Philocthetes

[quote]Resources in your territory don't always link to your cities.[/quote] At the moment, I'm pretty sure this is linked to something about nearest settlement size, and possibly other variables like prestige. It's very vexing that the UI is no help in understanding how and when something like an expensive Shrill Hive goes from being useless to being linked. [quote]This may or may not be a bug; I'm not really sure if it's intended or not.[/quote] Oi, you've got a lot

Adam_H made a call for serious home/HQ roles for champions back in late July, but got little response, maybe because some of us who sympathized were putting more energy into the last betas than we were in to the forums. Smoebo raised a very interesting idea that sounds like 'spending' champions for settlement boosts, which I'd love to see discussed more over in that thread or another. Anyway, the thing gave me an idea for a possibl

Mr. Smooky, please calm down or just lay off the forums for a while until you feel less bilious. I'm another "fanboy hater troll" like Tridus, and we're just two of several folks who've been with the beta for a long while, have often expressed our frustrations and disappointments, and still respect the Stardock crew because they are unbelievably upfront with their customers. Trying to rub Brad's nose in the layoffs because you're not happy with the game is very petty. And boring.

[quote who="Nick-Danger" reply="6" id="2755788"]My condolences to those laid off and I hope they find quality work ASAP. [/quote] Well said, and hopefully not too hopeful.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="63" id="2755646"]I should be more specific about spell books: I am not saying that we'd remove all the spell books from character creation but rather the elemental ones specifically. Other spell books, that don't rely on specific elemental shards, would be put in their place. [/quote] Now that sounds like a good start on a distinctive magic system for the game. Make options for 'generic' magic a big part of game setup (through sovereign choice an

I 'bugged' this somewhere back in the beta, and it is still happening. Is there perhaps a Windows workaround that can let me control whether the birdsong, etc., is playing when I've switched out from Elemental to another app, like this browser? Sometimes the behavior is pleasant, but when I'm playing my own music or working hard on something before getting back to my game it is pretty distracting.

[quote]As some long-time Stardock gamers can tell you, our expansion packs aren’t minor things. [/quote] Admittedly, I'm one of the rather frustrated crowd of long-time Stardock game customers. But I haven't given up on the project overall, and I'm actually spending more time with the vexing-yet-interesting game than I am with the forums just now. You should have taken more time off. I'm sure your beloveds want more quality time with you, and your view of the game might

[quote who="kryo" reply="2" id="2754785"]AFAIK resources need to be within five tiles to link to a city and gain benefit from any % improvements, or to allow training of special units for the diplomacy tech resources.[/quote] So what's a tile? The cloth map makes it look like a Shrill Hive I developed is just one 'tile' away from my capital, if tiles are marked by the heavier lines and the dashed lines as opposed to the lines that appear when Show Grid is enabled. Corollary qu

[quote who="searro" reply="22" id="2755199"]I think old Vhorthex is making too long posts. Anyone feels the same ? (my 2 cp )[/quote] Not me. The whole problem with the magic system is that not enough thought and creativity went into it before RTM. I might not like every point Vhorthex makes, but at least he/she is trying to offer some constructive critique. One of the main things keeping me from Wintersong-worthy walls-o-text is that the story is kind of 'old

[quote who="p22" reply="10" id="2754879"]No, they do not work, even with 1.07. But spell description in tactical combat does display correct maximum damage (multiplied by shards).[/quote] Are you not seeing the essence boost, or is your "they" just about the spell power boost?

[quote who="Vhorthex" reply="7" id="2754728"]... I think you are taking the RP element a step further than others. Yeah, I think it's just that the game isn't properly updated yet (in terms of getting rid of legacy features/terminology). There is no "wisdom" it's "essence". ...[/quote] The role-playing bit was a verbose coda. My main vexation is that this wisdom=essence kerfuffle strongly indicates that essence has taken several large steps down from what it sounded like i

The essence boost is described in the ScreenTip as 10%. I've got three shards now and it looks like both my spellcasters have +30% essence. (I say "looks like" b/c the UI won't show me the base stats, only the active ones.)

