I am trying to summarize ideas I’ve initiated/posted so far, pre-beta. So far SD devs has shown EWOM is promising, I just try to express the kind of game I want to play & stuff I’ve not seen them mentioning here yet. Most of these ideas are small modification to the existing TBS genre, but I hope it’ll open up many new possibilities.
A. Racial Settlement Type
(This is the preparation mechanism of non-human/fallen races in future)
Den is the Racial Settlement Type (RST) of the race of Bear, Lion, etc; while Fallen’s RST is the Castle. All settlements allow the standard set of buildings inside, e.g. barrack, granary, farm etc. And there should be race specific unique buildings too.
Each Racial Settlement Type (RST) has its own specific map tile requirement, for example:
If a Lion race player captured the Bear’s Den, the lion race can then make full use of the Den because they share the same RST. However, when the Fallen captures the same den, they are incapable to make full use of it because Den is not their RST.
When a player controls a RST that is different to his starting race,1. New (Bear) units are recruited at a reduced rate of 25%(require play-testing)2. New (Bear) settlers are recruited at a reduced rate of 10% (i.e. discourage Fallen sprawling Dens)3. New buildings are built at a reduced rate of 20% (require play-testing)4. 1% chance of Civilian Revolt (CR) every turnFor any settlement being razed, it can only be rebuilt to same settlement type. So the Fallen cannot convert the den to its preferred RST castle at the same tile.Any foreign settlement type is by-and-large a place to recruit units. There are many reasons why this is a very nice mechanism. 1) Each race requires their own specific tile to settle, there will not be edge to edge urban sprawl of Human/Fallen castles 2) Races sharing the same RST will compete rigorously for land3) Requires player maximize their use of native race well. Foreign recruits can help by only so much, as their production is quite limited. I don’t want to see all armies are UN armies. 4) Foreign settlements act as an extremely flexible recruitment structure from SD’s bestiary 5) Map tile composition affects the power balance/available room of expansion of players, due to RST tile requirement6) Assuming there are tile affecting spells, it sure will allow some interesting strategyI believe this RST concept does not conflict with BoogieBac’s comment. Essence has to spend on a grassland tile to make it livable.[q "BoogieBac"]
Remember, in Elemental, one of your choices is to use your Essense to 're-seed' the land to make it livable for a settlement.If a player wants to 'colony rush', then they can, but only to the extent of their magical ability and then they'll be too weak to put up a fight. Cities also have to be built upon and around 'Fertile Land' tiles, so players wanting a slower 'Expansion' phase can tweak down the amount of fertile tiles in their world.[q]Regardless of the cataclysm or not, I want the map populated with many (AI) players, according to their preferred habitat. That means there should be different B. Shades of diplomacy.War- All units can trespass its border- Allow fighting, including capture of rival settlement- Needs to be in “Conflict” for a random 5-10 turns before turning to “War”Conflict- All units can trespass its border- Allow fighting, but rival settlement cannot be capturedNeutral - Caravan pays a toll to trespass- Other units cannot trespassPeaceful- Caravan and other units pay a toll to trespassFriendly- All units trespass for free- Allow road building within mutual borderAlliance- Map shared, Allow building on ally’s land or changing tile type & more - Declaring War/Conflict to one of the ally is effectively to both of them- Needs to be “Friendly” for a random 5-10 turns before “Alliance”- Stay as “Friendly” for a random 5-10 turns after breaking “Alliance”
Border is a circular 20/15/10 hexes surrounding a settlement (map size depending)- When two player borders overlap, the game determines the exact border location, it is somewhere close to their midpoint.- Border expands slowly but indefinitely towards its closest city the same player owns, even if the closest city is located beyond its default 20/15/10 hexes limit.- Border expands on any terrain, including the sea.[Toll is automatically calculated, to reduce micromanagement]Disallow backstabbing, helps inter-fraction caravan trade.B. Quest GeneratorSovereign/Hero stacks visiting other player’s settlement with diplomatic relation of Peaceful or higher, is allowed to recruit new units (except settler) at by paying 2X material/price to the player, reducing its stockpile.Tavern can be built in any settlement, which offers hero quests. Quests are generated by an automatic quest generator; one quest is generated per player per month. When any hero accepts the quest, new quest will not be generated until it is failed/completed/expired some time later. Quest reward will not be reducted from the treasury.These 2 features above, allows RPG like gameplay; allows heroes only gameplay.From the perspective of the Sovereign, he has the option to generate the monthly quest manually to fulfill his strategic need indirectly, by ‘summoning’ some hero stacks. The player can request them to capture known city, guard an area/structure, kill certain hero, explore unknown area, etc. When the quest is completed successfully, the agreed amount will be paid from the treasury to the hero. The game will always suggest the minimum gold amount needed for the quest. If the Sovereign tops up the bounty, a stronger independent hero stack will emerge to improve the odd & compete with other heroes trying. The Sovereign always see whatever the quest hero sees when the hero is questing. The Sovereign has no control on that stack though; the game AI is doing its best.
