Philocthetes

[quote who="CapnWinky" reply="16" id="2126690"]... Why do all the good shows get cancelled?![/quote] Because most massive (highly profitable) audiences couldn't buy good taste if they won three big Lotto prizes in a row. Of course, there are the precious few rule-proving exceptions like BSG.

I'm a lapsed philosophical anarchist, so the rank stuff rankles me a bit. But I suspect it has 'manipulative' value for Stardock, if they choose to continue using it. When I unexpectedly got a promotion to Veteran over at GC2 (I'm typing from Elemental), it both made me uncomfortably pleased and left me feeling mildly obliged to pitch in more often and generally try to be a bit of an NCO on the boards. As for karma, I'm trying to give it out regularly now, especially to reasonable new

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="23" id="2126569"]... Depends on how you define 2D world. Without strategic zoom, these games would be a micro-management nightmare. I can't imagine making a strategy game without strategic zoom.[/quote] I agree, but I don't see any necessity for the zoomed-in level to be 3D (other than Scott's point, which I admit is a trump card). The tradeoff thing I was vaguely complaining about is that when you need to put resources into a 3D interface, it n

[quote who="Tridus" reply="18" id="2126485"]Looks like a good roadmap. Is there going to be a window when beta 0 comes out that we can pre-order and still get in? (I don't want to do it now because due to foreign exchange fluctuations, I don't know how much I'll actually be paying until the day I'm getting charged.)[/quote] From my reading around the forums and participation in the GC2 DA and TA betas, I think it's safe to assume that there will be at least a small window after

[quote who="getter77" reply="9" id="2125974"]Make it big like the one in Dominons III...but also make it full color...and that'd be a sight to behold! [/quote] I might pay for a separate, bound manual, but I don't want to pay for pricy color printing. It's the info in a good binding I want. I'd rather pay for paper, printing, and binding of the quality of the early hardcover Harry Potter books than see a bunch of colors on pages that will come loose if the book gets seri

For those interested in the older, related talk, the thread bleeba mentions is here . I think the notions are well worth a thread of their own. Although we have no idea about some of the major details, e.g. if we'll even have government types or 'commercial teleports.' Mainly, I really like the idea of a mechanic that would let you choose to establish a regional center of learning, healing, commerce, etc., instead of ending up with a bunch of cities with little d

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="14" id="2125841"]... If a Master Thief is on the royal council and is even partly participating in stealing goods from within the same kingdom then his loyalty cannot be trusted! ...[/quote] What about "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" Somewhat more seriously, think about the fact that "coaltion governments" existed long before western parliaments started looking like we see them today. After all, regardless of any

I saw a scrap of Krull this week and that Fortress also made me think immediately of Elemental. Since we will be able to have world-wrecking magic in the late game, I seriously hope we can have *at least* a teleporting castle or even a small mountain. Buildings on clouds would be really awesome, but I haven't seen any hints about how or if flying units/objects might work. I especially like the mobile enclave idea because it could provide a great way to play the game as a non-expansion

[quote who="b0rsuk" reply="19" id="2126423"]...I wonder if someone admits the elephant in the room. 3D graphics struggle with many limitations nonexistant in simple 2D approach. I guess 2D just scales better...[/quote] I haven't played that many different titles since MoO3 nearly broke my gaming heart, but I'd have to say that 3D graphics have never added serious fun for me and have many times seemed like a good scapegoat for complaining about non-visual weaknesses in a game ("We'd ha

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="2" id="2125221"]... I know there have been some ideas about this kind of thing mentioned before. ...[/quote] If newer folks haven't checked out ckessel's Independent Kingdoms thread, it is a good collection of the sort of ideas landi mentioned.

Balking at a Master Thief advisor seems like a modern worry to me, or maybe just a little to rosy a view on how governments, especially authoritarian ones, can work. It is not an unreasonable idea for rulers to have close advisors whose role is not common knowledge or is even fairly secret. Sometimes that could be because the advisor's job is dirty (spying, murdering) and sometimes because the advisor "should" be an enemy of the state but in fact provides value to the monarch despite doing so

I love a well-printed, beautfilly bound tome far more than most folks, and I'd enjoy seeing Stardock take a Big Step up in the quality and quantity of their documentation. However, there's a major factor to consider when harkening back to the MoM docs as a model: Stardock produces continuous, substantive updates that can make old manual wording irrelevant or just plain wrong. Whatever, if anything at all, they decide to do by way of printed doc(s), I would like to see aggressive, methodical u

