Stardock's new game "Elemental: War of Magic"

[zeitgeist]

One of my favorite shows on TV is Avatar, the last airbender (not to be confused with the recent movie). One of my long term goals with the AI is to be able to have the AI in tactical battles be able to give the kinds of battles back and forth with players (as well as eventually in MP as well) that I see on that show.

I'm confused by this. He wants the AI to somehow mimic generic anime martial arts/magic fights? This is an actual design goal? Seriously?

 

[Zeus]

Huh, I actually kind of enjoyed that game of Fall From Heaven 2. Normally playing Civ IV/Mods is like a constant stream of upgrades I don't recognize flying at my face, but the pace seemed slower, better somehow. I joined an Octopus Overlord religion and started sacrificing my warriors (beastmen), turning them into Drowned, which were only one point higher in attack but totally kicked ass anyways.

So um, back to Elemental:

Early on, Brad Wardell told people that you could,

A) Go forth like Sauron and wade through armies yourself.
B) "Pool your power into your kingdom" (paraphrasing from memory) and stay in your castle, focusing on city building.

From what little I've played, B) doesn't seem possible. There's a couple of city improvements that give you magical bonuses if you're in the city, but they don't come by until City Level 4 or 5. Which is REALLY hard to get. So not viable.

Has anyone had any success playing a game where their Soverign just stayed home and tried to "Master of Magic" it? Stayed off the battlefield?

I mean, I don't even know how that'd work in this games. Troops don't seem to automatically gain EXP like MoM, so wouldn't your soverign be level 1 forevs?

 

[Raghar]

A) Go forth like Sauron and wade through armies yourself.

Until you meet group of 4 catapults.

Has anyone had any success playing a game where their Soverign just stayed home

Majority of my current attempt had very limited combat. (Now when that army of 7 catapults with few groups of 4 catapults turn toward that city it would be either hasty retreat or complete screw up. Luckily I have a dragon.)

IIRC small amount of experience from other combats goes into sovereign. You might like to send few troops against enemy and observe results.

 

[Raghar]

AFAIK training in that old game was:

You'd need a training hall to train troops to some level. (They started better trained.)
Warlord was able to train to one level higher than allowed by each training hall.
AFAIK heroes get 1 XP per turn.
Basically troop training was quite difficult and often combat occurred before it was done.

 

[Zeus]

Well yeah, I just meant that in Master of Magic, you could send out goons to fetch spells while you researched new ones in your wizard tower. Combat was necessary to win the game, but you didn't have to personally cast spells (and level up) to raise your spell damage (Int) or anything.

In Elemental, I'm not sure how it works. Syphoning EXP off my army sounds good, but the way Wardell described it in early interviews, I imagined some sort of a knob I could slide from, "Pool power to empire" to "Pool power to Wizard" (much like the ol' research/mana/skill knobs in MoM).

From the looks of things, there's no advantage in NOT going out and kicking ass personally--unless you count the whole, die on your own territory and respawn thing. The only advantage to staying in your town, rather than the frontlines, appears to be the spell-enhancing buildings that aren't available until City Level 4 or 5, but they'e not available until mid- to late-game.

Not exactly, "Choose between staying home and enhancing your empire or going forth to the frontlines," ya know?

 

[Silellak]

He still has his head in the clouds, and lock of the thread as soon theres valid criticism:
http://forums.elementalgame.com/395604/page/1/#replies

Ugh. I wish you wouldn't tell us stuff like that.

Might I suggest while you're modeling tactical combat after a cartoon, you might slip in playing a few *games* that do grid based tac combat well. You sell a couple in your own Impulse store. See how they handle things like combat speed and initiative, movement, counter attacks, target selection strategy, unit roles and tactical variety , which would in turn grant more desperately needed diversity to the unit design process which the game is built around.

With respect, and with apologies for being grumpy, we've had years now of pie in the sky posts about fluffy conceptual goals based on Tolkien or your favorite anime, that have gotten us to where we are currently at. By your own admission during your recent posts, the dev team had become too enamored with that sort of thing during the dev process, at the expense of basic gameplay. We need nitty gritty, down to basics, fundamental redesign of tactical gameplay based on proven mechanisms that work. Not "I want it to be like Dragonball Z...that show is cool!".

I don't know why it was *this* post that I finally snapped on. I've been very supportive on the boards. I think I am just despairing, because this week I actually wanted to play a game that did fantasy tac combat really well, so I re-installed Kings Bounty, and it made me realize just how far removed Elemental currently is from anything that functional, even if it's unrealistic to hope for that much depth to the system in what is basically a "tacked on" combat mode that the game really should have been designed entirely around. It really needs ripped out and rebuilt from the ground up. The Gal-Civ like combat system is completely ill-suited to balanced tactical combat with depth and diversity.

