists?? You can buy the game anywhere you like, not just through Steam.[/quote]In post #51 Syneptus said: "No more should be said, other than WHY THE HECK DID THEY HAVE TO GO WITH STEAM ONLY?!?!?!?!?" In post #52 You replied to him: "Because SteamWorks is a stable and easily integrate able solution." <p

[quote who="Spooky__" reply="63" id="2638453"]What do you mean?[/quote]This ain't rocket science... the meaning is quite clear. Syneptus said: "No more should be said, other than WHY THE HECK DID THEY HAVE TO GO WITH STEAM ONLY?!?!?!?!?No more should be said, other than WHY THE HECK DID THEY HAVE TO GO WITH STEAM ONLY?!?!?!?!?" You replied to him: "Because SteamWorks is a stable and easily integrate able solution." ie -- you're claiming they went with "steam only" be

You guys haven't mentioned Champions in your scenarios... It'll be interesting to see how Champs can be used to augment/replace some of the buildings/techs for some starting strategies. Interesting tradeoffs -- spend the gold for a Champ that gives a few SPs/turn (and essence to have a city to be able to recruit), or spend the gold on buildings... Plop down a city to grab a few Champs before trolls kill them off, or wait on a city to find a node with food and other res

[quote who="larienna" reply="40" id="2637980"]...So player will chose their tech according to their situation. Situation could be determined by terrain location, special resources, spell configuration of the wizard, size of the empire, race of the empire, etc.[/quote]I think this is the key -- 'best' tech pathing choice should be situational (beyond the basic tech synergies like schools affecting tech rate of non-research techs so do schools first, etc.). The goal should be

[quote who="Spooky__" reply="52" id="2637606"] [quote]No more should be said, other than WHY THE HECK DID THEY HAVE TO GO WITH STEAM ONLY?!?!?!?!?[/quote]Because SteamWorks is a stable and easily integrate able solution.[/quote]That does not answer 'why steam only?' Or does the "...stable and easily integrate able..." steam only work if no other option to buy the game exists?

[quote who="Tasunke" reply="67" id="2637097"]And either way, the best part is that they [AI] can't Ragequit!! [/quote]Oh yeah? What do you think CTDs and freezes are? ;) One of the best parts of LAN (or voice) MP with old friends is hearing the lamentations of their women... errrr... hearing the wailing and gnashing of teeth when a battle goes against them. AI that teeth-gnashed and [e digicons]:waaaa:[/e] would be fun.

The picture shows some of the unit formations -- there's a 'diamond' of 9 units, a 'forward arrow' of 9 units, a 'staggered double line' of 10 units, etc. Very interesting...

[quote who="John_Hughes" reply="26" id="2635427"]Well given that this is not a new problem, I guess we should put our heads together and see if we can find a true "Balance" between Magic and Military. or even better, how best to combine the 2 so that even the Magic freak will have to have some troops in defense of his stuff, and visa versa or both singular focuses are nothing more than Loses in waiting...[/quote]I'd like to see an all-out magic and an all-out military and an 'wise' combinatio

[quote who="Demiansky" reply="21" id="2635526"]Looks great so far! But you know, something about the map doesn't strike me right. I mean, the world was quite scholarly before the Apocalypse, so why not represent the unexplored part of the map as a portrait of what the world looked like before the apocalypse? For instance, what was once known as verdent farmland would become, as you explore it, spoilands and blighted expanses. An impassable mountain range might be what

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="61" id="2635614"] [quote]I will be content when the AI learns: -during a game, so that the AI analyzes my Strategies&Tactics and adapts, so that I have to adapt to the AI's adaptations. -from game to game, so that the AI's game continually improves the more games it plays -- just like player's game will (or should...). To quote a Korean friend "If you have dream then you have future".[/quote] That's like saying yo

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="51" id="2635220"] Raven said: A year from now, the AI in Elemental will be mind boggling good. I don't think we'll have anything at all to fear in the AI department. Strager said: Your a lot more optimistic than I am.... Tormy- said: Actually I agree with Raven. [/quote]I will be content when the AI learns: -during a game, so that the AI analyzes my Strategies&Tactics and adapts, so that I have to adapt to the AI's adaptations.

