Rabenhoff

[quote]There's a reason why the car analogies are so far fetched [/quote] So even if my analogy fails in your opinion ... does this make the point of the whole story invalid? That people should not sell unfished or broken products? And that if they do so, they and not their product is naturally the focus of peoples' anger? I dont's think so. And especially not, when I was told "pre-purchase" that the product is or will be fine. Telling people that they are booking a trip on an

[quote]There's a fine line between flaming the game, and flaming Stardock.[/quote] Let me answer you with a far fetched example: Imagine you would buy a new car at your local Volkswagen or Ford-dealer. After driving off the parking lot you realize that there is some issue with the steering wheel and that the engine overheats very quickly [... so something like an unpolished UI and a memory leak.] Confronting the salesman with this he answers you "Oh

I think one of the main reasons for a this bad blood around here is basically the fact, that Stardock claimed Elemental to be ready on the release day (i.e. the 24th of August) ... I'm not counting those two days before with all this broken street-date issues. They said the game is finished and that is great and fun to play. And they also publicly still continue to do so, looking at the current advertisements. And lets face it, this did not reflect the game in its release (and to some

Being of the opinion that its every customers right to complain I would like to refrain from issuing a general comment on the basic content apart from saying that the opinion is presented in a very clear and eloquent way. Thumbs up for the form even if - somehow masochistically enjoying this participation in the game's GAMMA-testing - I might disagree on some points. But that's just normal. On one thing however you're a 100% right: [quote]I especially don't enjoy explaining ha

Good to see, that they are at least aware of the problem ... even if they didn't show it in any of the threads on this topic or the general bug list. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

On every savegame? Then they would research this tech quite often ... as I also have to reload frequently due to crashes and in nearly every case observe the odd one or two new shards. And it happens even during the campaign, where nobody researches anything. Rabenhoff EDIT The timing also fits the "on reloads" explanation too well. Its not on every other odd turn, that you observe a new shard. No, its always right after a reload. And I scan my territory quite t

Unfortunately nobody from Stardock has so far confirmed this "new shards on reloads" bugs or included it in one of their public "things to patch" list. And this worries me quite a bit ... Why? Because with performance issues on other things I can mostly live. Use quicksaves intelligently and crashes largely don't concern you (apart from wasting your time). But when the game gets more buggy and broken every time you load it ... that really makes my skin itch. Rabenhoff

[quote]# Half Broken path finding: when I click to move a unit with two moves left two tiles away, there is only three tiles to choose for the intermediate tile. If there is two empty tiles and one forest, it seem like the AI will always choose to pass through the forest, making it a two turns move... # Hard to spot forest tiles: Some of the forest tiles are really difficult to spot as such. Sometimes, you have to either zoom in or out to the cloth map to be able to see that there are 3

After searching this forum with a similiar question in my mind, I finally was able to upload my avatar at https://www.joeuser.com/ . Apparently this is a Stardock owned blogging site that shares accounts with impulse ... so you're already registered there. And believe it or not, for some reason uploading your avatar on this site works in contrast to elementalgame.com . Rabenhoff </p

[quote]Make sure you set the 'autosave delay' in the options to zero. Makes out of memory errors less painful, as you lose next to no progress by starting the game again and reloading the autosave(it autosaves every turn)[/quote] I would rather quicksave like hell, as in my experience certain things like freshly produced units seem to be missing after reloading an autosave. Rabenhoff

Thanks for the compiled list. But let's see what else I can remember ... and also thanks to all the people noticing stuff or just contributing in the links below: First the bugs and glichtes: Magic Shards Effects & Shard Spawn on Reload - Magic Shards, which aren't currently having any effect on magic, seem to spawn upon reloading a savegame, thus piece by piece flooding the world. Especially a problem if shards should start to affect magic in

[quote]Raben: That's easily avoidable by making it a very limited grouping. i.e. you can group 2 squads with 1 caravan. Also if you tie them completely to the caravan, just like you can't just shift a caravan to another city, you have to disband it, so too would you have to disband the squad in order to remove it.[/quote] Yes, maybe. But I'm wondering whether I would ever commit my troops in such a way without any hope of ever seeing them again? It just takes away to many options. I t