I'm really afraid at this point you guys would be better off getting rid of tac combat altogether, and just focusing on the deep 4x grand strategy kingdom management you guys are good at. You do that well, when you focus on it. I just think you're in over your head on the tac side...I've yet to hear any compelling evidence you really understand why it isn't any good, other than the fact that a bunch of high profile people have criticized the game (it didn't seem to bother you when beta testers would tell you it wasn't ready). Best case scenario, if you successfully remodel combat, that wont really make it into the game for at *least* a year. (if you honestly believe you can get to a polished, successful new combat system in less time from where you are at right now, it just cements the feeling you're out of your depth on the tactical mechanics.)

It's clear I can't handle another year of posts like this from Brad, leading to more disappointment, so i guess I need a lengthy vacation from thinking about the game. It's cool you've made some humbling posts in recent days about that state of the game, but posts like this don't indicate any real change in design philosophy, and I have no desire to play through these mechanics with incremental changes over the next 6 months. I'll check back in a year to see if the game really has fundamentally become any better.

Sorry for the negativity, but "Avatar:TLA" design goals broke me. Good Luck with the game, and I mean that sincerely.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

ELEMENTAL 20X6!

 

[Silellak]

In other news: The Curious Case of Elemental: War of Magic by Gareth.

 

[Shuma]

It's pretty funny that this one comment basically made Brad stop doing journals at least for the time being. The whole team is getting sick of the negative comments related to them. Really? Maybe don't release a quarter-finished game then.

I'm not optimistic that this game will ever be good. It's pretty astounding how far off it is from anything fun. I'm amazed that people like this game. I mean, some folks have fun playing anything, but even then I just don't get it. I'm annoyed that I got suckered in by Brad's talk of influences (Dom3, MoM, HoMM3,Ultima 3, et al.) and his 8-bit heritage. The game is nothing like his stated influences.

There's talk of mods, there's talk of patches, and I guess we'll see. Right now I can't envision the incremental changes that are going to put all these half-baked systems together into a coherent, fun game. I definitely agree that a major overhaul of certain systems (I think most of them, actually) is in order.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Try to get your money back. As far as I can tell you might be able to if you call/email Stardock.

 

[Shuma]

I actually emailed their support people and mentioned the Gamer's Bill of Rights and that Brad himself said I could get a refund. Problem was, I ordered the game a long time ago (Beta 2), so they can't do a refund on that.

Who knows, maybe some sucker Stardock fan will buy it on Half.com or something.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Hahaha, what? They're saying they won't refund you because you preordered too long ago? That's complete bullshit.

 

[Zeus]

I think you have 90 days to get a refund, pretty much the same as K-Mart or anywhere else.

Actually I'm pretty sure K-Mart won't refund software. But the 90 day thing goes for the usual stuff you might buy there: chainsaws, shovels, lye, that sort of thing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I should think that's 90 days when you receive the item, not 90 days when you preorder.

 

[Zed]

"Ok. I'm locking this thread and will back off on making journals for awhile."

LOL BUTTHURT DETECTED GUYS, SOMEONE CALL THE BUTTOLANCE WE HAVE A BUTTMERGENCY HERE

 

[Trash]

Meh, just reinstall MoM and apply the recent fan patch. Game is surprisingly good fun even now. Perhaps Stardock should just copy and paste all the mechanics and only keep their graphical engine...

 

[Gondolin]

Consider this a warning. Back off. If you can't show a little respect or at least a little restraint when talking to us, then you won't be welcome to participate in the forums.

What the fuck is this shit???

Then don't read his journals. If you want to bitch about the game, find somewhere to do it. We're done with it here.

That's why you have a forum open to customers, you retard!

Fuck Stardock, fuck Wardell and fuck their references to Master of Magic!

 

[BethesdaLove]

Crash and burn! Crash And Burn! CRASH AND BURN!!!
"IMMA CEO OF A 20+ MIO COMPANY!"

This is fun.




Master of Magic was boring and broken. I like GC2!

 

[commie]

Which was it? I'm only aware of the unofficial patch, Dwiggs mod and wizards&heroes.

I think it was a Dwiggs mod. That was the one I remember back in the day mentioned here somewhere. I had planned on getting a mod for SM and saw a Codex topic linking to Dwiggs which I didn't use anyway as I ended up having other things to do than play. Had no idea the mod you mentioned existed until yesterday. Good mod BTW, though I'm not too sure about making all the spell schools even. There used to be a kind of handicap in the past by choosing a 'weaker' school that made things interesting.

