Philocthetes

[quote]Not with the post I made about it. It was strickly Democrat Socialism. I think the other is communism (as practiced, not as defined in Funk and Wagnalls). Just curious, but where do you see me mixing them?[/quote] It was the monarchism reference, which I suppose you meant as a historical point that leaves many Europeans favoring a stronger state than many US folks might prefer. To me, democratic socialism (not a proper name) is primarily democratic, and hence antithetical to

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="8" id="2555756"]I would tend to disagree with the idea of spouses only being useful if they are heroes, with little ability for things to work the other way around: seems to me that even a complete loser would gain some amount of epicness from being married to the most powerful mortals left alive. ...[/quote] So how would you put that into game mechanics? Would non-champion spouses be a special type of regular unit? Would they even have a map unit aspect a

Scholar: mundane research bonus Sage: magical research bonus

[quote who="Dr Guy" reply="269" id="2555486"]... I disagree. Socialism is a construct of Monarchism - where the state (in elder days, the Monarch) took care of the people because they were the source (armies) of their power. Democracy sprang up in ancient Greece, and is nothing like what we call Democracy today. However that is due to the fact that the founding fathers of America (and perhaps France) learned from the mistakes of the Greeks.[/quote] You're typing as i

[quote]In the end, you won't need normal units as you will have your own army of heroes [/quote] I almost hate the term 'balanced question,' but isn't this something that's supposed to come out in the beta wash? Besides, it seems like the late game on a very large map should have champions numerous enough to form their own small squads. They'd be a nice complement to sovereigns laying out massive magical destruction and dragons munching through mundane legions.

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="6" id="2555522"]The problem is that I only see spouses being special if they are Hero type. So if we are to get pop ups about heroes for hire and/or that want to join us, for possible spouses it should be something similar. And I'd not mind at all if you could marry one of your heroes...[/quote] That's exactly what I'm asking for: royal spouses should be champions just like every other marriagable unit in the game seems intended to be. Royal marr

[quote]Here we seem to have the world being torn apart for hundereds, perhaps even thousands of years.[/quote] The campaign map surely shows that there is a more-than-oh-shit cataclysm in the recent past. Splitting a continent surely counts for that, dunnit?

[quote who="Bodyless" reply="11" id="2555351"]Yeah instead of polygamy you could have a "lays eggs" trait for female sovereigns [/quote] You laugh, but I like that idea. It would work for Fallen with insect traits, avian traits, and reptilian traits. And the underlying mechanics really need to be there if for nothing else than enabling mods for things like Dragonlance Draconians. [quote]Polygamy costs more money but the husband can have the same free time as a monogamist. In

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="3" id="2555105"] ... The player can now get married (currently happens randomly) and have children (again, totally random). After 20 turns the children will 'come of age' and become champion units on the map. At this time, the "Arrange Marrage" option becomes available in diplomacy. Daughters will get married into the other faction (you lose her as a unit), but 2 of every 3 children will return to your faction when they grow up. Note the frequent use of

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="1" id="2555056"]The marriages are randomized because the real choosing system is not in the beta. As soon as the devs pull something up, you'll get your choice......[/quote] Sources, please, ye sop for educational tax dollars. I hope you're right, but you have far too great a love of typing things in certain terms without certain support.

Call me crazy, but somehow I always thought of sovereigns' spouses as a subset of champion units, which naturally made me expect to see my sovereign's marriage as a very special case of recruiting a champion. Lo and behold, in 0.291 it seems to be a simple random event, and when playing as Lady of Tarth, the spouse seems to be caught between being a card on the Dynasty screen and a unit lost at sea on the main map. The husband lost at sea thing seems like just a bug to me, but being b

[quote who="jacklv" reply="260" id="2554966"]... Your position for sustenance of copyright is a bit extreme don't you think? You have made the best argument for less government, unwittly or not, I have seen recently. On EA, we agree...Activision.[/quote] Yea, well, the heliocentric view of the solar system was once considered 'a bit extreme.' Not that I'm claiming to be a Galileo or anything. I'm mostly just a chorus boy for John Perry Barlow's essay <a href="http://www.wi

On the general timescale thing, I found 0.291 interesting because it both seemed to shift to turn=turn vs. previous UIs where turn=day, and it gave sovs starting ages of 22 years. Not sure if or how the devs might intend to reconcile that. Mainly, I'm trying to keep my disbelief-suspension parts strong and flexible. On the fuzzy narrative level, I have no problem with a fantasy setting where some women might live far longer than others and maintain their fertility for most or

