random_target

It's not that I'm against a good campaign, in most games I enjoy the campaign they offer, sometimes more than the sandbox games. But regardless if we like or dislike campaigns, the issues Elemental has now (technical, balance and UI), effect both the sandbox AND the campaign. If these problems will be solved, and the options will be to give better and more flexible mods, improve multiplayer or invest in a campaign, then it will be a question of preferences. Unti

According to the lore and the game concept, there are many different ways to represent the sovereign in the game. All ways can be good, and all completely different: 1) Invisible ruler: The sovereign will not exist as a unit in the game. Instead, he will be represented with a building in the capital city, effect the game with global spells and research. This is done in the Civilization games, as well as MoM 2) "Weak" ruler.

[quote who="Redwind85" reply="15" id="2772343"]hehe - i always fee lbad marrying of daughters - im giving a ultra unit free to my potential enemies!! and they spawn even more ultra units! crazy! [/quote] Or worse in my case, I equipped my daughter with the strongest magical armor, intending her to be an escort caster with the stats she had. But then I married her, not thinking that it will remove her from my army just before I started invading [e digicons]:'([/

The information in the lore is not that detailed. I'm not sure if the channelers are supposed to be something new that just recently popped, or an ability that always existed but for some reason never used. But it does mention two things about the ability to channel magic: that it's a rare ability, and that it is the power that might restore the world. The part about being rare is implemented nicely in the game. It requires children or a special magic to

How about the ability to use a shard, permanently destroying it, to gain access to that spell book? It should be an action that only the sovereign can perform, takes a few turns, and probably requires a magic tech. The point of this suggestion is to prevent the player from learning new spell books when it is already clear the spells will be more powerful than normal. This way, it is possible to learn new elemental magic, but people who start with this book still

At least according to the lore, yes, that is more or less what is supposed to happen. Maybe a balance is required between the concept of terrain revival and the annoyance caused by dragging your sovereign around the world (things like long ranged magic, towers of restoration, magical imbued pioneers and results from certain quests), but I think it can be a good thing if the channelers play an integral part of the revival of civilization in this game.

"City spam" means that building a lot of cities gives you a significant advantage over players who didn't do the same. The emphasis of the city spam strategy is more on amount and less on quality or location. Specific to Elemental: Most cities depend on resources, so the best you can get with a randomly located city is only the buildings that give a static amount of resources (+1 gildar from merchant, etc.). That is not a lot, but it can be a big boost w

An alternative option: Only the channelers can turn a land to a fertile land (either by walking there or casting special spells), and making it possible for pioneers to build cities.

Which is why I said the idea should be delayed to see what advantages the heroes get over units. Since it's depth vs. complexity and loss of hero's advantages. The complexity is also an issue. With the current UI that gives you minimal information, it will be extremely annoying to memorize by heart what each city has, and where should you go to buy a specific item. I do think it's a good idea, but not for now. This idea depends too

I believe that this game WILL be worth the money, but with all the changes between versions, it's hard even to evaluate the game when every patch completely changes rules. I say wait and keep an eye on the journals and forums at least until the game stabilizes.

Excellent idea Certainly better than the default, which I'm not even sure I understand (why would an empire want deadlands?)

The main problem is that currently, one of the only real advantages heroes have over regular units, is their ability to adapt relatively quick to the best gear that the technology can offer. Forcing a hero (or worse, a group with heroes) to spend a lot of time between cities to restock, will take away this advantage. It's a great idea, but I fear this can only be thought of after we see more significant advantages of heroes.

A thought in the subject: When a sovereign dies, instead of "game over" the kingdom will split between the children (net necessarily an equal division), allowing the player to choose which child he will now control while the rest become NPC kingdoms. With force or diplomacy, the PC can reunite the kingdom, but it will demand time and effort. This will allow the game to continue after the main hero dies, but with a big penalty. To prevent an abuse

The random events I suggested can also somehow be influenced by the charisma of the leader, maybe by paying less political points for the reward or something like that. Whatever method of an actual use for diplomatic capital, I think it's obvious SOMETHING should be done. Otherwise, it will be a big useless area when the multiplayer games start.

It's like most RPG games. Why does a spider or a wolf carry gold on him? The gameplay reason is that it simulates looting the corpses of things you can sell (weapons, armor, fur, spider venom, feathers etc.), and simplifies the mechanism so you won't really have tons of unique items that you will need to sell, but you get gold instead. The "thief" trait can be explained as "you have connections in the black market, allowing you to sell loot for more prof

They cannot respawn, but they can still appear outside, randomly wander inside, and attack my defenseless caravans, right?

Except for the purpose of controlling resources, does the area of influence around the cities have (or supposed to have) any effect?

Another possibility is like the one in MoM. Sometimes, heroes will offer their services, units will want to join, a seller will offer a random magical item or resource, maybe even quest maps or an arranged marriage for your son. The higher your diplomatic points are, the better and more frequent these random rewards get. You can even trade the points themselves in the said events to get the feel of an actual resource.

Because of the UI bug that forces you to choose a city level upgrade without letting you check what the city produces, it's best to either use non-random names or use random and completely distinct names, even if they are a bit silly. So for now, it might be a bug, but fixing it will currently cause more problems than it fixes.

[quote who="agio" reply="4" id="2768276"]I agree that factions should be able to *something* with the Horse or Warg resources. EDIT: I mean, of course, Kingdom should be able to do something with Warg resources, and vice versa.[/quote] Horse meat for food and warg fur for gold? [e digicons]:)[/e]

As things are now, the difference between the units is by equipment alone. You have the basic unit, and arm it with weapon, armor and equipment. How about also choosing the unit type? You'll start only with a "commoner", but in time (and tech learning), you might learn to arm barbarians, fighters, rogues etc. The difference between them will be a minor stat improvement, and maybe a weapon specialty, but more importantly, it can add a special atta

Not many options. Most units, weapons and armor types differ from one another only by stats. It worked for "Alpha Centaury" which was purely strategic, but it isn't enough if the game also has tactical combat.

I agree that gold mines are almost the only way to get a stable income of gold, but I also think that this is the point. This is not just another game, this is a post apocalyptic world. You are supposed to treat resource zones like something worth starting a war for. You are supposed to calculate the wages of your troops, deciding where to place your defenses and when it is safe to attack. It does need a little tuning, a

[quote who="Nick-Danger" reply="2" id="2763116"]I don't think you're off-base on that RomanGuy. It's hard to imagine a caravan creating food out of thin air. Caravans increasing trade which would then increase gold -- that makes sense.[/quote] If realism is what bothers you, it does make sense. No matter how much a city is be able to produce, the actual benefit to the kingdom depends on the logistic setting and on the question of how much you can mov

[quote who="solidsmooky" reply="7" id="2762562"]I think adding multiplayer now will give more insight into how to design for the singleplayer. At this point what else do you have to lose?[/quote] I agree. Since the game is already out, might as well have the multiplayer, at least to check the game balance of the new patches.