C. Victory Conditions (VC)
VC are somewhat easier to achieve in most cases (compared to the standard last man standing victory); and more importantly it is more fun to players because player has to use alternative strategies to win.
Depending on mapmaker/RMG, any game can have 0 to 2 VCs. I want all VCs hidden to others until a player reaches 75% progress. It will then be announced to everyone. Sample VCs:
a. Alliance with all players at the same timeb. Keep all essence nodes Razed for 3 turnsc. Cast "spell of Mastery"d. Keep the ultimate artifact for 20 turns.- Its location is automatically shown to all players once discovered1e. consecutively win 50/40/30 battles (depend on map size)1f. Surrender all battles for 30 turns consecutively (Assume all units die when surrendering)Some of the AI player will just want to mind their own business, (& do not want to win the game) etc. The Victory condition listed below will influence how a particular AI behaves.Victory condition: Stay Peaceful- Player with this VC maintains “Peaceful” diplomatic relation with all players all the time- So, Player with this VC can only fight with independentsVictory condition: Stay Neutral- Player with this VC maintains “Neutral” diplomatic relation with all players- Will accept “War” or “Conflict” to other player ONLY when other initiate thatVictory condition: Stay Barbaric- Player with this VC is at “War” with all players all the time
These VCs & the RST mechanism should allow games that have strong Neutral/Independent non-winning fractions act as the backdrop
D. Global Quest is a quest available to ALL players to participate/compete. Some are co-operative, some are competitive. The reward/punishment is always significant to most players. Some examples:
I. Collect N mcguffins amongst all N players before turn 100, or else 10000 demon units will invadeII. If there is more than N global spells maintained at any time, magic cease to function for all N players III. “World Unmake quest” is now available for all players, anyone who complete it win the gameIV. (Darko) All deceased monsters/units will come back to life every 50 turns, raiding players randomlyV. (Darko’s 2) Any player can cede their empire, if he lost a victory of fate duelVI. 50 Archangel are granted to any player who first controls 50 AngelsVII. Whoever annihilate player X, will then be the only one who can cast global spellsVIII. Sea level will raise and destroy all lowland cities, unless all dungeons are explored by turn 50IX. All units has 80% chance to be killed by a sudden epidemic, whenever any player is annihilatedX. All units will turn to undead, if there is any undead on the map at turn 50,100,150,200… etcXI. (landisaurus) All players lose, if magic is somehow used in a bad way
There may be many ways to get these Global quests, the mapmaker/RMG can assign them at turn 0. Maybe there are “Global Quest” stones that any player who collects 2 of that will randomly change/start the quest. Maybe it’s a big spell call “Enable a Global Quest”.
E. Limit unit's walking, flying, swimming range and simulating Supply Line
Most units should have a limited range of activity on the map. Most units should not be allowed to walk across an XXXL map, or fly across ocean without proper Food supply. Below is a simple and elegant method to implement that
Units can carry a maximum of M units of food, currently hold Y units of food, consume X units of food per turn, and is able to forage Z units of food per turn. Each turn, Y unit of food is consumed. The turn after Y=0, they gain the status of “Exhausted”. Exhausted units will have ATT, DEF greatly reduced & movement speed halved. These units can still keep pressing forward, but the risk of defeat is huge. Generally speaking, exhausted units should retreat, but it is a choice up to the AI/Gamer. The fun thing about Exhaustion is, since it is a status, it can be removed by spell/item/heroes' skill when appropriate.Exhaustion applies to any modes of transport, including walking, swimming, flying, seafaring and etc. Swimming unit is drowned when it is exhausted.A land tile carries a maximum of W units of food. Any unit that does not involve in any combat nor damaged previous turn will automatically forage a % of Z food units. This % is terrain dependent. If it is a dessert/ocean tile, this % equals to 0. If it is a city tile, this % can be well over 100%. For most if not all land tiles, food will be replenished automatically to W units many turns later.50% * M food units is automatically ‘ordered’ to reach the adventuring stack whenever Y drops below 50% (for example) of M. Caravan of food travels from its closest city, & the amount of food ordered equals to any excess over the city's emergency food surplus. If one city does not have the food to cover the 50% * M amount, another food caravan is ordered from the next closest city.When the caravan arrives, food is equally distributed amongst all units automatically. But there will be UI for distributing food (or transfer items) btw units of the same stack or adjacent stacks.