Very nice post and quite a few good suggestion. However I have that I don't like so much. Not per se, but its exploitable: [quote]Here's my solution: Let us group units with them. If we could build a couple of squads, move them to the Caravan that was already doing a route, and they would join the Caravan's group and allow us to forget about it (and thusly protect it in combat), it would be a far greater irritation to the end user, and thusly more fun.[/quote] I already have t

Had the same bug with an enemy sovereign. He started only a few tiles away from me and I pretty immediately went to war with him, took his city, killed his spouse and engaged him in open combat. Tactical battle went fine but he escaped with one remaining hitpoint [@ Stardock: By the way, thanks for this rater intelligent behaviour by the AI.] Then the bug started. I persued him quite a few turns. If I choose auto-combat, he lost one HP but was pretty alive afterwards, if I fought manu

[quote]They aren't healing if you reload the game, but they do heal if you wait to save and quit until the proper number is back (even if the proper number isn't fully healed).[/quote] If would love to do that, but unfortunately I very seldom quit on my own. Either the game crashes or it tells me that "its time to quit or the game will crash" by stopping the music, sound effects and the like. So basically the game quits itself. Rabenhoff

Morale is one of the big mysteries for me in this game. So far the only things I have noticed are: a ) The side with the highest combat rating seems to gain morale per turn, the one with the lower rating loses points. The difference also seems to be dependent on how large the difference is. b ) Defenders seem to loose morale at a slower rate if outnumbered ... but maybe just my imagination. <p style="p

[quote]But there is a spell to turn it directly into a mountain, then lower it and the forrest is gone.[/quote] That's basically what I meant. *grins* Rabenhoff

Yes, the system was apparently changed to an additive one on the last day. On the 22nd Brad Wardell still said that "we mulitply them [i.e. the bonuses] in Elemental and have throughout the beta", but right now additon fits what I see in-game. Rabenhoff

Or maybe raising the land and then lowering it again if "Blistering Sands" does not work?

Even if I have for myself decided to stick with the current Gamma-Version of the game, as I call it being not Beta and not Final, the refund policy at least restores some of the trust that Stardock had lost due to the (too) early release of Elemental. Well, lets hope the people at Stardock can turn this thing around and help the game to shine and live up to its inherent vast potential. Rabenhoff

They probably wouldn't even have to balance it out. "Going additive" was a last day change as Mr. Wardell's comment of "we're all multiplication" dates from the 22nd of August. And I don't know how much balancing they could have done in the half a day tops they had after changing the system to addition. So I think its fair to assume that the basic numbers stayed the same to a large degree. Rabenhoff

Maybe I should also present a way to limit city spam as well? So be it. I will again take the US during their western expansion as an example. All the people moving westward basically did not settle in the east. Simple as that, probably even too simplistic ... but well. Why not transfer something like that to 4x games. Make the growth of cities interdependent, while at the same time offering big incentives for a metropolis style city. If your expanding your borders, claiming new territ

I agree, that the current system does not reward bigger and older cities to a sufficient degree. You indeed only need one and the rest offers only a marginal benefit in the form of another multiplier ... if the city produces gold or research points. However, I also have a strong negative opinion to some aspects that are commonly used to avoid city spam, some of your suggestions in particular or city spam avoidance at all cost in general. Let me explain: <p style="padding-left: 30

[quote]on the other hand, it's easy enough to just heal the stack if they do take damage from a counter attack.[/quote] Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's not the problem. Its a bug and a serious one at that. Especially combined with all the other reloading issues and the current high probability of crashes and thus forced reloads. I has to go soon despite whatever inconvenient workaround may exist out there. Defending the guys at Stardock is nice (and to some degree they als

[quote]Sleep deprivation and crunch time do horrible things for common sense.[/quote] Truer words have never been spoken. But I also wonder, why nobody else playing a Fallen faction had noticed and reported something so apparently broken up to this point. Or maybe those cheeky Fallen-playing fellows actually enjoy this unfair advantage over us righteous Kingdom lovers. *evil grin*