Mistwraithe

I despise the weird two tier economy that FE has (and WoM had). It is crazy to me that cities produce so little compared to the value of champion equipment and loot. Don't get me wrong, I think it is cool that loot is worthwhile. But something a bit closer to the balance MoM had would be good so that you at least THOUGHT about the possibility of having taxes above 0%. Right now a lair is worth so much more than your empire can possibly produce that you don't bother. An

I disagree. Multiple ways of doing things does not equal complexity. For example having only one difficult or obscure way of doing something is much worse than having two easy and comlementary ways to do something. I'm not saying that my example describes the item vault situation perfectly but I see elements of it. I also think making something take less clicks generally tends to make it less complex but it is quite possible to design counter examples.

I don't have enough experience with the masterquest to comment on that. However I am posting because I wanted to say that I think the master shard idea (#2) is a really good idea. It provides a target point for AI aggression and sets up a good amount of tension for those final 25 turns as you try to defend the shard (I am assuming that the rival sovereigns will all gang up on the master spell caster, unless perhaps they are allied with you?). On the other ha

[quote who="Sythion" reply="14" id="3087365"]So it's a question of resources and clutter. Do we need another mechanic that adds to the complexity of the game? Does it provide enough of a benefit to dedicate resources to implementing? For the benefit of cutting down on a bit of micro (not that much, in my opinion), my answer is becoming a more resounding "no" the more I think about it.[/quote] Depends on your definition of complexity of the game. If you mean complexity of coding an

[quote who="luketan" reply="90" id="3085102"]But it has being stated several times that FE is Derek's vision and while it is foolish of course to say it's all him and everyone else is not lifting a finger, but given the differences between EWOM and the typical SD game, I would be shocked if the major difference isn't him. [/quote] Well said. Producing a computer game these days is most definitely a team effort BUT I too feel that Derek has had a huge influence in bringing

There needs to be someway to transport items between heroes without having to walk them to each other. Self evident really, simply to avoid the potentially severe nuisance factor. Of course there should also be some sort of cost for this. I like the idea of a magic item vault like MoM. However I also like the idea of it being a unique building (ie only 1 per faction) which has to be built, probably with relatively low tech requirements and possibly some other benefits to make it fairl

Good post. It should be possible to build troops that are fairly resistant to magic BUT it should come at a cost such that the magic resistant troops are either noticably weaker than normal troops or sufficiently expensive that it is difficult to field a large number of them. Either way would make magic resistant troops able to counter a strong magic faction but fall to an equivalant investment in normal troops.

Excellent news about the beta. The changes being made suggest the FE team isn't afraid to consider everything objectively (eg dropping caravans) which gives me great hope that they will really nail this game.

What's wrong with the AI building 5 stacks of doom (assuming it tried one unsuccessfully) and attacking with them one after another? Or are you looking at a situation where the defender can beat up the best stack the AI can throw at them without taking damage? If so then surely the defender deserves to be unbeatable (until the AI drops a volcano on them anyway ;-).

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="9" id="3082318"]As a reminder, this is a MOM tactical battle: Reduced 70%Original 848 x 523 Small maps, no obstacles, no FOW, battles over quickly. Which is what we're going for as well. [/quote] Not true, the bumps in your screenshot slow walking troops. There are also roads and walls which affect movement and tactics. And perhaps most importantly movement speed is quite slow in the MoM tactical combat whic

It could work. Something certainly needs to be done, it is ludicrous how expensive fairly basic equipment is relative to the economic output of cities. This completely breaks immersion in the game.

All sounds good. I don't see any mention of rebalancing gildar costs of equipment though. As brought up by Crass_Monkey in his long 0.77 feedback thread it is crazy how much money basic equipment for heroes costs relative to the economic output of a town. To quote my own comments from that thread: Nothing spoils immersion like your thriving capital producing a +5 gildar per turn profit and needing to spend 500 gold to buy some basic armour for your hero! It needs t

Very good post crass_monkey. One of the most important things to me is the two tier economy. Nothing spoils immersion like your thriving capital producing a +5 gildar per turn profit and needing to spend 500 gold to buy some basic armour for your hero! This really, really needs fixing, it is just stupid. It needs to be setup so that heroes can use mundane items (ie non magical weapons/armour) but to really get ahead they want magical equipment. Then by all means

I think any hero with an ability which benefits either a city or your empire (ie + research, etc) should gain half way decent amounts of experience every turn if they are in a city. After all that hero has a trait which makes them good at doing civilization type stuff, they should be able to benefit from actually doing it!

