UmbralAngel

[quote]Brad went even as far as suggesting one user to wait for a demo, next time. Well of course if one was released before the game, we could've tried that, instead of trusting the advertising, the screenshots, the feature list and the MoM hype.[/quote] I was able to wait for the demo (i.e. still waiting) and i have plenty of money to spend on video games. Why do people get so caught up and pre-order/buy games on release day. I will admit that I've bought a game by mistake o

Correction... we need both, OR and AND, not just one or the other!

You are also free to send the extra copy it to someone else willing to pay the expensive UK post

I think the real question will be... which will be easier... modding Elemental to be more like Civ 5, or modding Civ 5 to be more like Elemental...

Expansion... DLC... patch... the lines are blurry i don't think its any form of trickery or false advertising to call something an expansion if its not a huge amount of new content. In the end you will decide to buy it based on 2 things: Price and Content. Unless you are a casual gamer in which case you will go "oooo shiny! gimme gimme!" Are you seriously going to boycott the expansion because of what the devs call it? Anyways after I play the demo I will probably buy the game before

Awww... does that mean that the demo is going to be delayed until sometime in october? Oh well...

I think that 30 pounds is a fair price based on the conversion rate that google gave me from USD. However, I do also believe that its not a good idea to charge more than civilization 5, they should lower the price to match Civ 5. You always have the option of buying the US version from Amazon for ~$30 and shipping it to yourself for another $10 lets say. This would get you down to the 25-27 pound range i believe.

While this game may be in the same spirit as MoM, it is not an heir. If anything it is a bastard child that is looked down upon by the royal family, but found a loving home amongst a humble middle class family. This child will never reach the glory of being one of the best 4x games ever (according to MoM fans). Why? Because Stardock doesn't make the same kind of games that Simtex does. The same differences between MoO and Gal Civ apply similarly to MoM vs E:WoM. The gameplay is simila

I would just venture a guess that you could go delete them from the XML files. However, this may screw over the AI... i dunno if you are interested in modding...

The problem is that there is no complex actions available to the AI... if the AI has melee units and no archers what should it do except charge? The only thing it could do is wait 2 spaces away from the Player and skip its turn until the player moves into range. Is that fun to play against? Obviously the AI needs to avoid battles where it has the wrong unit composition, but that requires more changes. Without those changes you could spend the whole game chasing around AI stacks

Every TBS i have ever played had a visual indication of where your unit has queued up moves. I haven't played Elemental yet, but hopefully i can add it to the list when patch 1.1 comes out...

I think you should be able to customize your role using the RPG system. You can split your points into your sovereign (also champions) among these general paths: a) spell caster b ) warrior (good at killing stuff) c) military leader (gives a bonus to allied units in the same stack) d) financial leader (gives a bonus to the city/resource he is standing in, maybe some smaller global bonuses) e) explorer (bonus vs monsters, bonus to quest rew

It would be cool if they made it so that familiars could cast spells but be limited to to level 1 & 2 spells or something so that they don't get to strong. In fact, I think that in general heroes should have to put points into something to let them cast higher level spells...

I think that it should be feasible to go all in 1 tech branch or to spread out evenly. The key is to make it so that you can get 50% tech in every branch in the same time it takes you to max out 1 branch. Also plan it out so that you can't max out more than 2 or 3 branches before the game ends (for an average length game). The main balance point is to make all techs equally appealing, using pro/con system.

I think that having to many features/options isn't a problem for a well written AI. I am writing an AI for a hybrid RTS/TBS right now and my game is fairly complex, its very similar to the layout of Elemental's combat system. The key to writing a good AI for a game where the AI behaves like a player, is to write the AI as if it is a human being, instead of a machine. Personalities, impulses, desires, strategies, all of these should be the core of the AI, and while doing optimizations and calc

if someone has an extra copy they don't want... i can pay for shipping [e digicons]:dog:[/e]

I want this! This would make the game much much cooler!

As soon as I can edit enough stuff to make the game very similar (i.e. identical) to MoM I am buying Elemental for sure... though the demo will probably be enough to convince me :D

I think the key is to balance the value the other stuff you can buy. If getting all of the spell books is too strong, then they should make it so that buying all the books costs all of your points, and in consequence your Sovereign becomes bad at everything except having a diverse range of spells. I think the key is making alternative options just as appealing, for example making the background you choose more important. Also, when you put points at the start of the game, it should be

One great strategic tool in a combat system is the rock/paper/scissors style balance. Now, I HATE pure X beats Y beats Z systems. Hard counters break the game and reduce it to a very shallow level of strategy. What you want to do is put in soft counters that allow a unit that is weaker or has less experience to kill a stronger or more experienced unit based on equipment. For example, units with mounts getting a damage bonus against non-mounted units, unless those units have spears. Units with

Corpses left behind makes stuff like Resurrection spells and create undead spells much easier to mod. Also abilities where corpses can be eaten for health/essence would be cool.

One thing people might want is an underground cave system where there are resources and tunnels on a piece of the world that you cant get to normally. I would assume that you can't just have multiple layers to the overworld map, so you would have to cut off some on the sides and put walls to make sure you cant cross from the "underworld" to the "overworld". I know that once 1.1 comes out I am going to probably buy the game and make a MoM mod that imports many features i

A good alternative to actually trading 1 tech for another with the AI is adding research points to tributes. So you can demand a weaker nation gives you 1 pt of research / turn for 20 turns. Note they don't lose anything, they are just sharing their research with you. You can also have mutual treaties with another player where you pool together your research. I think there should be limits like you can only give 25% of your total research/turn max or else it could b

I think they should give you an option: Research a completely random technology for less research point cost Or choose a technology to get researched for a higher research point cost. An alternative way to do this that makes more sense is that every time you choose what you get instead of random, it increases the cost of research for everything else you research afterward (aka you sacrificed creativity to pursue a particular goal, now you are stuck in that frame of tho

I would like to point out that half the fun for some people (i.e. myself) is optimization in tactical combat. That is why I have sunk dozens of hours into King's Bounty, as it challenges me to figure out how to win a battle taking little or no casualties. Eventually I get good enough at a game to lose only one or two units over the course of the entire game. It is lots of fun to have a "no man left behind" policy and provides a nice challenge. In age of wonders I did a similar tactic of makin