Nenjin

Could try the "Blasting Sands" or whatever spell that destroys resource tiles. I don't know if works on roads. Or try fortifying over the area?

V 1.06 changed some spell names. "Blink" for Empire became "Spirit Walk." I don't know what the changes were on the kingdom side. But Empire gets Spirit Walk as default spell.

I'm not disagreing the AI is bad and that's a huge problem with respect to the kinds of things players and their units can do. Thing is, I'm not just assuming the AI is going to magically get better in a short period of time, and know that VMs just need to die immediately. I'm assuming the AI getting better is going to be a slow, iterative process. So rather than just rationalizing that the AI will be fixed at some point, they should make some very simple changes to ge

[quote]Bad testers waste more of the dev team's time but they aren't necessarily less tenacious or more forgiving.[/quote] Bad testers are bad. But I think getting a random tester means they're a lot less invested in your game than say...they guy who has been waiting on it for 2 years plus. A random tester will be quick to point out that, overall, they're not having fun. A fan tester, assuming they're not just there for early access, has more issues to overcome in getting tough but ho

[quote]That's pretty much the problem. Warfare creates extremely powerful units fairly quickly if you focus on it, which is why Vigilant Minion armies aren't invincible , they simply can't take on powerful units. Vigilant Minions are viable as a rush strategy, not in the long-term. Perhaps I should say, Vigilant Minions can't take on powerful units but they'll always butcher the AI.[/quote] If this was a MP thread, or if MP was even relevant at this point, I'd agree.</

I've yet to have an unhired hero attack my city. They threaten it all the time, but never do. Also, one more reason to dislike Janusk :P

[quote]Anyway, no Vigilant Minion is going to cast more than two Arcane Dooms in a single battle, and having 7 before offspring (who take a looong time to mature) is an awful stretch.[/quote] Wrong. Leveled to 5, they have 10/10 mana. Unless you're doing the same thing, (which you're not, since this is the AI we're talking about) they'll get to cast three in one battle. Two the first round, one the second. On round 3, your foot troops will finally get to attack. As for makin

[quote]And you have the option to get your money back, and move on. It's not like you are stuck with the game if it is not what you want.[/quote] No, I'm enjoying the game enough I'm going to keep it and let them keep their money. Way to completely dodge the criticism though. Gotta love fan boys. [quote]In house and other testing is nice but you can never anticipate the compatibility issues and the sheer creativity in breaking a game when you have thousands of... test

If I had to guess, I would say those things are still floating around internally at SD, but have many issues to get worked out. (Like all the clipping...makes all the unit poses look awkward if they've got big extravagant pieces on.)

[quote]30 hp off a unit with at least 180 hp[/quote] Try 60 damage in round 1, and 30 damage in round 2. Or 80, and 40. Or 100, and 50. Or 120 and 60. Or 140 and 70. There's no effective cap, and the units themselves get more mana as they level, that's why they're problematic. And you seem to ignore the resources necessary on the opponents end required to survive an attack like that. The only reason the AI is pulling it off at all is becau

One thing that sucks is, as I said, you get no advantage for having an enclosed resource other than your city has to be attacked for the enemy to destroy that improvement. But let's be realistic. A) There's no resource that valuable that you'd want or need to go through a whole city just to get to it. Destroying or capturing a city would also be more valuable in the first place. Because obviously you're not going to claim that resource from the enemy without dealing with the c

[quote] Yeah, that's absolutely not true. Even a simple 9 man zealot team with clubs (which you should be able to build by time you research Vigilant Minion) has 90 hp and 18 attack at a cost of 36 gold. Ten hp off of that is nothing, and you are very very unlikely to have more than a couple of Vigilant Minions that early. As soon as your enemy has raids of shock troopers, which comes 2 techs later at 6 techs into conquest, you'll see 180 hp per unit from level one and as soon a

Having not read the thread, I just came to say.... Maybe a year ago, Elemental was billed as s Spore-like game where players created most of the game's content. Three months before release, all talk of that content network and player created content died off. That's right about the time I started paying attention to Elemental. So for a lot of us, we bought this game on the assumption it would be populated with professional content. If I had known that players w

Not when you x15 of it per army :P Then all it takes is one equal unit to yours and it gets crushed. Plus they don't cost anything like what elite-armed troops do. And considering the AI both doesn't build those atm, and cheats it's but off, the point is moot.

[quote]If I understand correctly, you are saying that I should forgive companies who make the same mistake again and again and again at launches with my money and time?[/quote] Do you need someone to tell you to tie your shoe when it's untied before you make your decision? I'm not saying I agree with you; this seems more like a chance for you to rant. Give them your money or don't, if you knew better, then you should be kicking yourself instead of ranting at S

If it's XP gained, then the xp rules go something like.... -Your sovereign always gets 50xp -Your heros may or may not get xp regardless of what they do. -Troops either get 5 or 15 xp, not related to enemy level or amount. I assume it's displaying xp gains, and none of that stuff is hooked up or processing correctly. I think it's tracking XP accurately internally though, for the most part.

They also, for better or for worse, lean heavily on how their games are perceived by gamers. WoW has a reputation as the McDonalds of MMOs now, but it got that way because Blizzard listened to what players thought and made adjustments until it found a sweet spot. I'm not saying Stardock doesn't do that, but the whole release gives the impression that there was no one listening to the critical voices that were saying "This is not the time, the game is not ready."

Thanks for explaining city tiles, that's been bugging me. So in most cases, it's better to work your way toward a resource than try to settle next to it, since you get no real advantage other than it's "protected" within your city. That seems like a very costly advantage to have, since there are far more improvements than tile space, and terrain can further reduce your building options.

[quote] It's in no worse shape than Empire: Total War , Hearts of Iron III , Star Trek Online , A ge of Empires III , or Operation Flashpoint when they were released . "[/quote] I disagree with him on that. Some of those games (Empire: TW) were more polished at release, particularly in how they delivered themselves to the player. Star Trek Online is a joke, AoE had adequate testing and polish and no

Probably Monday, next week some time at the latest.

They didn't transplant GalCiv 2's mechanics into Elemental. They could have, sure, but they decided to take the high road and start fresh, using what they knew from GalCiv 2 to guide them. If they'd just slapped GalCiv2 wholesale into WoM, that would have led its own problems. I expected the game to be more polished, and to be more thoughtful in some aspects (magic) than it is in its current state. (Technically I've had few problems other than the non-cloth map frame rates.) I expecte

[quote]As far as I know, you can only have ONE familiar summoned at any given time. I, at least, have never had more than one present at any given time, so for me it isn't really an issue.[/quote] One per caster. Considering you can make casters as long as you have essence, and you all four of your children are natural casters, and all summons are independent units, you can have....7? 8? Or more Vigilant Minions out, in one army, dealing tons of unavoidable, attack all enemies da

I think the idea was that, through your sovereign, real magic users are coming back into the world, the kind that aren't super limited like the channelers that remained after the cataclysm. At least that's my take on it, anyways. Your kids are eventually intended to overshadow your sovereign, at any rate. Not sure I like that though, I kind of like my sovereign to have the best abilities and some of the best stats.

It's more than a simple math problem. He could have problems using a keyboard and his criticisms on the game and the release as a whole are still valid. The attempt to discredit unfavorable opinions about the game, and implications that we should just uninstall rather than having our say and provide feedback to make a better game, is pretty insulting. It paints neither Stardock nor their fans in a good light. A more mature response would be to accept criticisms without trying to deride people

You do lose essence for Imbuing Champions. But it's easy to get back, and casters you make are almost as powerful as your sovereign. It's an easy way to make every army 3x as powerful.