[quote who="Denryu" reply="12" id="2122787"]...I figured this was the reason to stick with two (or twelve) flavors of humans. I think it was a good choice! I just think it is critical that these twelve factions of humans REALLY have some unique back story and also some major gameplay differentiation so that we get all the enjoyment of trying different races and it really makes it a new game. The uniques tech trees and stuff are really going to provide this, I hope.[/quote] I'm still e

[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="12" id="2121956"]...I would also like the ability to mix and match unit types in a given squad for the reasons I gave in my original post. ...[/quote] I take Scott's reference to GC2 fleets to mean that you *will* be able to mix and match 'unit types' in a larger group/stack, just not types within a unit. A 'unit' seems to be roughly analagous to a ship design in GC2.

[quote who="Lord Reliant" reply="23" id="2121324"]... The Alpha took longer to put together than they anticipated ....[/quote] Beg pardon, but what "The Alpha?" Did you just break cover on being a member of a stealth pre-public-beta crowd or are you referring to the 'internal alpha' comments from dev land?

I wouldn't object to save/continue functionality in principle, but for those of us who have little or no competitive interest in the game, reloads are pretty much essential. p.s. I could swear there was another thread where this general subject got a lot of discussion, but I can't seem to figure out any good keywords to help me find it. Maybe what I'm remembering is actually an extended threadjacking and not obvious in thread titles...

I'd be a bit more interested in being able to build monuments in my population centers and put place names on the main map to reflect something like the victory of one grand army over another. But then I don't have any idea how complex a true city could be in the game--if they are indeed much more interesting than colonies in GC2, it could be great fun and/or an interesting strategic choice to be able to spend money throwing a party after a military (or even nonmilitary) milestone. p.

If I were really smart, I'd have something to say about how an idea like this could help the 'problems' some of us have with time/calendars in TBS games. At the very least, I heartily agree that anything like a mega-event should have at least a chance of a warning tremor and an opportunity to pick up and run or whatever. Or maybe it isn't a chance of forewarning so much as a two classes of mega-events: Can Be Seen Coming and Whamo It's Happened.

[quote who="b0rsuk" reply="20" id="2119265"]... But what do you gain if you use up some of your essence on creatures ? Do you get an ability to recruit some special creatures, or a one-time recruitment of X creatures of type Y ? The former seems more fair. The latter would sound like a shallow option for rushers.[/quote] Why do you think those are mutally exclusive possible ways essence might work? Perhaps when you imbue specific territories, one of the things you might gain is a fant

[quote who="Psiborg" reply="1" id="2118277"]... Damn, wish I'd seen that before I posted. Could have saved myself some typing ...[/quote] I'm glad you didn't because I'm hoping for someone to explain to me how this "continuous turns" stuff is not just some euphemism for 'RTS click fits stuffed into a TBS turn.' Can you tell us why the "ala The Corporate Machine" reference assuaged your general worry about RTS design values polluting the Elemental project?

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="19" id="2118209"]I see technology and magic as fundamentally different concepts because magic, at its core, requires human interaction while technology, at its core, does not. For example: in a sci-fi world, you can have an automated defense system that monitors your facility and shoots down anyone who gets near it. In a fantasy setting, you would actually have a mage (or group of them, more likely) constantly scrying and ready to launch spell. In essence,&nb

[quote who="landisaurus" reply="10" id="2117874"]... Oh pronouns, so good for writers, so bad for readers.[/quote] Shouldn't that be more like "Oh, pronouns! So useful in a good writer's hands, so confusing when thrown around willy-nilly?" [e classic]:P[/e] Late in my short teaching career, the college policy made it possible to require that my students submit all their essays as Word docs. I had an extensive collection of AutoCorrect entries to provide feedback while grading

I had a swell time right after I bought GalCiv1, but the game wore out for me pretty quickly because you could only play as Terrans. I was really excited to learn that GC2 would include multiple playable civs, but the implementation in the base game was a bit disappointing on account of being little more than variations in ability modifiers and different object libraries for ship designs. Then we got Super Abilities in the first expansion, and by then the steady AI tweaking had begun to make

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="14" id="2117431"]... I would have to agree with GW here: SF and fantasy just don't mix in my book![/quote] I wouldn't make an absolute statement that science fiction and fantasy don't mix. It's just that doing it really well is very, very hard, and doing it as backstory for a TBS game just raises that difficulty level because you have so little prose to work with.

Condarf did something similar when the forums first opened. You might want to compare his posts to what you're working on so you can focus on new stuff if you've found it. But I suspect that the old concept art is still the only rune content we have so far, alas.