maxlongstreet

I'm still waiting for UI love in two key areas - city management and characater movement. There really needs to be a cities screen where you can see and adjust what every city is building, rather than have to check in on each one individually. Out of city improvements like farms and mines should really be able to be built through the city screen like everything else. Regarding characters, there should be something that clearly highlights where a character can move to with his/

Thanks for being open and honest about everything, as always. Most of us don't really care about a disgreement on a forum, but I think what's important right now is that elements of the game that are rough - aspects of the UI, AI, display issues, etc. - get the polish/improvement that they deserve. The proof will be in what Elemental ends up as - Master of Magic is proof that if the game keeps getting love, what started as a bumpy ride can end up as a classic.

Demiansky, great post - I think if Frogboy can get beyond how upsetting it can be to see folks trashing your baby, and see the validity in what many people are saying, it will make him a better designer, both in improving Elemental and in future games. We all have our blind spots, and I think Frogboy's greatest strenth is perhaps his greatest weakness - he's a real gamer who makes games he personally finds fun. This is great for general game design/play decisions, but not so good for

Here's a neutral perspective on the PC Gamer Piece: --On the one hand, I haven't had the technical issues that the PC Gamer writer has had. So I wouldn't use the word 'disaster' to describe the lanuch at all. It's also important to remember that Master of Magic, the inspiration for this game that everyone gets nostalgiac about, was a buggy mess upon release, probably worse than Elemental in terms of stability. And since the game I've seen so far clearly has great potential, Star

Hmmn, I'll doublecheck, but I don't think this is the issue since I've gotten the option to use tactical combat against just one enemy - if the default was set above zero, this wouldn't happen. Also, to what Klaus said, I've lost these autoresolve battles too.

I didn't have this problem in the game I played pre-1.05 patch, but now in my latest games, sometimes I'm given the option of whether I want tactical combat, and sometimes I'm not; sometimes it just autoresolves.

[quote who="_Scooter_" reply="4" id="2730510"] One screen with everything every city is building would be hugely convenient I agree with this too, I just think we should have both. Info shouldn't be available only in a single place.[/quote] Agreed.

[quote who="_Scooter_" reply="2" id="2730461"]what buildings and/or units it is building Honestly, this should be visible from the main screen without doing anything. Civ learned how to do this. [/quote] Having it on the main screen would be nice, but I certainly don't want to be checking the main screen every turn at every city as my empire grows. One screen with everything every city is building would be hugely convenient - such a screen saved MOO2 from b

While I want to love this game for its ideas and scope, the AI is still not up to par for TBS games. Here is a list of some key issues with suggestions - it's by no means a comprehensive list. 1) City Management -- There needs to be an overall "Cities" screen where you can see what every city is doing at a glance - name, population, fighting units stationed there, economic stats, and most importantly, what buildings and/or units it is building . Being able to s

Ditto the original poster on these key points: -- not having a button for the next guy who can still move is enough to make one want to quit - it's hugely frustrating. -- building stuff like farms and mines outside the regular city building screen is just one huge, hairball. Props for people who figured out how to build a farm in the first 20 minutes. There are various other clumsy parts of the UI, but here's a big request I have: How about a city scree

I noticed this as well, but thought it was because you needed tech to get the leather.

It took me half an hour to figure this out myself. Besides farms, the same process applies to mines, lumber mills, harvesting shards, etc. This stuff should really be accessible through the city screen as well - hope that's part of the UI polish.

I'm heartened to hear that tactical battles in MP are being looked at for future updates. While special tactical battle scenarios may be fun, me and my friends would really love to see tactical battles as an option in the basic MP setup.

Frogboy, Without meaning to seem rude or entitled, I do think that we multiplayer fans are far more interested in options like tactical battles and full tech trees than we are in stuff like wizard duels. Multiplayer fans LIKE our games big, messy and klugy - even if you don't.

First off, thanks much for taking the time to talk about your decisions and reasons for making them for those of us with multiplayer questions and concerns. Consider this another vote for the option for tactical battles (not that we get a vote). I think as many different options as you can feasibly make available - be they tactical battles, random maps, full tech tree or whatever other things that might be fun - the better, in that different people want different things here, and the

I think having the option to play a full or streamlined version of multiplayer is something that everyone here could get behind.

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="20" id="2717401"] Quoting Twohawks, reply 15We need to keep in mind that the game was not intended at first to have MP.. Which, I think, is the right decision because the majority of people who play turn-based 4x strategy games play single player. You can't just take the single player experience and add multiplayer because that doesn't produce optimal gameplay (even though some people think this is what they want), and the last thing Stardock wants

Yeah, this is another thing to be concerned about - I didn't see the 'fixed maps' thing. Multiplayer Elemental shouldn't just be modeled after Starcraft (fast play and fixed maps). I do take some comfort from the phrase 'out of the box', which implies that full random maps may well be added in later.

Another vote for complex multiplayer. If I wanted dumbed down multiplayer, I could find it in a thousand other places.

The Gameshark writeup has me a bit bummed. For me, it's about the multi-player. I'm one of those guys who used to play 48 straight hours of hotseat MOO 2, and enjoy huge, hairy multi-player games with friends. Reading this, it seems clear that Brad doesn't really like multi-player in turn-based games - seems like he finds it too slow (compared to say Starcraft), which I can appreciate. What throws up alarms for me is this quote: "Some people imagine that multip

I for one am thrilled that realtime battles were scrapped - there's no way at all that I'd be buying this game if tactical battles were in real-time. There's ten thousand games with real time battles these days and almost none that are turn-based. I like to plan my moves and take my time. and Elemental was designed as a throwback strategy game - why would it need to be "improved" by having my decision making taken away from me? Auto-resolve is there if you want to plow through a big battle qu