[quote who="Stanley Tarrant" reply="254" id="2549836"]the video game industry of which we are such gracious customers of is as pure free market as you can get. [/quote] Pshaw. It's quite the opposite of a free market. Copyright depends entirely on government (it needs both 'independent' enforcement mechanisms and a public acceptance of that force being legitimately applied). No pure free market could sustain copyright or patent law other than through force of private arms. EA

[quote]I don't know if any of you have played Mount&Blade, but that game had a three-step siege battle. First you would fight for the walls, and then you would fight in the streets and it would culminate in a battle for the keep. [/quote] Never played the game, but the idea sounds very fun and like it could be worked into Elemental's combat mechanics and might be able to make the 'multi-tile city problem' moot by treating the outer perimeter (walls) and the main settlement as sing

Meaningful supply lines would be very interesting to me, but I suspect that the demise of the Camp 1 economy means we'll at best see some higher-level abstractions, possibly limited to a simple two- or three-state parameter, On Home Turf, On Unclaimed Turf, On Other Sov's Turf. I was really interested by the idea of actual supply line units that would need protection and could provide loot if the defenders were defeated without a c

Very interesting to see the game's subtitle placed firmly in the past. Gives me great hope that Elemental will break serious new ground for TBS games by putting all the different ways to end a game on fairly equal footing. Here's to a quest win that isn't all about world domination, a diplomacy win that's about more than just military strength, and a magical/research win that isn't just a bone thrown to turtlers. I suppose it's too much to hope for a purely dynastic win, thou

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="10" id="2553695"]I want elven mechas. Don't ask.[/quote] OK, it sounds like it might lead into anime/FPS-land anyway [e classic];P[/e] I want a damane who knows the difference between decorating the night sky for a party and blasting the crap out of enemies on the battlefield. Don't ask because you'll just encourage the WoT-haters. Besides, I don't think we're going to get serious secondary spellcasters in Elemental. Black powde

[quote who="kingtiger_522" reply="9" id="2553249"]In addition to stand-issue loyalty, it could be cool if you're heroes would occasionally go do their own thing. For example, someone from their past could suddenly approach them and ask for help, and they'd need to take a leave of absence to deal with the problem.[/quote] I read this as a sort of 'personal quest time' thing for champions, and it seems like an interesting idea. Especially if it is meant to be a sort of cost-bene

I can't offer repro steps, alas, but I can confirm at least two instances of the problem in .291. I have not seen it happen when my sovereign is my only unit, but I haven't gotten to play that much yet.

Winter, I had no idea that a forum post could be that nicely tricked out. You've taken a handy thing and made it handier, with lots of pretty on top. The art devs should mail you a souveneir sketch or something.

Seems more like just one another reason to add an Ignore This Thread function to the Stardockia forums. I've posted in a few 'forum game' threads, not found them really interesting over the long haul, but accept that taste is, well, taste. If I'm on a run remembering, enjoying, and/or inventing light bulb jokes , a light bulb joke thread is good fun. Otherwise, yes, it seems like clutter. (apologies for the crap formatting

Seconded. So far, scouts are the first custom designs I've been doing and most of the poses do look a little weird, none quite right. I'd also like to see more choices in one view for both the poses and the backgrounds. Takes several clicks to get to something outdoorsy-looking, and for a while I thought there were no outdoor backgrounds without buildings in them. Maybe add a button on top of the lists that pops open a grid rather than making us scroll left to right on a long line.</p

[quote who="BoogieBac" reply="2" id="2551860"]I suggest selecting the Stationed Unit's medallion then right clicking on where you want them to go...MUCH more useful than using the 'Eject from City' button.[/quote] If you want that to be 'intuitive' for us text/keyboard focused folks, might help to make that selected unit appear on the cloth map. I would never in a million years have thought to right-click after missing that tiny, annoying button and unknowingly having selected

[quote]I'm going to need a sharp scalpel as I'm still unhappy about the format. Need to improve it somehow while keeping it useful.[/quote] Given the primitive forum context, it seems fairly decent as-is. It does make me wish for bookmark-links within a single post (clickable index) and text blocks able to collapse/expand, but I have no idea what trying that sort of manual HTML would do here. If you want a 'fixable quibble,' I'd suggest adding the date to your New & Update