Philocthetes

I generally agree with this sentiment. In fact, I've agreed with it since before the first public betas. So far, the design has treated magic as a sort of secondary technology. What I'd hoped for was to see a game where mundane technology played a background role to magic, but what we have is a game where magic is a struggling stepchild to the rest of the 'tech trees.' The main culprit I'd blame for my frustration is the power that jargon has over folks involved in very complex work.

[quote who="Uvah" reply="109" id="2829591"]Hey uga-bugga Welcome to the 'Karma Club. Noticed you have none. Some things just can't be left 'undone'. [/quote] If I was some kind of soc sci grad student, I think I might be able to get a paper out of the differences in karma system participation across Stardock's various sites. My casual-observer take is that the WinCustomize folks are much more likely to have high karma totals than other Stardock users, and my main q

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="9" id="2829281"]...However, according to wikipedia it is debatable that even inanimate objects have mana, so I imagine aliens would have it too.[/quote] Damn, I'd totally forgotten that a Larry Niven novel was the first place I read about 'mana' mechanics. My sloppy brain has him indexed as a hard-science guy because my favorites of his work are about immortality drugs, organ banks, and practical approaches to the Dyson Sphere ideal. Now that yo

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="5" id="2828522"]... Sovereign provides you with 3 Mana each turn. Each Elemental Shard adds 1 more. Different temples and statues research through the Magic tree also provide different amounts of mana (2 and 3 depending of the building).l.[/quote] I was waiting for some oldtimer with a hard-math and/or MP-competitive POV to chime in. Figures that someone I wouldn't immediately tag with either label posts about the practical info that underlines the aesth

The mana flavours thing died sometime way back before the first public betas, and it might have been so disfavored by the devs that it never even got into working alphas. I've never spent serious time playing a game with multiple mana types, but I liked the idea for Elemental because it sounded like a good way to increase replayability for folks (like me) who tend to stick to one play style but still want new games to play out quite differently than past ones.

Your fix would work well for me, if you flipped it. Sovereigns are the source of magic, even more so now that essence is a yes-no trait and not a spendable stat. It should be their choice of Life vs. Death magic that counts. Re modding, it just seems like the system should be as open as possible without being a mess for coders &/or AIs. Life-vs-Death is a trait that might be 'binary' in the base game but shouldn't be all that hard to base on a list of 3+ names that refer to discre

[quote who="John_Hughes" reply="7" id="2827884"]... Your agenda is showing...[/quote] Please describe my agenda to me, as you see it. I thought I was just mentioning an important 'local politics' thing. Is it rude to pipe up occasionally about the forums lacking a Stardock-only set of efficient search tools? If I was a rude boy, I'd be tempted to say Scroogle you... [e classic];)[/e]

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="4" id="2827835"]Shouldn't this be stickied? Useful thread is useful.[/quote] I'd far rather have the boards provide local search support for dev posts and replies. This is a very short-term bit of info and kind of a hybrid for the Dev Journal and Support area. Sticky threads should be of long-term value to everyone, including new readers. That's not exactly the same thing as trying to use the boards to watch for word from working Stardock devs.

[quote who="kryo" reply="69" id="2827822"]... It's something long overdue, honestly. Virtually all desktop systems sold for several years now have been x64 capable.[/quote] Have I been buying PCs for that long now? I could swear that it's only just a few years that the new commodity hardware is 64-bit. But I have to admit that it's been a decade or more since getting a new PC changed from a fun, self-indulgent thing to a tedious chore.

Soziele, from a thread over in Support: [quote who="agio" reply="10" id="2827295"]You have to turn OFF "show pre release versions", restart Impulse; reinstall 1.09e (takes a while...); turn ON "show pre release versions"; restart Impulse; update Elemental.[/quote] Too much hassle for me to try at the moment, but it might work for you. <div id="_mcePaste" class="mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; to

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="98" id="2826879"]... Stab of Ice Stab of Ice Reloaded Stab of Ice Revolutions Hopefully better than some movies...[/quote] That hurts like too big a slurp from a very cold slushy on a very hot day. Not least because I wish Elemental had been mostly about an art project and not at all about starting a new franchise...

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="95" id="2826857"] reassuring joke [/quote] A smile is worth at least a few hundred words? [e classic]:P[/e]

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="92" id="2826847"]Stab of Ice 1, 2, and 3 are now the first three water spells...with Ultimate Stab of Ice 1 & 2 the last two. Sorry, GW [/quote] The crack-head smiley has me confused. Are you offering a reassuring joke, or are those actual spell names in the latest internal builds?