Here's another radical idea... At it currently stands researching one line becomes progressively harder (the more you know about something the harder it is to learn even more). This encourages folks to generalize -- stop pursuing one tech path to acquire others while they wait for their research capacity to increase enough to go deeper in their preferred tech path. Thus we end up with players having a more similar, generalized tech pathing. What if research got pro

So while an AI might not 'learn' during a game, it would be possible to slowly increase its 'intelligence' by changing this file, thus approximating 'learning'? Obviously starting money can't change after the game starts, but we can change (either by turn number or by some triggers such as AI or the player reaching some level of tech and/or spell research, or some other measure): -the points the AI Sovs have -add in at some point, or increase the use of, AI Sovs using

nm :)

[quote who="wilebill" reply="16" id="2633675"]But I played, if only for a few minutes, SpaceWar on a DEC PDP something, in the Fall of 1965 at MIT. In those days the pocket calculator had not yet been invented and we all carried slide rules. [/quote]Hey, someone a few years older than me! I kinda remember SpaceWar but never played it. And yeah, we used sliderules even in senior year HS AP math -- a 6' one hung over the chalkboard. Remember fountain pens in grade school,

[quote who="MagicwillNZ" reply="43" id="2633508"]...Since graduating I've dropped out of contact with *all* of my old friends. ...[/quote]One answer is the internet. Even tho scattered across the country, and several decades since the old all-day gamefests and (later on) LAN parties, it's pretty easy to use a voice program like Ventrilo to get together with old friends and connect for games. If some get together and rent a server or start one on an old computer it's even better.</

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="4" id="2633654"]In Elemental, in my testing of pre-beta 2, there's a real question of whether you necessarily need to build a city right away because the NPCs are pretty important.[/quote]It still begs the question of, once you do build cities, whether different build orders/strategies will be viable. Second, how does one recruit champions that aren't in your 'territory'? Anyone? I never found a way, and only could recruit those in my borders.</

[quote who="Stmorpheus" reply="19" id="2632980"]the problem with it not being a year though is, if you got married and had a child, without it being 1 year per turn it you take a while for them to grow up. if 1 turn equaled 1 season passing that would be 4 turns for a year. it would take 80 turns for you child to grow up to be usable. so i dunno, to many continuity issues may occur.[/quote]My beta games, crashes willing, easily reach 1000+ turns and I'm in what I'm guessing

Between the fun of playing the beta game (so far) and the fun of playing the forum beta-tester 'game', pre-purchasing last Sept. was one of my better game buying decisions. Odds are you'll be glad you jumped into the beta now.

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="304" id="2633048"] ...but imo a real turn based or tile/turn based system works better in certain games. I think that it is the way to go in a real fantasy TBS game. [Ex.: AoW2-SM or MoM][/quote]You're arguing that you think chocolate cake is 'better' than steak. It's just personal preference. Saying you prefer one TBS method and discussing their relative merits is fine, but saying one is 'better' for Elemental -- when we haven't even seen the tac

Zork is old?!?! Kids these days... ;)

If a 'turn' is a year then it's hard to envision battles lasting >1 turn. That doesn't preclude 'reinforcements' however, which is what I think is the main gist of what folks are proposing (tho I could be wrong...). Reinforcements would arrive later because either they are too far distant to arrive at battles start but close enough to arrive before battle's end, or because they're deliberately held back for tactical reasons. Squad Leader made good use of reinforcements in

Essence should be 'special'. It should do things 1-that can't otherwise be done (like Demiansky's Well of Life ) 2-that can be otherwise done but done in a 'special' way (like Magic Items) Demainsky provides good examples of #1, as did <a id="ctl00__Content__LinkAuthor" title="Click author name for more options." onclick="Sd.Menus.showMenu('postAuthorMenu');" href="https://forums

[quote who="John_Hughes" reply="283" id="2632433"]"Heck, I'd kick in another $5 for simultaneous turn TBS at release. " I am not a big Modder type Nick, but I would absolutely join a Team after launch to see if a Sim-Turn Mod could be done. It seems we may even be able to recruit the Boss Man. He has even stated that he thinks, possibly, a WEGO Mod might be worthy of his efforts as well.[/quote]Well, given my programming skills -- self-taught BASIC on the Commodore 64

[quote who="Myles" reply="449" id="2632401"] ...No unit stacking will be very interesting, but removing tech trading completely is plain stupid. Why not make it a choice like in other games? Religion didn't have much of an effect, so meh, but didn't Beyond the Sword have unique leader traits already?...[/quote]Maybe they removed tech trading/etc. so they can add it back in in an expansion... or sell it as DLC. And removing religion may be to 'not offend' the masses (PC for the PC