One of the things we really want to drive home in Elemental that we think will make it stand out is that a well equipped army is a big deal.
The Roman armies dominates much of Europe not because Romans were inherently better warriors but because they were well trained and well equipped.
Contemporary fiction tends to trivialize the significance of a non-industrialized society being able to train and equip 10,000 men with swords, plate mail, steel helmets, leather boots, etc. But in reality, being able to do that is an incredible achievement.
In Elemental, your first turns will not be about designing and producing fully armored troops. On the contrary, when you see mounted units equipped with plate mail and swords we want it to give the same feeling as when you see the Mongols in Civilization show up with tanks on your island. It’s a big deal.
Because people in Elemental are a resource, it creates a lot of interesting choices on the type of civilization you want to build. You can, for instance, focus on having mass armies of poorly trained and poorly equipped peasants. These hordes might be able to conquer the world or they might meet a civilization that has a much smaller force but one that is exquisitely trained and equipped. That battle, which players can optionally fight in full tactical detail, should be breathtaking.
And of course, what I jut describe doesn’t even touch on the fact that we are talking about a world with magical items and beasts of almost unimaginable might. As I’ve mentioned previously, someone gets ahold a dragon (and by a dragon I mean 1) that is a huge deal. Nobody is going to be running around with a “throng” of dragons.
If you’ve ever read Tolkien’s Silmarillion you get an idea of just how mighty some of the beings in Elemental will be. For those into that kind of thing, if you’ve ever wanted to know one of the inspirations for the Arnor and Dread Lords you can think of them as Maiar.
There are things lurking in the world of Elemental that are just breathtakingly powerful and rare. And rare, I mean that you may only encounter or hear of one maybe after months of playing the game. We’ll talk about that more later though.
The point being, the armies of Elemental are truly going to be yours. You will have ultimate control over what kind of army you want to have. We’re very excited.
Brad goes into detail how this is a pretty hands-off game when it comes to controlling individual units etc.
EDIT: Found it:
http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/04/21/three-moves-ahead-episode-9-brad-wardell-demigod-elemental-and-a-prize/
Little late but...
THIS is exactly what feel was missing from every other games (of HOMM type).
You play a random map...you know what items are going to be the best and what creatures top the list, no matter how random the game is the pieces remain the same, only their location changes.
If Elemental is going to randomize the actual pieces too....EXCELLENT.
I think you misunderstood Brad in that interview (understandably, he wasn't as clear as he could've been). He said that Elemental willy play kind of as if you're the ruler of a kingdom in a world in like those in D&D games, where you get to deal with things like wandering adventurers, possibly disturbing things. Not your heroes - your heroes do what you want (I can see how that might have been confusing - he has said the same thing phrased much more clearly in the past). One of the other people then said, "it sounds like Majesty," and Brad responded, "eh, there are probably elements of that in there." He never said anything about it being hands-off regarding controlling individual units.
We've got pictures of the control system for moving the guys around, your armies aren't going to be autonomous. I think hiring heroes is going to be a matter of tracking them down as they wander the map though.
Now what if, just IF we could run around with a throng of kittens bent on destruction of the human race? Not your average kittens, but rabid, no nonsense kittens that have everything to gain and nothing to lose? I guess a pack of war dogs would be cool also, but just would not have the same shock factor.
Anyways Elemental sounds awesome! This could be the game of games I have always wanted to play. Not an average 50+hr spree of playing, but weeks and weeks of constant play where no single play round is ever the same! Wow I just get so excited thinking about! I look foward to hearing more about it.
It has been a dozen years since a game really grabbed me and had me playing 40+ hours a week for months at a time. The game that even years after release you still boot up because it is so awesome and partly even for nostalgia reasons. This could be the game to end the drought!
I personally think that the army system sounds really exciting. What I want is to have a reasonably large, quite organised army but have an awesome elite core of extremely well trained and equipped soldiers.