Fuck this, I'm asking for a refund. This game isn't going to get better.

That will teach you for not not removing from inventory first in this day and age!

 

[Raghar]

Well yeah, I just meant that in Master of Magic, you could send out goons to fetch spells while you researched new ones in your wizard tower. Combat was necessary to win the game, but you didn't have to personally cast spells (and level up) to raise your spell damage (Int) or anything.

That's because there was no spell damage dependent on an attribute, and any unit could slaughter the main leader without problem. Different design.

but the way Wardell described it in early interviews, I imagined some sort of a knob I could slide from, "Pool power to empire" to "Pool power to Wizard" (much like the ol' research/mana/skill knobs in MoM).

Well there was a slider between researching spells, and improving a spellcasting skill. And that was all. Casting spells in combat required a friendly unit in combat and remaining spellcasting points, or a hero with spellcasting skill, which could help with some large more complicated spells when he was present in capital.

From the looks of things, there's no advantage in NOT going out and kicking ass personally--unless you count the whole, die on your own territory and respawn thing.

You can roleplay and avoid unnecessary deaths. (BTW these respawns doesn't apply for children, had he have guts, these respawns would be more complicated for main character as well.)

Not exactly, "Choose between staying home and enhancing your empire or going forth to the frontlines," ya know?

Stay at capital, gather an army and spirit walk near the enemy. It's the best way how to have both highly trained units, and be sufficiently responsive to any threat, until you become married.
Considering your wife isn't exactly invulnerable, and you should stay with her... Yes there are some considerations. Just the AI doesn't enforce these tactics, and there is the instant respawn on the neutral territory.

 

[Ruprekt]

I think it was a Dwiggs mod. That was the one I remember back in the day mentioned here somewhere. I had planned on getting a mod for SM and saw a Codex topic linking to Dwiggs which I didn't use anyway as I ended up having other things to do than play. Had no idea the mod you mentioned existed until yesterday. Good mod BTW, though I'm not too sure about making all the spell schools even. There used to be a kind of handicap in the past by choosing a 'weaker' school that made things interesting.

I think this mod is for non-sandbox games. At least that's how I use it.

Dwiggs removes and adds races and units so it's not compatible with the campaign or anything that's made for the vanilla game.

 

[commie]

I think it was a Dwiggs mod. That was the one I remember back in the day mentioned here somewhere. I had planned on getting a mod for SM and saw a Codex topic linking to Dwiggs which I didn't use anyway as I ended up having other things to do than play. Had no idea the mod you mentioned existed until yesterday. Good mod BTW, though I'm not too sure about making all the spell schools even. There used to be a kind of handicap in the past by choosing a 'weaker' school that made things interesting.

I think this mod is for non-sandbox games. At least that's how I use it.

Dwiggs removes and adds races and units so it's not compatible with the campaign or anything that's made for the vanilla game.

I see. Well that's what I was wondering as after reading all this I reinstalled SM and wanted a campaign mod that made the AI as good as possible, and not just for sandbox. I appreciate the link for this one anyway, thanks.

 

[Zeus]

That's because there was no spell damage dependent on an attribute, and any unit could slaughter the main leader without problem. Different design.

Yep. Which is why I don't like the idea of my sovereign growing in power much faster--leveling up--by running around getting in petty little scraps. There should be an equally fast non-combat method of advancement. Do well in a battle? Gain EXP, increase Intelligence. Do well building your town? Gain EXP, increase Essence. Manage to negotiate a wedding that's far in your favor? Gain EXP, improve Charisma. That sort of thing.

Well there was a slider between researching spells, and improving a spellcasting skill.

Actually, there were three sliders. You could funnel Mana into Research, Mana (storage) or Skill, which determined how much of your MP you could use at once (as well as things like Disenchant susceptibility and ability to cast magic in Nodes, I believe). If you focused entirely on spell Research and stockpiling Mana, it'd keep you from casting very many spells in battle (or powering up a large Fireball, etc.), even if you had a whole bunch of MP.

But anyway, from what I can tell, Elemental doesn't force you to (or even let you) decide between "pooling all your power into your empire or your sovereign." Your empire building won't suffer if your sovereign is on the frontlines, and your sovereign doesn't magically become less powerful if you're building up a lot of normal troops and fancy buildings.

 

[Berekän]

The modding comunity is already fixing it. The first Random Map Generator is out.

 

[Zeus]

I eliminated the coastal cliffs altogether. The map looks better without them

Aw, man. What about making it an option? Or just a rare occurence? I mean, coastal cliffs do happen. They're great, I live near some. Too bad he had to remove them entirely.