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="89" id="2826627"]... and really, it's not like the name has influence about how magical the game is, the spells do)[/quote] That's definitely an eye-of-the-player thing, not an objective fact. Immersion is a big part of why I got hooked on games like MoM and the early Civs. Clumsy wording in UIs makes it harder to maintain immersion, so I put a high value on 'minor' things like spell or spell book names. You see them all the time as you play, and

Given Stardock's openness to significant change, I'm definitely hoping to see them back off the Boolean essence decision. The arguments above about leaving just one stat for magic-focused sovereigns should be fully persuasive in their own right. Plus, the original essence mechanics with a stat that you could both build up for personal (tactical) strength and spend strategically was the most interesting thing about the early designs, for me anyway.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="10" id="2826356"]We're having Pizza tonight at my house. Theere's a deadlock issue with the threads. AI thread and main thread both accessing player data in a critical section. We may have to delay until tomorrow.[/quote] OK, pizza at the boss's house isn't quite cash, but it is more top-down commitment than most corps provide. Giving yourselves time to get enough sleep would be a good bonus too. Marketing and PR should be following u

[quote who="Rune_74" reply="83" id="2826273"]I don't get why in a game called elemental you do not use elemental resistances?[/quote] Maybe because the project has been, consciously or not, about making v1 of an engine for GalCiv 3 and magic has never been taken seriously as an aesthetic, much less as the core of the game mechanics. I'm still a tad hopeful that magic will become adequately magical by the 1st or 2nd expansion, but I remain sorely disappointed that it has been an ugly s

[quote who="charon2112" reply="6" id="2826334"]... You should buy some pizza for your people, they work HARD. (and hey, have a slice yourself). [/quote] Screw pizza, folks working like that deserve cash. Nothing says "I appreciate you going above and beyond" like cash. The salary+benefits thing is a shell game in the end. Overtime differentials (or overtime-based bonuses) are the honest way to motivate your staff to neglect their real lives in favor of the workplace.

[quote who="sagittary" reply="35" id="2826218"]... Perhaps as part of a larger solution, tweaking the naming and function of Scenic Views.[/quote] You get DC from more than just the Scenic View sites, but you're definitely right that they need some of this 'balancing' stuff. I should be able to make improvement and/or recruiting decisions that yield something close to the effect of lucking into multiple Scenic Views in my early territory.

[quote who="Heph_" reply="37" id="2825611"]And, again, no spells which need multiple spellbooks. Ok we need to leave some ofthe magic to the two free expansions [/quote] If the Shards had been meaningful from at least the early betas, I'd agree with you 100%. But since shards still appear to be little more than color schemes and spellbooks appear to be totally open to context-free extensions, I still have no idea what's going on with magic in the War of Magic.

[quote who="Polistes" reply="30" id="2825550"]What about spells for levels 10 and above? That area really gets ignored as well. I have had a level 16 spell book but no awesome world altering, empire wide destroying/crippling spells. The spell of "Faking" does not count. We REALLY need high level spells to reward those who manage to reach high spell book levels.[/quote] That's yet another data point to support arguments that the Elemental game world itself has lacked "making" so far. B

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="245" id="2825274"]... Yes, I'm biased and love to marry Procipinee with the first "farmer" I find. [/quote] Haven't played that much since the 1.0 launch, but before then I had more than a few rewarding litters of champions by breeding Procipinee with a farmer.

Holy mixed blessings, Batman! The revised structure still seems more gamy than milieu-based, but at least there are signs of meaningful themes for magic in the game. Hopefully, that might make it worth suffering profoundly un-magical word choices like "Mobility" for major aspects of the game design (where are the elements in a naming schema that includes Mobility at the top level?). That's language I'd expect from using the remote I rent from my cable provider, not a game with aspirat

[quote who="econundrum1" reply="21" id="2825331"]The thing that puzzles me sometimes is how the AI values things. For example we are at war and the AI has one city left to my 10 and an army of rubbish units that are out numbered by 10 to one by my force approaching his final city. I offer peace instead and he seems to think a peace treaty is of much more value to me than him.....how did it work that one out I can wipe him out by sneezing yet he thinks I need peace more than he does.[/quote]</

[quote who="FatNonFree" reply="13" id="2824907"]I agree right now there is no point to DC.[/quote] Maybe for min/max kill-'em-all types, but there's definitely already value for snapping turtlers because a DC advantage can help keep a belligerent neighbor off your back. As for spending DC, I'm a complexity fan, so I'd like to see it usable for both deals that affirm and increase diplomatic dominance (probably best implemented as a DC-based bonus for trades not involving DC) as