Philocthetes

[quote who="Sythion" reply="232" id="2824822"]Again, sounds needlessly complex. It's not trivial to implement, and not particularly visible to the player. The gain of realism is not worth the costs IMO.[/quote] I have no idea about what's trivial or troublesome to implement, but what's "not visible to the player" about a simple distinction between battlefield experience and HQ experience? If it seems that troublesome, perhaps the model could take the lazy way out a

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="7" id="2823705"]... (I'd wager karma on it)[/quote] Now that sort of functionality might make the karma system a bit more 'balanced' ... [e classic];)[/e]

[quote who="Derek Paxton" reply="204" id="2823498"]... Casting Time isn't in 1.1, but it is speced to be included. The problem is that Casting Time is big change with art, UI and AI implications and it interacts with future systems (meaning that if we implemented now we would need to reimplement later anyway). So it isn't in 1.1, but I want Casting Time too.[/quote] That's a solid example of why I think the Elemental project's biggest mistake was not making 'integrated met

[quote who="WhiteElk" reply="186" id="2823164"]I'm not seeing what is lost in the switch from essence to a global mana pool. I see only a change to the maintenance of a mechanic. And a clarification of the lore. Disclaimer: I haven't read the book and I've only been playing v1.09e [for 13 consecutive days and counting :~) [/quote] I've not read the Random House stuff either, but I've spent at least a few hours on every beta version and more

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="7" id="2823156"]...Not sure about 'karma' though since it suggests to me that it influences random chance. "you're a ruthless tyrant so this bad random event is more likely to hit you" does not really appeal to me unless 'luck' and other related stuff sits as a very apparent and adjustable stat. [/quote] Random events aren't in my thinking on this theme at all; the wording-vagueness point was about Stardock's design vagueness, if anything.

[quote who="Tridus" reply="183" id="2823144"]... (Man, the fact that I can recite that so easily shows just how long I've been posting here. )[/quote] Yup. I'm starting to wonder if I've found a new path to the Great Disappointment that was MoO3. If magic remains the flavorless wreckage that it seems to be so far, I'll need to see the dynasty mechanics, quests, and diplomacy/trade mechanics become as valuable to the AIs as basic warmongering is. Otherwise, I can't see much point in pl

[quote who="Gyb" reply="1" id="2821031"]Well, conceptually it should work the same way it does for a player, in that one AI having more DC should deter other AI's from declaring war on them (since it is a positive relation modifier). I could also envision a gold-poor AI trading DC for resources. But I doubt either of those things is actually happening in 1.09e. What I'd like to see in the future is DC operating as a sort of 'super diplomacy', where for a certain number of DC p

[quote who="marlowwe" reply="177" id="2823042"]GW and Tridus, you guys make good arguments. What worries me though is how we got to where we are now in the first place. If two months after release we've ended up neutering a core mechanic (and whether it really had a future in the game is debatable) this leads me to believe that SD never really had a coherent design plan for a lot of the mechanics currently in the game.[/quote] If we'd had a 'debate' about Essence mechanics that was ba

[quote who="Tridus" reply="160" id="2822805"]... People complaining about essence are complaining about a concept. Not an actual mechanic. Like this. Essence never worked that way in the release version of the game, and it's usefulness was gradually stripped down in every major beta release. ... At this point, "essence" is a loaded word for something that doesn't really exist in 1.09 either. All they've done in 1.1 is made it official.[/quote] True, some of us are complain

[quote who="Sethai" reply="56" id="2822929"]... if food is used to determine pop growth in the manner i described, the system becomes much softer: it in an inabler, rather than a limiter, which as a concept is much more fun to work with. ...[/quote] Enablers are more fun than limits, but they're even more fun when they're in a context of interesting trade-offs. The inscrutable conversion of Essence to a yes/no flag has removed a whole host of options for design and playing str

[quote who="Wentago" reply="46" id="2822356"]Many of you read way too much into a contest to win something and are taking this attempt at getting ideas into the game way too seriously.[/quote] For me, the gripe is not about getting ideas into the game. It's about the sustained refusal on Stardock's part to take the magic system seriously as content that should underpin and shape every other aspect of a fantasy TBS with the subtitle "War of Magic." A game world based

[quote who="cpl_rk" reply="19" id="2821937"]... True, but with suleiman (or was it mehmet?) your family tree might artificially decrease for unknown reasons or via "accidents". I think it was mehmet who strangled his own baby brother while he was still in the crib because the baby would be a threat to his succession when he got older. Could you imagine strangling your own baby brother in his crib? Even the thought just makes me sick. ...[/quote] I'm slightly more familiar with th

[quote who="Napean" reply="16" id="2821928"]Nix my post, didn't see Kael's response. Thanks for the update! Looking forward to playing 1.1 before(or perhaps on) Thanksgiving?[/quote] Your first draft doesn't deserve a nix. The essence nix deserves a nix.