[quote]wisdom (aka essence)[/quote] Please, say it isn't so. I've been vexed by the random UI & doc references to "wisdom" and assumed they were just more editorial sloppiness. Now you're telling me that I've got yet another vain wish to add to my list... If it is indeed a randomly used synonym for essence, that would mark the death of essence as a potential major differentiator for Elemental's magic system. Not to mention serious damage on the role-playing side. If essenc

The essence boost part seems to be working, but tactical damage is so inscrutable that I can't tell if the one shard I have at the moment is helping the relevant spells.

[quote]I would love to raise each with a future role in mind: a knight, ranger, mage, merchant, scholar, etc.[/quote] I've seen (made?) this sort of suggestion several times long ago. Something like this would indeed go a long way towards giving royal offspring some distinctiveness (helping immersion) and making them a more interesting strategic element.

[quote who="klaxton499" reply="22" id="2746090"]I do miss the old manuals. I used to be able to tell if I would like a game by the weight of the box. I'm not lying that was my barometer. I recently noticed something funny. Starcraft II had a note pad in the box. I'm pretty sure the only reason it was included was to increase the weight and thereby the perceived value to the person holding the box.[/quote] I'll take a well-w

[quote who="Archonsod" reply="2" id="2740818"]Check your map settings and the number of factions. It also depends on the map, I've had games where everyone was on top of each other, I've had others where I had to explore 50 turns in one direction before bumping into even a minor AI.[/quote] I've been playing on large maps since they became available and my impression is that even if there are a limited number of 'canned geographies' in the map set, the placement of stuff that's not a

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="37" id="2736164"]... How does getting rid of the red exclamation marks to point you to a resource you can't use change this? [/quote] If I had UI or docs that told me what Map Notifiers are, I wouldn't have made the 'mistake' [e classic]:-|[/e] p.s. Yes, I've broken down and done a tad of griping. But I've spent more time playing. And still almost always on the cloth map, 'cause it's prettier.

I'm nearly convinced that Stardock's 'continuous development' approach makes a serious printed manual pretty much a waste of resources, other than as a collector's item for the state of a game at RTM for physical distribution. That's not to say that I haven't had great satisfaction with good manuals from older games like MoM, Civ1-2, or SMAC. And more importantly, it's a poor excuse for the lack of effort on soft documentation like PDF manuals and even less of an excuse for... <p

[quote who="DivineWrath" reply="29" id="2736101"] + Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs) Hey wait a sec. Does this mean we can't know about resources we might be denying the enemy?[/quote] Denying it to them? What about flat-out destroying those stinking assets with the Make It A Desert strategic spell? Sounds like this change would decrease the value of that spell significantly becaus

Did you get those with that Token of the Sand Golem item? Do they work like a unit you summoned yourself ('permanent' and takes up Enchantment slot) or do they have a turn limit and then disappear?

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="12" id="2731889"]... (that currently is "capped" from its original purpose, if my memory serves right).[/quote] Do you mean that old talk about "vassals" of some sort? I'd sure like to see a kid or a kid's spouse bring a whole city into some sort of alliance/fealty relationship if I did a good job of being a dynasty founder.

[quote who="Mazros" reply="4" id="2731332"]It seems movement with the arrow keys is based on where the camera is facing, if you move the camera so that it is in line with the grid as opposed to on a 45 degree angle you will be able to move the 4 directions. That worked for me, atleast.[/quote] I didn't have to do any camera angle twiddling. The full num pad for navigation just seems to be working well now, at least on my rig.

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="1" id="2731728"] Marry your spouse. Send him/her home. Don't let him/her leave the city unless truly needed. Don't let him/her get into trouble until you have four kids. Once you have four kids, the spouse is free to die or whatever.[/quote] That only applies to a strict kids-as-diplo-commodities approach. If you are also hoping to get some worthy champions in the field from your breeding efforts, you need to either wait until yo