I'm curious as to how my chaneller would stand up to a dragon or other mythical beasts. For instance if my chaneller is like a demi-god, smashing armies apart etc, if the enemies send an army my way with a dragon at the head can I send my mighty chaneller forward to squish said dragon like a bug on a table?
Also for battles with armies will there be an auto-resolve button in case I really can't be bothered watching 5 of my scouts be routed by a huge army?
From the little we know, it seems like dragons will be at least the equals of powerful channelers. Then there are people around here who want dragons to be on a higher plane entirely than channelers (by which I just mean - so much more powerful that you'll never have a channeler who can match one), and the people like me who think dragons should be about as powerful as an endgame channeler on a large map. It seems fairly certain (from previous posts from Frogboy) that one of the above situations is likely to be the case.
Yes. I think that was mentioned in an old dev post, but I'm not sure which, when or where.
No leadership limit!
The HoMM games are quite fun but this mechanic changes the ENTIRE GAME!
HoMM and Disciples superheroes are fun in campaign but doesn't work well at all in skirmish games.
I want something like Age of Wonders where you can have hero stacks if you want to or 1/4 stacks of weak creatures sprawling over the map.
If you have to have a hero in a stack to make it worthwhile then I think this game gets too stiff, just like HoMM and Disciples are. From Stardocks talk about Master of Magic I expected the stack system to be like Master of Magic or Age of Wonders neighboring hextile-join combat. But now it starts to sound like Kings Bounty where you will instead have a few heroes with stacks....
I'm happy I didn't preorder as i need to see how this goes....
I love how people say that when the slightest thing appears that it might not go exactly as hoped. Seriously, if you're interested enough to be a regular on these forums, then whether or not heroes are important components of armies - you will still in all likelihood buy the game, and even enjoy it.
I do agree with you, though, that armies should be able to function well without heroes leading them, though. I'm also confident that Stardock intends to make it so.
As far as unit customization goes I'd like a fairly simple system, weapon, armor and race type, with a few optional extra's like mount, enchantments and material type. So when creating a unit you first pick the race, Human, Orc, Beastman, Elf or whatever is available (or modded in). Weapons and armor will have the choice to use specific materials like bronze, iron or your very finite supply of mithril (if applicaple) and of course if its leather armor, chainmail or spears/swords. I very much want weapon types to be important so that you counter cavalry with spears and perhaps some bonuses associated with swords and axes. Add in an enchantment for base gear (like magic weapons to hit those mystical creatures or defence bonuses against specific creature types (undead, nature etc) and extra durability to your shields (making them more resistant to high quality arrows).
I've been playing Master of Magic again lately so I'm horribly biased but I'd love to see some serious unit tracking as well, I want ballista arrows to be neglible against an army unit (large mob of peasents) but to be abselutely deadly to large magical beasts who come in pairs or single. Overland enchantments such as windshields for your frontline units to protect against arrows, and flaming swords for your heroes/commanders.
As far as army logistics goes the stack of doom should be easily countered by sending your smaller armies to block roads (trade), sack mines and burn crop fields.
I would also like a 'training level' for creating units.
I think we should look at the king of games CIV IV for inspiration. No artificial limits but a system that will have tradeoffs.
Armies can be limited by:
1. Upkeep cost in gold
2. Food consumpiton (supplies)
3. Small penalites if you mix certain units that dont want to be in the same army and similar stuff
4. Small penalties if the army is too large for the level of the general (no hard cap, just a small inexperience penalty)
5. Availability - limits to how many units can be recruited from the pool. Your country does not have unlimited supply of people
6. Alternative cost. If you raise a huge army from your population you could have too few people left to do the farming and other jobs.
Its not that hard to avoid the stack of doom if the game is flexible
It's IMPOSSIBLE to stop the stack of doom in this type of game...that is to stop it from being created. However unless your enemy is already much more powerful than you there's plenty of options to still defeat them..so I see no problems.