[quote who="Derek Paxton" reply="9" id="2821917"] ...Essence is gone, units dont have individual mana anymore, global mana is used instead (as it was in MoM). ...[/quote] I'd love to see some extended explanations of this decision. The essence vs. mana distinction seemed like the functional idea that would/could let Elemental be a true step forward in the fantasy TBS genre, and I can't see any reason that it would be in conflict with a global mana system if it was treated as

[quote who="cpl_rk" reply="13" id="2821886"]... Perhaps Sherman wasn't the best example since I'm typically not destroying enemy cities but "yerking" their strength & making slaves/converting the population (into my own). Maybe the Arabs and/or Ottomans are a better example of my strategy approach (650ish to 1550ish). [/quote] The butcher Sherman is probably a fair enough example given the GC/Elemental engine's basic bias towards genocide. I'd b

Maybe I'm being paranoid, but does this OP mean that essence is being removed from the game entirely? No Impulse build or dev blurb so far has made me think of giving up on the game, but this change might actually make me regret all the time (and the modest sum of money) I've invested so far.

[quote who="cpl_rk" reply="7" id="2821816"]he he, I prefer the Gen Sherman approach. ...[/quote] Beg pardon, but I thought Sherman's March references were a scorched earth thing. Or am I thinking of the wrong General Sherman?

I've not read a single game story that better illustrates why faction assets should be transformed/transferred and not simply removed when a sovereign dies. It's like a cherry on the fecal-matter sundae of how the dynasty system means nothing beyond a few free champion units.

[quote who="Tridus" reply="38" id="2821760"]... Incidentally, if I said that I'd be alright with quests disappearing entirely so attention can be devoted to adding depth (and yes, complexity) to the other parts, would I get lynched?[/quote] In the physical world, I surely hope not. Here on the boards, you'd put me solidly on the fence. I'd need to be very pleased with improvements in other areas to make up for my dashed hopes about how quests in Elemental could help the eventual GC3 e

[quote who="Tridus" reply="35" id="2821698"]... You can't have a 50/50 game with the resources available to build it. That just means both of them are going to be inferior.[/quote] Methinks that you're drastically underestimating the value of hybrids. TV shows, restaurants, novels, and films all have strong 'hybrid' examples. Why not TBS games? Mind you, I'm the original NotMoM guy, so I very much appreciate complaints that Elemental has strayed far from its aspiration to be M

[quote who="Sethai" reply="31" id="2821442"]... the flaw in stardock's model is connecting food supply to the hard cap of population in a town, instead of to population growth itself. [/quote] My math skills are nowhere near what I want them to be, but I believe you have tagged the heart of the word problem here. Tridus is also sort of onto something with his psychoak paraphrase. Perhaps the most annoying of all the abstractions in GC and GC2 for me is the treatment of populat

[quote who="Tridus" reply="21" id="2821692"]... Focus on MP? Really? ...[/quote] Maybe put it down to the Users vs. Reviewers problem Brad discussed recently? I know the random-map gap was the deal-killer for me, and I can't recall much about how I got the impression that MP baggage was also a problem for the game for players like me. Maybe I just got misled by some over-enthusiastic MP booster talk for the game.

[quote who="Istari" reply="12" id="2821661"]... It's really a win-win. I don't see why you'd choose this particular event to respond to with displeasure. [/quote] My response to this latest marketing gimgaw isn't entirely harsh, but I do sympathize solidly with Mandelik's general sense of being tired of efforts to whip up excitement with little prizes. What I really find frustrating about this announcement from Derek the new guy is that his OP shows a clear understanding

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="17" id="2820365"]... I personally like the old system, but it was far too undeveloped, and now that its post released they'd have to do a ton of work to get it back intot he game without upsetting people too much.[/quote] I've no idea what the coding burdens for a change along these lines might be, but it seems that with how the launch went, the business of upsetting people is kind of a given, at least until the first full expansion pack. Then again, I'

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