[quote who="Sythion" reply="26" id="3074751"]If you were 15 and had never played a TBS before, and all your friends agreed with you, E:WoM would be just as sweet as MoM was.[/quote] I'm not sure what you are trying to say. If you are saying that I would like WoM if it was the only TBS ever made, then I have to agree, for the same reason that someone dying from dehydration will accept a drink of even brackish water. But if you are trying to say that I would have been just a

5, 8 and 13

I revisited MoM six months ago after last playing it back in the 90s. I found it almost as addictive and fun as I used to, and there were enough tradeoffs on how to use your resources to make it feel like you were playing the game rather than just going through the motions. Having said that there is no question that a top modern game like Civilization 4 has much more tautly balanced mechanics and choices on how to use scarce resources. The problem with WoM was that it lacked both the

Excellent post and discussion. FE has made huge strides forward from WoM in making a fun game but the mechanics still aren't as balanced as MoM. And yes, I realise MoM had huge imbalances within it which meant some options weren't as good as they could be (although the community patches have helped) but there were so many options that there were often multiple good choices. And in any case I'm primarily talking about balance of the mechanics.

[quote who="Mtrixis" reply="13" id="3062998"]Kohan is the Best RTS Ever, so I'm kind of biased[/quote] Amen to that, Kohan is a king amongst serfs! A few thoughts about the current discussion though: - High building maintenance costs are NOT fun. It is no fun at all to research a tech which gives a new building and then realise that it doesn't make sense to build it in any of your cities. - Being able to build all buildings in all cities

[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="13" id="3056994"]The forums page looks jacked up in my browser FF3.6 Reduced 41%Original 1440 x 860[/quote] Ditto, forums are stuffed, also with Firefox 3.6.25. Sure I probably should be on a newer version but it just goes to show that some of us aren't yet. Since the forums are linked to from the main Elemental game website it is something that the Stardock web developers should probably look into. I kn

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="87" id="3050371"]A lot of the backlash of MOO3 wasn't just that it had a rocky launch but because it was so different from MOO2. And while "Internet people" will remember WOM's launch problems, the vast bulk of units sold were sold long after its problems were resolved and have no idea that there was ever a problem at the launch. And so if those people, the people happy with WOM, would get ticked if FE were treated as a sequel to WOM because the gamep

If you are wedded to the Elemental name (which I can totally understand) then I think Elemental 2: Fallen Enchantress is a no brainer. I really can't see any good arguments against adding the 2 from a sales point of view. You want to make it very clear that FE is more than just an expansion or stand alone expansion to WoM. I am certain that calling it Elemental 2: FE will increase sales relative to just Elemental: FE. While some have a good point that they look visually si

[quote who="C0LDsteel" reply="13" id="3048921"]So, forget balance. Give me a fun game that's epic in scope with lots of powerful magic, interesting choices to make, and lots of things to do and find over balance any day of the week.[/quote] I agree with what you say in general, but balance is still important. In fact balance is somewhat necessary in order to have interesting choices. If things are really out of balance then that quickly leads to most choices only having on

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="31" id="3033602"] I am obviously a big MOM fan but... Do you know anyone who has ever lost a game of Master of Magic? On any setting? MOM is a classic game but I don't think I've ever heard MOM, AI, and smart used together before. The AI didn't actually play the game in the sense I think you're thinking.[/quote] With the unofficial 'insecticide' patch the AI is actually halfway decent so long as you play o

Hard to disagree with any of that. I'm cautiously optimistic about FE based on what I've heard and that means I'm confident that FE will be a better game than WoM (regardless of how good or bad one thinks WoM is). That means I'm hoping it will be quite possible to be meh about WoM but ecstatic about FE. Time will tell!