When people think of 3D hardware and its benefits, they usually think of first person shooters and RPGs. But ever since Galactic Civilizations, Supreme Commander and Sins of a Solar Empire started popularizing strategic zoom the possibilities have really opened up that 3D acceleration, now mainstream, let us do a lot of amazing things.
In Black & White, players could zoom out to see the world or zoom in to see individual villagers living their lives. It gave us a taste of what could come.
One of our biggest goals for Elemental is that we want players to feel like they are affecting the world. It’s a pure strategy game that happens to have elements from RPGs and adventure games in it simply because it enhances the strategic depth of the game.
When you start the game, you have no army. No city. Nothing. It’s literally just you.
And by you, I mean, literally a single man (or woman) wandering the world. When you’re looking at the map in its normal mode, you’re not seeing an icon representing you. It’s more akin to what you would expect to see in a third person RPG or action game. When you found a city, the people don’t just appear out of thin air. They come from the countryside to live in your town.
A major element of the strategy is getting people to come to your villages, towns, and cities. It’s not merely about cranking out enough food (though that is obviously a very important factor – people need to eat). It’s about making your civilization more attractive to those who are scraping by in the wastelands.
The founders of each faction are channelers. They have the ability to channel magic from the elemental shards of the world. One of the first moves of the game is to use that magic to bring life back to the world which in turn will quickly attract enough people to build up your first keep which in turn will let you start to build farms, housing, barracks, black smiths, mines, libraries, universities, pubs, stores, and so forth.
Pretty soon, you have a bustling cities researching new technologies, researching new spells, producing things for your kingdom that you will need, raising armies, farming lands, and so on. And while players can choose to look at this in the abstract, we’re going to do our best to make sure that players can also zoom in and enjoy the fruits of their labors in as much detail as we can muster.
I love the prospect of building a whole empire, starting with just ONE person. I think this is one of those things everyone who plays fantasy RPGs thinks of at some point or another, and now there is a game where it can be done! And it looks amazing on top of it. Can't wait.
cool, will we get to customise said channeler's appearance before we start the game
Awesome
Loving the sound of this game with each new journal entry.
Seriously, I haven't heard of a game this promising in a long time.
I'd be interesting to know how villages/towns/cities develop. Will we be seeing them grow by population only or do the specialty type building affect growth? (i.e. blacksmith, alchemist etc.)
Will we see individual buildings, will I know a blacksmith from a stable?
Will cities cover area on the map or just be points on it? Most strategy games have cities towns and villages effectively take up the same amount of "space" on the strategic grid. There is something to be said for having big cities take up more space. (i.e. having to fight in the outlying parts of a city before getting to the keep)
Here's hoping the game will also enable folks to go for a 'minor strategy' approach that emphasizes individual (channeler) learning/experience, champions, questing, and diplomacy over the traditional path-to-urbanism format.
Even if I can't go Gandalf outright, I'd still like to see the possibility of, say, founding a small 'champions' guild' with a humble HQ and branch offices in friendly factions' capitals instead of aiming for a full-blown city.
Or maybe what I'm thinking is that regardless of the other details, the channeler who chooses personal strength and strong champions over big populations/territory should be able to emulate many or even most of the functions of a city if they gain the right knowledge and have access to appropriate resources. Instead of research buildings, a champion researcher, etc.
I love this concept of starting off with a single person and building a huge empire. With every journal entry I become more excited for Elemental.
I always wondered how some of those leaders ever made it to that post. Now we get to know how and play that part. I do wonder how long a game will be on 'normal' settings; this could add significantly to the length. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. On the contrary, this sounds incredibly awesome.
Also, when we add buildings to a city, will we see it becme larger or just more crowded? (Or, are the tiles large enough to support an entire (Every possible structure) city?)
Again, love the graphical style.
[ramble]Say you have two allies, one good at strategic management and one good at tactics. Great combo. Or corner the market on heroes and spread your guild in every empire to become an economic and political powerhouse without any property.[/ramble]
If it could be done this way, I think it'd give Elemental a depth that few other games could match.
If you guys pull this off, you are going to have one of the best selling games of all time!
I really cannot express the high hopes I have for this game! And while I know not everything is going to be exactly the way I want it, I know there will be plenty of pleasant surprises to go along witht he hopefully few "Ah, I wish they woulda..."
Really, really amped for beta, alpha, the "not fun" stuff.
Man, Stardock is just too awesome. Every new dev update just makes me more and more excited!
Keep up the good work!
All these threads feel like an oasis in the desert. Keep them coming!
Wow, this game is looking positively amazing! All of the dev posts over the past week or two are getting me more and more excited! I can't wait to get my hands on the "not fun" beta 0. I think I'd have fun even if all that I got to do in Beta 0 were look at random renders of the cloth map.
I can't do anything but agree with the posters before me, every journal makes me want to play this game (beta / alpha / whatever... ) more...
I really wish you can accomplish everything you set out to do with this in a fun and sattisfying way.
Love the info can't wait to see a short video of this in action (hint, hint). It does bring up the question for me at least can the player choose a form of government or is everything a monarchy / totalitarian dictatorship? It would really be cool to have more complex forms of government that actually affect your nation in Elemental. In most games choosing a form of government just provides some abstract bonuses to economic or military stats.
Lol, This is just how I feel! Heck send me a game that says "loading...." and then comes up with a splash screen that says Elemental and I'd love it!
Great stuff, looks like we'll be expanding the definition of awesomeness in both quality and quantity.
This game just keeps sounding better everytime I hear about it.
Frogboy, this is a form of torture.
Can't wait!
Is there any info about the combat for Elemental? Will it be RTS army combat like Midieval II for example? Or larger? Link me if you know anything.
@Frogboy: Ever play the Dragon Force game on Sega Saturn by chance? Seems like your cup o' tea.
Sounds very cool!
...
We've been told (don't know where, maybe in a dev post, maybe somewhere else) that as city population increases your city expands into neighboring tiles (you choose which direction), resulting in multi-tile cities! And one of the things they explicitly mentioned regarding this was that, depending on how you expand your city you could force invaders to fight through several city tiles before coming to your keep. You could also do things like create a 1-tile wide strip city, which could block a mountain pass or something, but whose keep would be a little more vulnerable. Opens up lots of nice possibilities
That is absolutely awesome. No other words are necessary.
are citizens gooing to skills or some sort of ranking for intelligence, strength etc? so if a bunch of strong guys were in one town, it'd be better at mining then a town with just intelligent ones?
It would be cool to be able to kick out anyone in the city you wanted, so you couldexpand a giant civilization quickly accepting all, or deny access to those who aren't smart enough, creating a small but well advanced nation
in retrospect, it may just be easier to maybe have some base stats, but as time goes and city develops, i guess things like improving intelligence could be through schools and what not. i think it could be fun in the begining, really setting how you want to develop though - the first hundred you choose wisely and take more time, or just accept a lot
Question to the devs: Is there population morale in the game? And if there is, and it gets too low can your hero become an outcast (effectively having to start over, but with a computer controlling your orignal empire)?
I am not a dev but from everything I have read so far, I don't think so. Very worst case scenario I could see would be people leaving your kingdom. They are not going to throw you out of your own kingdom, that would absolutely be wrong imo. I mean you are one of the world's few channeler's, who from among the rabble is going to go up against you? Less prodcutivity or emigrating, that could be doable (if there is populace morale at all, which it sounds like there will be).
That's just me spitballing.
I love the vision for this game. It's going to be a long wait.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