F. What should happen when you capture a Settlement?
Attacker who managed to annihilate all garrisoned unit will have to following options 1. Raze Settlement - Random 30-80% chance of having a Civilian Revolt (CR) 2. Raid Settlement - Settlement ownership remains unchanged - Raider loot all resources production for the coming X turns - Settlement produces nothing for 2X turns 3. Capture Settlement - Random 1-5% chance of CR - Settlement produces nothing for X turn - Random 10-70% of the building will be destroyed 4. Migrate to the Settlement type that you already have - Random 5-10% chance of CR - A Settler has to reach this new Settlement to do the migration - Settlement produces nothing for X turn Civilian Revolt (CR) means: - Barbarian stack that is 0% to 100% strength of the last raiding party will appears around the Settlement (in 0-5 turns) trying to attack the raiding party "OR" join the nearest Settlement of the attacked player for half price - This stack may have a new hero leading them
I hope this is a good long read! Hopefully devs will implement most of it!
oh? no "wizard pact"
RST compatibility should be able to be increased by perks/merits or whichever the name you prefer. What if my human tribe is also adept to forests because of my Channeler's bond to nature magic? (just an example) That would mean that with the use of magic, a race could use other different terrains as their own. In any case, I find strange that humans cannot live in mountains. Surely they wouldn't be so suited as other races but it's not like they would be trying to live underwater. I would like more for humans (and fallen?) being able to colonice anywhere in the surface (or mostly) and give the non-human races another advantages (be it greater numbers, greater strength... whatever suits them better and is balanced in the end).
To give % at this moment is pointless, really. They need some number that may not exist yet (or not be like we could expect).
I disagree with your diplomacy settings.
I have a big huge army, but I can't attack the small town because I'm only in 'conflict' and can't get a 'war' yet... That sounds reasoonable to you? My suggestion is as follows:
Conflict - what you have before official diplomacy starts.
All shades of diplomatic options - negotiable through diplomacy. The toll idea is an interesting element to add, to use your example
War - you can 'delare war' anytime you want, which is a purely diplomatic action. On the other hand, capturing a town while not in a war is considered as a declaration of such, only with harsher negative diplomatic effects (for other factions as well). Note that this system DOES allow backstabbing. Keep a damn eye on who you lend the keys to your house dude .
Another subject, vicory conditions. Having different, and maybe hidden victory conditions is an awesome idea. Having the AI play differently for each objective is a must. On the other hand, I think it's a *very* bad idea to enforce those tactics like you described. Example: a faction with peaceful objectives. Yes, it would be preffered for them to befriend everyone, but they should still be able to just eliminate (or try to, at least) opposing factions.
"Forget it" is one of the option.
I respectfully disagree
Just beacuae you don't wanna see it doesn't mean that the majority want it the same way*, the world is a big bad mean place
* same is true of my post
Well, what is the reason you’ll enjoy the backstabbing then? One point of a forum like this is to discuss.Pearl Harbor (& other sneak attack) happens in History; but it is a tactical event that hardly affects the final outcome of a war. The result of a war bases on factors on the strategic level.Ideally, if there is a simple & elegant way to represent BOTH the strategic value of honoring border AND allowing sneak attack in EWOM, I will love that. If I’ve to choose one of them only, I’ll say sneak attack aren’t that useful/interesting, compared to providing utility of a border.Usually, it takes some time (maybe a few weeks) for a nation/kingdom to capture the first city. The “Conflict” diplomacy status represents that few weeks when the army is approaching the city thorough a buffer zone (usually the rural area).
Well, to start with a semi-useless quibble (Elemental apparently will not include naval combat), I'd say that Pearl Harbor had massive, if perhaps unintended, strategic consequences--it enabled FDR to get the U.S. into WW II despite the then-strong public opinion that we should not get involved. Some folks talk now as if the US was always the leader against the Axis powers, but in fact an awful lot of horrible war went on before we finally started spending blood and major treasure on stopping Hitler, Mussolini, and the Nipponese elites who hijacked their emporer. (I don't expect to see TBS games emulate this complexity well for a long while.)
