Philocthetes

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="12" id="2089553"]... The Keep is the structure that has to be conquered for a city to change hands, according to various dev posts. I think it's pretty much set in stone that Keeps will be automatically built whenever you start a new settlement. Hopefully it starts out as a small wooden structure or something, nothing grandiose, but upgradable to the point where it becomes a genuine fortress.[/quote] I can accept that a settlement might need some sort

[quote who="NTJedi" reply="9" id="2090226"]... please allow more than 8 maximum players so massive size maps can have more activity. ...[/quote] Yes, please, at least for singleplayer. GC2 can have up to 10 major civs on a map, and I'd hope to see at least a couple more on a Ludicrous-sized map.

[quote who="Deflagratio" reply="5" id="2088576"]High hopes, low expectations. No matter what the theatrical version is, I save my final verdict for the Directors Cut. Watchmen is a narrative heavy novel with surprisingly little action, and honestly, I can't see the film translating what Watchmen is all about in 2 and a half hours (Directors cut is supposedly 4ish)[/quote] I'll wait to see if anyone eventually does the job right and makes an adult-rated miniseri

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="10" id="2089009"] ... My assumption is based on Frogboy's image in this post. I used "it seems" to imply that I'm not sure, but it looks like that's where they're heading - at least for now. ...[/quote] I was trying to poke you to see if you also would like the option to have more than four improvments per tile. I like the notion because it fits with the idea that true cities in Elemental will be relatively uncommon (when compared to any of the Ci

[quote]with (it seems) a 4 building per tile limit[/quote] Why assume there's a limit on improvements per tile at all? If we're re-thinking TBS economics, why not let players decide whether to invest heavily in a small region or spread investments over a larger area?

[quote who="tenchifew" reply="17" id="2087824"]... I also really hope to be able to lead an adventuring party to fame and glory and not be limited to one hero per army.[/quote] Indeed. There were no regular units involved in the passage through Moria in The Fellowship of the Ring , and all nine Companions began the journey together. I'm also hoping that the references to a singular "hero" are shorthand for "field commander" or somesuch. I think the game really is

[quote who="Winnihym" reply="12" id="2087178"]I'm not sure I want to see spells at all. In keeping with the mantra that Stardock seems to be pursuing of "build using basic building blocks for maximum customization", I think I'd rather see us research spell effects, rather than spells. ...[/quote] Your idea sounds a bit like asking for a Hero/GURPS model for the magic system as opposed to a 'traditional' spell list a-la D&D or MoM. I definitely prefer that around an RPG table

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="7" id="2086629"]... I don't want to constantly be interrupted in the middle of combat to deal with all my regular activities. ...The game should flow, not regularly disrupt your thought process.[/quote] Fascinating. I feel like I'm reading you from the Myrror plane. I'm one of those very fringe TBS people for whom *battles* are often an interruption in what I think of as the flow of the game. I didn't even consider the idea that you could be interrupte

[quote who="Darkodinplus" reply="3" id="2086277"]I love the sound of this and i'm very interested in the real-time tactical combat but I would like a few more details on the way time will flow in battle.[/quote] My hopes that we'll have some 'true turn-based' option for tactical aside, I'm more curious about how tactical time/turns will relate to 'full' game turns. Will all the tactical combat happen during major turn processing, or will working through tactical battles be part of get

[quote]You have no idea how proud that makes me [/quote] I wasn't exactly aiming for a compliemnt. This thread might also be in the renning to becoome the Second Dead Horse Buffet, except that the OP is still celarly into the thing, ad nanseum .

Is anyone else reading from latest FireFox and seeing the table formatting die in the middle of Sammual's reply 14? This does not seem to be an instance of the FF bug re very long pages, and I get no display changes even when I reduce zoom well below 100.

