SirPleb

I think that this hiring decision may well explain why Elemental was released in a condition which surprised almost everyone except some Stardock employees. I hugely applaud Brad for his post-release recognition that Stardock had blind spots pre-release and his acknowledgement that mistakes were made. Yet this hiring choice indicates to me that Brad has not yet figured out where things went wrong with Elemental. To me, Jon Shafer has demonstrated similar strengths and

This upgrade shows why I bought the game pre-release. When I bought the game I didn't know if the first version was going to be fun. The September release was worse than I'd considered might happen and I haven't played it much. But I didn't worry. I believed that Stardock would make things right. Stardock is the only company whose games I will buy before seeing user (not reviewer!) feedback post-release. Stardock (particularly Brad) have shown the ability to acknowledge mistakes and t

[quote] #1 It is NOT engaging enough. The UI, over the months, got so streamlined that there’s just not enough interaction between your Kingdom and you. There’s a lot to do but little game-provided direction to take you there. The pieces are there but the player is left to just “know”. That’s bad. #2 The UI requires far too many steps to do stuff. It just needs a lot of love still. [/quote] I hope that these issues become a p

[quote who="SavageBananaMan34" reply="1" id="2670215"]I think an advance wars style color overlay showing where your unit can move would be nice. [/quote] Good point. Some kind of visual highlighting of where the active unit/stack can move would be great! That would address most of the issues I had with movement; it would make learning a snap and would remain useful throughout the game. When grid lines aren't displayed, the corners of the reachable area hi

When I bring up the city improvement list panel it displays at the left bottom of the screen. Then when I hover the mouse over a potential improvement, a description of that improvement displays at the bottom right of the screen. This results in a lot of annoying head wagging back and forth from side to side of the screen. Suggestion: Pop up the description of the improvement immediately to the right of the city improvement list when the popup is just for preview purposes. (I.e. befor

Using the escape key closes some dialog panels, e.g. the city improvement list. It does not close other dialogs, e.g. the introduction "book" display at start of game, the research display. When there isn't a dialog active which the escape key will close, it brings up the options dialog. The worst behaviour is seen when the research dialog is on display. Hitting closes that and brings up the options dialog. Suggestion: Escape should always close the

I'm putting a few suggestions in one note because they are things I think can make it easier for a new player to learn the game mechanics. They are things which may not matter as much after someone is used to the interface. Beta3 is my first time in Elemental. I didn't read the manual or keyboard notes, just jumped in. Before making suggestions I want to say: Awesome! Much of the UI is intuitive and the graphics are wonderful. The extensive use of tooltips is great, makin

[quote who="fstkfstk" reply="27" id="2668635"]There is a lot of discussion noting that cheating AI's can be fun, but without the important caveat: They can't JUST be cheating. Every time you declare war in Civ4 the other side magically gets piles of units at the same tech level as you, regardless of where they were before. Its so blatant it takes all the fun out of things. But if the cheating is disguised and just looks like a common player strategy done very well th

[quote who="LikeTheWhirlwind" reply="156" id="2667584"]Don't take the "3 minute" thing so literally. All we mean is that we're aiming more for Master of Magic combat length rather than Rome Total War combat length, for example. We want you guys to feel in control, and for your tactical decisions to matter. What we don't want is for tactical combat to drag on while both sides "go through the motions". [/quote] Awesome! With those principles at the heart of it I t

[quote who="Raven X" reply="169" id="2667633"] Not at all, my friend. What people aren't understanding apparently is you can hit Auto Resolve in the Middle of a Battle if You want. This means you can control the battle long enough to make sure you're going to win without taking massive losses, THEN hit Auto Resolve so you don't have to "Mop Up". It's a choice given to the player. [/quote] I like to play games at settings hard enough that I don't know if they're winnable. Mor

[quote]ITEM #1: Making the sovereigns distinct from one another Making it so that each sovereign is very distinct in how they play is very important. The way we are going to do this is to make the Professions available and the Talents have far reaching (i.e. not simply “stat boosts”) effects. Thus far, we’ve struggled over which professions to have in the first place. ... However, we must make sure each of these races plays differently enough an

[quote who="Andorfiend" reply="393" id="2661128"] So.. you basically want them to make two entirely seperate games and sell them both to you for the same amount of money? That's ... a lot to ask for, I think. [/quote] I agree, that would be quite a lot to ask for. I think too much to ask for. What I'm hoping for is a strategic-emphasis game. The main point I was trying to make is that I think the developers would be making a mistake by aiming for a game which is great for al

[quote who="John_Hughes" reply="391" id="2661059"] [quote]On a related note, I think that defenders should almost always have a slight advantage (possibly more than slight due to terrain, walls, etc.) Given a situation where everything is equal (unit strength, inherent and strategic value of a tile, etc.) the balance should be such that it is not worthwhile to initiate combat. This delicate balance which slightly favors non-attack is one of the things which makes strategic play more s

[quote who="Andorfiend" reply="387" id="2660889"] As you noted yourself above however, you will be unable to resist using any option that might eek you out an advantage, so what the point? If you had an option during game setup to choose 'no tactical combat' would you choose it, even knowing there might be a battle later on in the game which you could win if it wasn't auto-resolved? [/quote] Right, I would not choose it. That's why I said that an option to auto-resolve comba

My first post here so I'll start with a quick intro. My favorite games to date are MoM and Civ3. I played Civ3 quite a bit and pushed its limits, including games published on CivFanatics such as the first published six way win and the first "Sid" level PTW win in the Hall of Fame. I've also enjoyed MOO, XCom, HOMM, and some others. I discovered this site recently and am excited about Elemental. I've long hoped to see a new strategy game which incorporates the great elements which were unique