Eudamon

Fruitful - You can have more than just 4 children. This is the trait for people who like to play long-term games. If both the Sovereign and his/her mate have this trait you can expect them to have a small army of powerful brats. Infused with - The character is more than a simple channeler. He has tapped into the element itself, taking on properties of it. The more Shards his (or her) kingdom/empire controls, the more powerful the effect will be. The in

Problem: The AI doesn't know the size of other Players cities. Solution: (Since this is a game about magic) New Spell: Scry City - this spell allows the caster to gain information about any city Counterspell 1: Cloak City. This makes Scry City more difficult - if you add extra mana you can completely block the spell. Of course, a cloaked city is probably rather important, so the AI might decide to attack it with a large amount of troops. Counterspell 2: City Illusion -

Heroes should also lose their gear when being killed in dungeons or lairs. So if you have some ultra powerful dragon guarding some gold you can have a growing pile of nice loot that all the heroes (yours and the other Soverreigns) have lost.

I am heavily stealing here from a certain work of fantasy fiction. Just so you know. I also have mentioned it a few times, but only here and there. In the Vlad Taltos empire everybody can do sorcery by linking to the Great Orb. The Great Orb is a major (seriously major) artefact created by the empress. People still have to learn sorcery, but they can tap into the orb for power. Most use it for simple things like cleaning the street. I would suggest a similar system. Every unit

I would suggest the following - each caster has their own mana. They can use this (if they have any). The mana from the shards needs to be collected first in some kind of building or artefact. So, your capital city build the Orb of Power, and the mana gets collected in it. Casters can then be imbued, that is linked to the orb. All magical maintenance is taken from the orb first. Each caster can drain mana from the Orb, dependin on some stat (like Wisdon). Within the Area of Influence

I shall talk about another great game I had hoped would be paid homage to - Alpha Centauri In Alpha Centauri you also have the ability to change the world you live in. You can raise land, you can lower it. You can terraform. You can raise some mountains and change weather patterns that way, causing your enemies (or opponents, or just neighbours) to endure a drought. In Elemental you start with such powerful spells - but why ? Just to make space for your city ? In Alpha Centaur

I find all the Sovereigns (not just mine) quite similar. There is not one Earth Master, and one Fire Master, and one Master of Evil Death Magic. Imagine this: instead of just one book you can choose up to 5. Each of these books acts like a shard - spells become more powerful and useful for the caster. BUT (big but) this only applies to the Sov - other casters and children do not get the benefit. Or maybe rather than spell books they are internal shards. And of course there are

I created a spell called "Ultimate Chain Lightning", which is like the normal Chain Lightning spell, but with a larger area. It's a level 7 spell, so I can't get it early, but then I can get past these boring fights against minor opponents quite quickly

Well, you don't need to go all Disney. How about the Voldemort Version. A Sovereign that gets killed can cast a ritual that reanimates him after death. There might be some drawbacks, like getting the Ugly Disadvantage, or diplomacy penalties for all good races, etc. Depending on the mana pumped into the ritual the return to (un)life could take some time. The Sovereign could be kept alive by some artefact, which could be stored in a city, or be protected by a hero or one of his

Totally worth it. GalCiv 2 is the reason I'm here. I played Elemental at a friends PC (until he got pissed off with me hogging the PC) and was disappointed with it. However, this game is from the people who brought us GalCiv 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire, and I hope that Stardock will take a leaf or two from GalCiv 2. It's epic. Totally Epic gameplay. Once people compare Elemental favourably to GalCiv 2 I will buy the game. And the expansions.

There is a law in Great Britain (us Brits don't throw anything away) that regulates market places. A market place must be AT LEAST as far away from any other market place as a donkey can travel in one day. This was to prevent hundreds of markets popping up and ruining each other. Also, having a market was, of course, a priviledge for a town. In Elemental we have all those tech trees including civics. There is nothing wrong with having a few hundred tiny villages, outposts (like, one f

In GalCiv2 I always upped the numbers for fleets. I had huge fleets of hundreds of ships, and so did the enemy (although the AI didn't really excel at fleet building). It would be nice if you could do the same in elemental. Also, I really loved the fleet battles in GalCiv2. It's a bit disappointing not to be able to see battles being played out when you choose auto battle. It would be nice to switch between cinematic (long and slow) and just the numbers thing you have now.

Also, they could be food for my zombie hordes.

Ditto

What I am missing so far is the possibility to bringing the world back to a glorious magical society. You can build stuff, but it is not the Magical Kingdom I wish for, nor the Empire. I would like to have floating castles or whole floating cities - which use up mana every round. Also, back in the olden times everybody could use magic. I would like to return to this state - perhaps by creating a magical artefact, like The Orb of Power, which grants every citizen access to some

I would like mods that let me set up my own societies. I really loved how it was handled in Galactic Civilizations 2 and Alpha Centauri. I am sorry, Brad, but for me Galactic Civilizations 2 is still the greatest game you ever produced.

I think Sovereigns should be immortal - they do not age. That should compensate for their wimpy stats - they have forever to get up to level 300. Everybody else, though, spouses, children, champions, have a best by date. They will grow old and feeble and die. You could have a spell to store your best champions for when you need them. Like Merlin did with Arthur. Cryofreeze Champion. I also agree with the idea of succession. Just because I blow up the main city with the

The first 4x game had roads. Civilization had pioneers that could build roads. MoM let you build roads (and enchant them) What do I want to do when I play Elemental ? Okay, I want to be the most powerful magic user in the world, but I also want to create a kingdom or an empire that can be described as truly awesome. Not just a few cities, but a fully working kingdom or empire. An Empire ! For that it would be nice to be able to build roads. Yes, we have

Anyone familiar with the Elder Scrolls will be familiar with the concept of creating your own spells. You need the right spell books, maybe even access to the right shards, you put in your research and presto, you get the spells you think you might need. This could take time, too, but, with everything you practice, you should get better at your stock spells the more often you cast them. Fireball might not be an impressive spell, but once you got it down pat you can cast it faster, mor

Maps with mountains aren't a problem. It's the useless water, that is created. As was said before, the land looks like a giant worm. I would love to see an epic game with a map the same size as GalCiv 2. Now that was great. With far, far away races. I don't mind the water as much - it would be nice if you could actually DO something. You can raise mountains and flatten the land. Why can't I turn the water into ice and hurl it against my enemies ? And

In MoM you could create magical artefacts. Now, in Elemental you can create magic armor and stuff, and I would hate to see my Champion be killed and his stuff taken. If his stuff is taken and then used against me, I would hate that even more. I would want it back. If you could create sufficiently powerful Artefacts (I am still hoping it will be included at some point) you could have all factions wanting it - so One Little Ring could be the cause of a huge war. And if th

I truly enjoy Elemental, but Master of Magic was a much better game. And this is despite the (from todays perspective) really primitive graphics, the limit of 32000 for anything (the game would go into negative numbers if you accumulated too much) and the really small size. One of the best things of MoM was the ability to cast spells. A vast variety of spells, and truly game changing ones. Who doesn't remember fondly the grand spell of undead that turned any fallen soldier into a skel