Philocthetes

psychoak, I think one of the reasons that you scare and fascinate me is that we seem to look at quite a few things in rather similar ways--in general, we share some uknown degree of aversion to state power. Again, I have to say that even if you never directly considered philosophical anarchism, you really should admit to something like anarchist sympathies. At least in US "branding" terms, being conservative entails belief in some basic level where gov't is necessary and good. From yo

[quote]what I see possible is that high level units might be restricted by your "home" race, since the dwarf hates dark elves you wouldn't have access to the best dwarf units or you could perhaps raze the city and build a dark elf one[/quote] This "mixology" is one of the things that I really liked about MoM, and MoO2, and think is a major weak point of the GalCiv series so far. The main reason I didn't play the PC GalCiv 1 to death was that I did not like being limited to playing as

I've noticed Brad mention Quarter to Three a few times, but not really paid attention. I'm now thinking that early-obssesed folks who aren't doing it already should be reading this thread (and possibly others over there) might want to start. I've only begun reading the thread top-down, and already there's some neat talk from a poster named Mark L about what he calls "creative as

[quote]Civ felt like that for me as well. Interesting at first, but with an endgame that was undifferentiated and boring.[/quote] I have a strong impression that Brad is *seriously* interested in tackling "The Tedious End-game Problem." One of the design goals for the new engine is apparently to support a world that you can thoroughly destroy in an end-game scenario. He's talked about end-game spells being "deliberately de-balancing," or words to that effect.

My guess is that the game will include something like the Shipyards in GalCiv2, but probably with larger baseline libraries of structure-parts and the option to choose from user-generated parts that make it through the content-sharing system to publication. That would mean regular folks could do some basic stuff along the lines of playing with Legos and the folks who have the right 3D modeling tools can submit original artwork for po

There's a digression in the opening Ideas thread about this point. For Elemental, I find I'm in favor of exactly the kind of *game-changing* decisions you describe in the OP. Gotta admit, also, that Ilumino's take on the possibilities of the online side of the game could end up leading to the same result, depending on how the type and rating systems work and what you do with them as a player.

I think LDiCesare an Zaisha are onto something. Branding issues aside, the Elemental channelers seem to more or less demi-gods. Maybe one way Elemental can step beyond MoM is to make the Spell of Return path just one of a set of possible ways to recover from losing your avatar unit in a battle. Aside: I had totally forgotton what a total b*tch it was to work through your own Spell of Return in MoM. Laughing at the others while they did it was good fun, though.

If anyone else was waiting for the option to spend TGN tokens for the pre-order, Kryo gave us the link in another thread. I now have just one token in the bank, aimed at the first Elemental expansion.

Thanks, Kryo. I'm down to 1 token, and AFAIK I should be able to mix it with some cash for the first Elemental expansion pack.

Heh. I never even considered the graphics engine. I was just thinking game mechanics. So, I guess if I was getting all my dev wishes, I'd want the magic system to have some astrological aspects *and* I'd want to see the moons and houses or whatever in the richest parts of the UI. But practically, it wouldn't matter to me whether those views were from the 3D engine part of the game or not. I'd be just as satisfied if related art appeared only in cutscenes, or even if it was a r

[quote who="Ilumino" reply="7" id="1928513"]That sort of contradicts what's on the dev-post today: The idea is that the worlds you get will slowly evolve based on what players make. New races, new types of buildings, new technologies, new spells, new units, etc. will slowly find their way into the game if users choose to the option to allow user submitted content. [/quote] I think the plural "worlds" there is the crux. I read that to mean you don't get content updates

[quote]Yes such randomness would be really good. But please, no locked door![/quote] I really do appreciate this concern--I've grumbled many similar things as I've played different 4X games. But one of the things I like about the Xeno Ethics tech in GC2 is that there's no going back. Good stories and the real world work the same way. Some decisions most certainly do close doors. But if the story (or game) is good enough, the closed door is associated with new possibilites or at least

I should not have mentioned my no-real-astronomy thing here. It is a matter of taste (aesthetics), and I'd be happy to talk about it elsewhere. What I'm really interested in with this thread is whether the devs already have any "celestial mechanics" in mind and whether any other pre-beta folks think that the game would benefit with some stuff like that.