Its not impossible. There are things as collateral damage that can be used. One can have many objectives/tasks that need to be done at the same time thereby invalidating the tactics of one large army. It will then be better to split into armies that are sizeable enought to accomplish a certain task.
Lots of opitons!
Just because you have a ton of stuff to do doesn't mean people won't keep an awesome stack. Also unless the game is not balanced at all having a ton of the best units together will win most battles.
Well there's no reason not to keep an awesome stack around, good armies win battles after all. But its all about hard counters, spearmen defeat the elite cavalry but have no shields and so are vulnurable to missile units. Swordsmen chop up bowmen and to a degree spearmen but lose out to cavalry. Going into a battle with 20 units of expensive elite cavalry is easily countered by bringing ye olde pointy stick, some bowmen and maybe a fire elemental to scare the horses. Besides, I'm sure there will be powerful overland spells to defend your territory with, maybe a nature channeler can slow down the stack of doom with some muddy ground, annoying weather and forests while he prepares his defence.
One of the most important things I hope is in the game though is supply, an enemy army in your territory should have some penalties for more time spent there. So you can't just sit your big stack there outside your enemy's capital and block all his trade because taking the city would be too costly.
Frogboy bustin' out a big ol' can of industrial strength, new and improved super awesome sauce; giving everyone a little somethin' somethin'.
I don't think the tactical battles themselves have stacks.
have any of you read A Game of Thrones? it was one of Brad's sources of inspiration for this game, you know. anyways, in the book armies are EXTREMELY hard to maintain in one place. You get that many men and horses in one area and you end up stripping the countryside bare. Plus you get diseases from contaminated water, and the army becomes a sitting duck just waiting for enemy raiding parties and cavalry. Therefore, it think that the "Stack of Death" would only be possible if used as a sort of final blow, and even then it would be a pretty damn hard blow to carry out because the "stack", along with the required supply train, of course, could be easily flanked, and having so many units crammed in a small area makes AOE spells like something along the lines of Blizzard from Warcraft 3 or a rain of fire very VERY effective.
I don't think we need to fear that there will be a one-and-only strategy (like SoD) in this game. Stardock knows how to do it right. (GC2 didn't have any problems of this type AFAIK)
How they will do it probably depends on the beta, so you should be happy if you signed up, since only then do you get to influence the decision.
Really, everything Stardock has told us seems to be pieces to a puzzle which realizes one magnificently well-designed game.
There are the All-X strategy (all labs or all factories plus focus) and the Year Zero Win strategy (winning in less than 52 turns). Both of those tend to suck the joy out of the game for me despite their proven ability to yield strong scores.
I thought I remembered something like that. I couldn't figure why the ALL-X works, so I just forgot about it.
Well then. Hopefully we catch such things during beta and have them fixed.
I love the idea of this very thorough beta.
SoD armies aren't viable in real life, so why should they be viable in the game? I would like to see the "30 years war paradox" come up, namely the large armies starve and the small armies get beaten. So which option do you choose?
Even in real life there are SoD. For example the Persian army in ancient times that numbered in the millions that conquered huge parts of the world.
I believe the idea is not to artificially prevent SoD but to make it expensive to create SoD and to provide viable strategies to counter SoD.
Some ideas already mentioned:
- Other than the usual upkeep costs, men for the army should not materialize out of thin air. They should be taken out from the population in in the towns. Recruit too many and you have not enough people to work the fields.
- Provide viable strategies to counter stacks of doom. Fortified mountain passes manned by a few men can stop a much larger army. Same with river crossings and bridges and also heavily fortified towns.
- Provide spells that can essentially wipe out SoD like volcano or plague spells.
- provide ability to cripple enemy economy by raiding. Small fast mounted units of raiders can run around attacking precious mines and farmland crippling the economy without having to directly attack fortified cities. You would have to ensure to leave some token force at key resources to prevent raider attacks. Without money to pay your troops, your men will desert.
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