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="3" id="2084640"] ... Well, I don't know if that'll be the case this time. The first beta is supposed be just the cloth map, so I wouldn't expect it to be a good gauge of system requirements.[/quote] People with dilemma's like the OP describes also need to consider the history of GalCiv2, which definitely had an audience of folks playing on sub-spec machines with few to no complaints. I was one of them, and even though I now have hardware that can suppo

[quote who="Jonny5446" reply="8" id="2084177"]... not only satisfying fans of a particular genre but reaching out from there as well. ...[/quote] Overall, I appreciate ambitious dev plans and the idea that one way to improve is to reach larger audiences. But I do not want Stardock to end up making fast-food games a-la EA. I'm not seriously worried that this will start happening, *unless* I let myself pay too much attention to the multiplayer talk about Elemental. The content-s

[quote]... as long as they use intelligent naming conventions ...[/quote] And its this sort of Big Little Thing that makes me very much want a Stardock-managed Platinum Standard for published custom content. It might also be a driving factor behind how online cohorts form--starting to add from a group with one 'standard' will tend to make you stick with them so you can create things using that vocabulary subset and bring in new things without too much concern about parameter n

[quote who="Zoomba" reply="8" id="2084350"]Master of Orion 3, hands-down. I spent months and months on those forums. ...[/quote] Wasn't it closer to a couple-few years that MoO3 teased and tortured us before finally releasing The Great Disappointment? The reversal of quality from MoO2 to MoO3 was nothing short of mind-boggling. The failure to follow through on buzz/hype was even worse.

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="19" id="2083439"]Yeah... I was using Safari in OS X, but I just started up into windows and tried to load this page and partly failed... Now I'm in IE.. Is this a record or something? Have any other people been insane enough to write so many crazy long posts all on one page of a thread before that it's gotten cut off? [/quote] I can barely see this, so please forgive typos. You guys have totally out-done any extende

[quote who="Aesir Rising" reply="16" id="2081498"]how big a game world can we make? ...[/quote] I think it's fair to say that the dev position on this is "As big as we can possibly get them." There's been talk in the context of 64-bit operating systems of maps that could take many, many months to complete. I'm very happy to think of that in the singleplayer context, but I have no real idea how it might work for any multiplayer mode(s) of Elemental. My guess there is that the fin

Felgercarb. 'Tis folly of the worst sort to presume you can protect your children from any sort of language if you let them leave the house or take mass media. The sooner one learns a few coarse words, the sooner one can decide whether to use them at all and if so, under what circumstances. One of the obvious early parameters is Not Around Parents, with possible exceptions like while learning to drive or when everyone in the family is adult and some serious fecal matter hits the oscillating a

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="8" id="2078871"]I think it's important that the Master Quest vary significantly from game to game, or it will become boring and wrote. ...[/quote] Absolutely. And now that you make me think more, I think I'd strongly prefer no direct knowledge of any other channeler's progress on a Master Quest, unless perhaps we'll be able to have or become vassals and I decide to sign on to help an awesome AI beat everyone else to the finish. Master Quests should bot

[quote]... 5% update, 95% teaser. ...[/quote] You're valuing quantity over quality. Knowing that an improvable tile can hold multiple improvements is major info, and IMO the sketch does a great job of indicating just how varied your true city (or cities) might become depending on where you put your capital. Next to a shard will doubtless carry implications that make it very different from next to a mundane resource like metals or a strong trading location like a navigable bay. (Please

[quote]... The middle city appears to be a mining colony. ...[/quote] Pictures can be worth thousands of words, but they really seem far more open to interpretation. I strongly share your hope that end-game maps will have a variety of population center types, most of which will be nowhere near the size of a city. But the sketch in the OP made me think the engine is on the path I'd prefer. I saw the 'mining colony' as an outupost, if well-defended. The smaller and larger 'cities' have

I agree with Denryu about needing a spy network if you want victory progress info (for whatever victory condition, not just the Master Quest). But I think some quests that are discretely spawned by another civ's progress on the Master Quest is a neat idea that wouldn't necessarily need to warn a player directly (i.e. give 'free' info). If the Master Quest is really a collection of quests, which seems plausible to me, then wide variety in those components should be possible. That would

[quote]Frogboy made a great post about victory conditions a while back (sigh, I can't find it...). [/quote] Was this what you were remembering, pigeon? From the bottom of the OP in that thread: [quote]We've had a number of years to think about the game mechanics and learn from GalCiv. What we want is a game where the "winner" isn't decided early on with the rest being just mopping up. The key to that is to have distinct paths to victor

I like the ideas in the OP, and am right with pigeon in hoping that Elemental will indeed make it both possible and fun to play as a trading nation.

[quote]Somewhere frogboy said they probebly wouldn't have dragons as mounts just because they were special or smart or something like that. I'll see if I can pull up the post. it was back last november though, so maybe things will change since it was a while ago.[/quote] I surely hope Brad sticks to his guns here. I would *very much* prefer to see dragons being closer to a 'force of nature' than something you'd dress up for a parade.