[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="19" id="1928446"]If I want to change my "rote path" I just change my faction. Randomness in spell is just so painfull. If I want to try something new I want to chose it! If the spell systems allows for research with a system like ars magica it would be an absolute blast, and without the need to random things to try new things.[/quote] I'm really startled by how much the "launch" moment here has stirred up my role-playing side. I haven't had an

[quote who="Norhg" reply="5" id="1927351"]I would love if the races weren't mono-cultural. Even if the differences is just in art assets I wouldn't want the people from opposite shores of an ocean to be identical. If the groups are given entirely different sets of units, even better![/quote] If I'm reading Frogboy right when he talks about content sharing in his big post here today, we should be able to selectively modify our personal game context to include cust

In his great big details post today, Brad said: "The spells are going to be intentionally de-balancing in late game. I.e. by late game, you'll be able to do Populous level damage to the world. A lot of the reason we had to create a new engine was because we needed one where the world could be truly wrecked."

If this were a typical 4x, I'd say yes. But given the apparent plan to make it a real RPG-TBS fusion, I'd say no. Well, "no" unless you can come up with a good succession mechanism that is a reasonable code task and fits the story line the devs are building. Maybe just the choice between having a possibility of succession or not could be a major part of game setup. If you can transfer your power at the time of your death, you probably need to have dedicated a share of your total power

OK, this thread from Frogboy did it. My TGN tokens are burning through my virtual pocket. I want to contribute to the pre-order stats. Please help me.

OK. I wish I could take back every cranky thing I said about Impulse, and I'll try to cut down soon. The Lord Amphibious is my totally, absolutely, no-doubt, number-one Game Dev Hero.

[quote who="ExitJudas" reply="5" id="1927950"]This is why I've always hoped, that somebody at some point, would create a 4x fantasy game, where you had to manage your resources indirectly, the way a leader does in real life, and making this premise a part of the core gameplay. Create a command interface, that allows the player to only see detailed information about the are that his avatar is actually in (a fog of war that is not only on the map), The rest of his information, should be ba

[quote who="Lord Reliant" reply="2" id="1925328"]Pidgin (http://www.pidgin.im/) also supports IRC clients, in addition to IM servers.[/quote] Either Stardock IRC has been down for over a day (which I doubt) or I'm being too stupid to understand the Pidgin interface. LR, can you possibly step me through getting a chat open?

There's an interesting thread going on about weather and several ideas are floating about on other aspects of looking down at the map. But what about looking up? I've seen nothing yet about a moon or moons, constellations, or any other astrological sort of stuff. These things have all kinds of potential as part of magical systems. Each shard type could be associated with a moon, or a single moon (and the sun) could move through a zodiac of 2 or 3 signs for each Element, with slight be

[quote]Basic Positional Audio to reinforce the sense of connection between unit and map![/quote] After she retired, I got my mom hooked on gaming and the early HoMM titles were among her favorites. She and I both also really loved this subtle but fine detail. It's such a good idea, it works across the generation gap!

[quote who="Torment" reply="15" id="1928259"]Have you guys seen the comments about the graphics on the various forums? Many people are whining about the graphics style already. [/quote] I think that might be why vieuxchat started this thread.

[quote who="Nights Edge" reply="5" id="1928098"]I second that. All the scaling will be for naught if your dragons don't have armies of infantrymen to trample over.[/quote] I believe Frogboy's already on record about the game having exactly that sort of potential. It might be hard on the lower-end boxes, but scalability is clearly a major theme for Stardock game devs, and what could be more fun than having an RPG feel while the computer gave you a gaming table that would make t