Quibble aside, I think you're sort of onto something about land-basd sneak attacks needing to be hard to pull off even in a fantasy setting, at least when they are full-scale invasion forces aimed at seizing control of population centers. Massive troop movements inevitably send out all manner of strong signals, even when they traverse wilderness areas. It's messy and loud to mount a real invasion.
However, I don't think the game should try too hard to work with modern 'border' ideas, not least because modern borders are far less cut and dried than many people might like, but mostly because it seems more reasonable to work with fog-of-war mechanics in a fantasy setting. If you've drawn a line in the sand somewhere and called it your border, you'd better be able to keep a direct eye on it or the word 'border' is just posturing.
Let me sidetrack a bit first. GW Swicord, does SD explicitly there is no naval combat? I personally don’t need those TW:Empire style vessel combat. All I want is something like Kraken attacking a transport full of Knights. Some units that can swim, some units can fight on the sea. Nothing complicated here. I’ll be very disappointed that, if the map has ocean/lake & yet all units are off limit.Oh, Pearl Harbor (PH) definitely has strategic value, but what I say is that 1 or 2 cities lost usually do not affect the main strategic outcome in longer run. One of the reasons Japan initiate PH is they want to stall US Pacific navy. Japan well knew it lacks the ability to touch US ground be4 attacking PH. Under the suggestion I’ve, it’ll give US 5-10 turns to prepare defending PH only if US guess right that PH will be attacked. Border, I enjoy a lot in TBS game. Border represents a soft geographical chokepoint. Soft in a sense that gamer are required to affect how permeable it is (caravan only? troops also?) for a neighbor, via diplomatic means. I don’t necessary want the one like Civ4 which is driven by a complex cultural model. Something simple is fine for EWOM.A minor fine-tuning on my simplified border idea, so a continuous block of country will be formed. Border is a circular 20/15/10 hexes surrounding a settlement (map size depending)- When two player borders overlap, the game determines the exact border location, it is somewhere close to their midpoint.- Border expands slowly but indefinitely towards its closest city the same player owns, even if the closest city is located beyond its default 20/15/10 hexes limit.- Border expands on any terrain, including the sea.I have not asked SD to try hard to create a fancy or accurate “border” idea (like Civ4). I have asked to give us a crude one. A crude one still serve a lot of purpose, in terms of gamers’ enjoyment.
Re naval stuff, forum posts are not contracts or promises, but in his recent modding thread, Brad said "...the game will, over time, become flexible enough so that players can mod it into all kinds of different land-based, turn-based games."
I've been brandishing that term here and there in hopes of getting some confirmation or correction from the devs. I'd also like to see naval stuff at least roughly equivalent to early Civ. I'd even like to see some basic aerial transport and combat options--can't expect a Sinbad mod without the ability to at least mod in flying carpets.
I humbly submit my added voice for more races, please. Reasons:
1) One of the most fun things about MOM was that you had a different game every time right from the start by choosing a different race and a different magic. Example: 5 races, 5 magic genres=25 theoretical unique starting perspectives. Plus, since you could conquer other races early, you rapidly developed a unique army every game. I loved combining the good from each into a squad/army. With only 2 races, and 5 magic genres, you only have 10 unique combos from the start. And, you can't grow your options by conquering numerous other race's cities--which leads to point 2.
2) One of the very fun things about the map was exploration. You just never knew where you would find an underdefended 'new race city' that allowed you to tap into their abilities. Here, it will always be a Fallen or a Man.
I know it would be a lot of work, and I'm grateful you're making Elemental. Here's one gamer who would pay more to get the extra races....I'd even champion waiting longer. While graphics are important these days, I'd sacrifice some of those if necessary, to add races. MOM was awesome because it was unique each time, unpredictable, and exciting even with awful graphics--I think the races were a huge part of that.
If it can't be done in the initial release, could you add the hooks to make it moddable?
Thanks for listening...
I'm in the wait-and-see camp on the 'races' talk, not least because that word is such a sloppy, baggage-laden mess. I started out hoping to see Elemental include Stardock's take on traditional fantasy figures for playable factions and/or some all-new nonhuman stuff of their own. But Stardock has become the TBS analog to a restaurant I trust, so I'm willing to try the new special even if the ingredient list isn't what I expected.
