IGN’s Jason Ocampo has put up his preview of Elemental. Stardock’s new turn-based fantasy strategy game isn’t due until 2010 but even at this early stage it’s pretty far along.
During Stardock’s recent preview to IGN, one of the closest kept secrets of the game, its diplomacy system, was finally unveiled. In Elemental, diplomacy is not merely a matter of trading and treaties but involves family politics as well. Each sovereign, while eternal, can have children who will, in time, grow up, have children, grow up, and pass on and repeat the cycle over and over. Political marriages can strengthen ties and children and family members can become playable characters in the game world similar to “heroes” found in other games who have their own unique abilities based on their pedigree.
In addition, while the game will include a state-of-the-art 3D engine designed from the ground up for massive scale strategy games, it will also be fully playable as a 2D cloth map. Players can zoom in to the full 3D experience and set in the options dialog how close they want to be before the transition between strategic view and tactical view occurs.
The beta program, which is open to all who pre-order the game prior to the end of this Summer, begins in the next few weeks and will play entirely on the cloth map in order to allow players to maximize the actual game-play input into the game’s development.
The game’s website is www.elementalgame.com .
Other IGN Screenshots:
Full Preview:
Elemental: Full Preview
Interesting article. I wonder if the family trees will extend beyond you, and how the "dilution" effect works.
Gamespot now has an article which sheds a little light on this:
"You start the game with nothing but an immortal sovereign unit who can commission new building, though later, you can marry into one of the game's other 12 base factions and sire prince and princess children who can also be married off, increasing your standing with them. Unfortunately, while your sovereign, who is both a powerful wizard and a mighty military general, is immortal, his children aren't, so when that good-for-nothing son of yours kicks the bucket, his wife's family may not react kindly."
I am reading this as saying you can marry into another faction. This will create a strong tie between you. You can then marry your sons and daughters into other (or the same) factions to create ties with them. However, your childrens' children do not play as large of a role (if any) as your own children.
I also assume that once your wife dies you could marry into a different faction.
They've said before (and I think one of the articles mentions it as well) that the game is meant to be playable from the cloth map. The engine is disabled in beta 1 for that reason. If you can do it zoomed in, you should also be able to do it on cloth map view.
The upside there is that very low end systems can do the cloth map but not the 3d engine. So it won't lock them out from playing, just from having it look nice.
While not knowing the battle system yet, that Gamespot preview really made me want to try modding in a DND 4.0 battle system I can't wait!
AH!!
Bad Gamespot! Bad!
Don't do that to me!
Wow, that's alot of extra work for just eye candy. I would think there would be tactical level battles or something, as opposed to the option of a cloth-map auto-resolve.
Most of the assets work on both the 'zoomed in' main map and in tactical battles, so it's not really a lot of extra work...just a bit of overlap
Hmmmm... Very interesting. I wonder if this is done via the Diplomacy interface or via two opposing heroes meeting on the field and instead of a battle, you get a marriage.
I wonder too what the result of sending family members into battle against each other might be.
Kind of makes the "immortal sovereign" stick out like a sore thumb though... Maybe having or not having the immortal guy sould be something that is explored in the beta.
I think there's going to be tactical battles, there was a screenshot in the IGN gallery of what looks like one.
Brad has also said they really like the idea of being able to see big armies going at it. I do too. But they also like strategic zoom ala Sins. At very high zoom levels the 3d engine doesn't work properly anyway, you don't see lots of people, you see tiny dots. The screenshots of the cloth map look nicer then tiny dots.
Very cool. Family-based politics will make this very unique.
Loving all the goodness coming out! Great work DEVs.
Maybe it was just a commentary on the fact that he STILL hasn't released the next book!
Great books though, and there's now an HBO series based on it under development, for those who didn't know.
Wow! i'm been dreaming about this kind of game for years.
Warder
Ok my question, that I can't find addressed anywhere else is, what is meant by:
"... there won't be the traditional "land grab" found in most strategy games"
is there a description someplace I haven't found yet of what we get instead of the land grab?
(I always hated the "land grab" phase of 4x games.)
Making cities costs essence. So, if you make tons of cities...you're soveriegn will be pretty weak.
I guess as long as the area you control doesn't increase the amount of essence you gain, that makes sence.
edit: I found the piece of info I was looking for:
Over time, the life force (or death force) that a channeler initially imbued in the land will naturally spread so each founded town won’t usually require the sacrifice of essence to create. However, if the player wants to quickly spam out a bunch of cities (which is a typical strategy in 4X games) it will come at a very high cost.
I feel negative towards this family diplomacy thing. The only TBS games I've played that had diplomacy in them were Age of Wonders I, II and Shadow Magic so deep/complex diplomacy sound like a blackhole of exploits.
It will also prolong the game and make it less arcadey as Age of Wonders were.
On the subject of cloth map/3D map zoom/change, I want to repeat my request for a simple 'Hold-down'-key to switch "live" between the two, without the need to zoom. I'm sure I'd end up using it a lot, switching between 'eye-candy' and 'clear view'.
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