That aside, on point 1, Tim4fun's math is off for two major reasons. First, we know almost *nothing* about how magic is going to work other than that there will be 5 elemental themes, some possible good-evil differentiation, and 12 unique 'spell book' thingies, one for each faction. Second, that's twelve factions, not two. Sure, morphological variation won't be as broad as if we had elves, orcs, faeries, and ents, but it is just silly to assume in advance that Stardock can't establish twelve distinctive perspectives for the playable factions. They've done alright with GC2 and they seem like good students of their own work, so I expect it to be at least a bit better for Elemental.
The first two bits aside, the devs seem almost frighteningly focused on modding and I'd be very surprised if they're building a game that cannot support player-created, non-human factions. And, if I end up liking Elemental as much as I hope I will, I'd most definitely join Tim4fun and others in paying for an expansion that included playable non-human factions that fit with the game canon.
I'm with GWSwicord on this. just because the different factions are in theory the same 'race' doesn't mean they are poor compared to those who would be the different race.
Warcraft 1 had 2 races... but they were pretty much 1 race in that everything was mirrored pretty exactly (except the spell casters, which is where the game was broken).
Warcraft 2 had 8 races (9 if you count "demon" as a neutral race) but only 2 factions. is this an improvement? For the most part they are still two sides of the same coin (though orcs/trolls/ogres/goblins were made a bit tougher and more expensive. They were much more different than in warcraft 1 in my opinion)
Red alert 2 had 1 race... humans... Ther was democratic humans, and socialist humans (expansion added more humans that are clones of the 2nd group of humans), but the diversity between them is much greater than warcraft 1 or 2.
the original release of Dawn of war only had 3 races, humans, eldar, orks. The 1st expansion didn't add another race either (imperial guard are still just human). I didn't hear anybody cry about it (well, tyranid fans did, but that isn't the point)
I'm just being a troll, but the point is people need to stop talking about "two races" and making it sound like that is not enough or something. Because this game has 12 factions. Call them 12 'races' if you want. That would be more accurate than complaining that there is only 2. The "two races" part is only fluff side of things. In theory you shouldn't be able to tell except their models look the same
Updated OP, added point E. Hopefully devs will find the OP & this discussion useful.
Variable mounts.
Semi off-topic but i'd like to correct this thought here. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with the intention of catching the Pacific fleet in port and wiping it out. According to all their intel the fleet should have been there. What actually happened is that with a dose of forethought and a lot of good luck the carriers had been deployed on maneuvers and what was actually caught were mostly the battleships. The true might of the US navy was actually the carriers as was later proved at midway (also why we don't build battleships anymore). Had the Japanese actually caught the carriers in port they would seriously have delayed the US entry into the European land war, and would have put us at a significant disadvantage to the Japanese fleet. I don't think it would have changed the outcome in the long run, given the industrial power that the US had the potential to crank out at the time.
Point being that if the sneak attack had been carried out and had the desired effect it WOULD have majorly changed the course of the war.
seconded (how could there not be? Age of Empires, Total war, HoMM, warhammer, warcraft, and pretty much every other fantasy game that comes to mind has at least 1 mounted unit/character that has a different mount from the standard mount [horse]. The only exception I can find being Final Fantasy, but they don't use horses at all. They use a series-specific bird, and often in is a variable based on color (black colored ones can fly and/or run on water, for example) )
Old thread, old post, but still relevant.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/328989/page/4/#1939498
I considered the replies here carefully and have been watching the beta. I'm trying to simplify the issue why I find value in multiple races; haven't been able to find lots of posts championing multiple races, so though this thread is old, I'll add two reasons:
1) Faction background/technology trees
2) Role-playing feel
1) Arriving at distinct descriptions for the Factions seem to be challenging in the beta. I suggest it could be because they are all human. If they were multiple races, their backgrounds are easily distinct. It also allows the tech trees to be radically different without much explanation.
2) Role-playing feel. An early ad/post/interview discussed how SD wanted this game to almost feel like a role-playing game. Well, I liked playing non-humans in role-playing games. It made it feel like I was in a different world, aka fantasy. The escapism was more believable when you're playing a troll. Without other races, it feels like you're playing D&D with just one option for character class-human.
There is a richness that is lost without other races, IMHO.
Thanks for listening.
There was huge thread about trying to persuade getting more Races in April 2009 or earlier.
"Arriving at distinct descriptions for the Factions seem to be challenging in the beta."
I do not have the beta, how do you know it is challenging?
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