Ok, long time lurker, first time poster...
I know that Elemental will be incredibly moddable, but I think it would be cool if the game had a feature where you customize your own coat of arms using premade emblems (similar to the troop designer) that actually have a small impact on the gameplay.
For instance, maybe you create a coat of arms (using premade emblems and logos) with an eagle. Putting an eagle on your coat of arms gives your troops +1 attack power. Or maybe you put a tree on your coat of arms which gives you a bonus towards your tax income.
Thoughts?
I like it but I would prefer something more complex. I think I mentioned it long time ago but too lazy tosearch so:
At Sovereign creation, you can spend perk points into your coat of arms (the same as you could spend those points into sovereign stats, civilization perks or whatever Stardock allows us to have). You have a selection list of traits that can be added to your coat and that each gives some kind of benefit (+1 gold per turn, +5 morale in times of war, +2 Diplomacy...) with different costs (a la MoM's traits if you prefer). I'd limit it to two initial selections but it's not important.
Once in game, your coat of arms can be changed whenever you achive some kind of special event that unlicks a new achievement (razed 20 cities? A burning city pic can be added to your coat of arms, giving you +10 gold everytime you raze a city, for example). That way, the things you do in game give you new elements for the coat of arms and the benefit they add reflects the tradition behind it.
Other details depends of the tool for such interactive coats. It could be limited to say 5 elements (no need to overcrow it to the point of not seeing what it has) but all depends on technology. And the choices shouldn't be changed (considering it's the sovereign's, it makes no sense it goes losing elements every now and then) but just an idea. If techonology allows, when creating your coat of arms (be it at the beginning or in game), the screen should allow you to move the elements in the screen ("So the eagle in the top right corner and the tower in the bottom left one"), with the possibility of changing backgrounds (those backgrounds use to mean something too). When finished, the game generates a png for the game to use. I suppose that in multiplayer it would need, obviously, to send the file.
I like the general idea of having the ability to customize a coat of arms, however I'd prefer that stats not be linked to them. To continue the eagle example, if thing's aren't balanced right, all of a sudden everyone you face will have an eagle on their coat of arms. While we're adding bonuses to cosmetics, why not give a fire damage bonus for having red hair, a research bonus for beards, and a diplomacy bonus for green eyes?
I definitely believe in customization, and hope/expect there will be a ton of it, but by tying it to physical aspects of the sovereign or a coat of arms I think we may actually encourage less, not more variety. I'd like to see a system where that eagle could stand for strength, wisdom, truth or whatever the player desires. The same way the red white and blue probably stand for different things on the US, French, and Australian flags.
We'll have custom and dynamic coats of arms, but it'll be a visual thing for the Dynasty system instead of something to give various bonuses. As familys marry and expand, you can imagine the parts of different logos being combined in various ways (or so we're planning atm).
Perhaps the European rules of Heraldry might be fun to apply. So when you marry your children into another family and they have your grandchildren, the grandchildren's coat of arms will be a combination of those of their parents, perhaps with residuals of whatever benefits which the parents' coats arms carried.
For example: http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/coat-of-arms/
This sounds neat! Thanks for the info Boogie!
Perhaps a coat of arms in itself won't give a bonus, but a bonus could grow over time. If you had an item, the Royal Banner, which you could choose to send with an army into battle, then that banner might accrue benefits over time as it participates in victories. Depending on the odds of the battle, of course. So if you take the banner into a tactical battle wiith the odds significantly against you, and yet you prevail, then the banner may in the future give some morale boost to any army in which it resides.
Howver, if the banner is captured, it then can be carried by an enemy army and boost their morale. If your enemy with that banner later faces one of your armies, you would have a moreale decrease as well as them having a morale increase.....unless you take it back! Then you will get even greater bonuses.
Speaking of bonuses, how about troops recruited in the same city work slightly better together than those from other cities? Ditto with troops of the same/different general typs and imbured with the same/different types of magic.?
Quoting MHJeffries, reply 2While we're adding bonuses to cosmetics, why not give a fire damage bonus for having red hair, a research bonus for beards, and a diplomacy bonus for green eyes?While I do agree that some people (don't care if most or just a few) don't like the idea of the coat of arms having bonuses of any kind and that's fine as we are just suggesting things here, I fully agree with myself when I say that your examples are quite bad to formulate your disagreement with the idea.
I'm happy you and yourself could come to agreement on your dislike for my examples! If they don’t float your boat I'm sure we could think up some others that would.
My point was that applying bonuses to any cosmetic choices (be they the coat of arms, physical features of the sovereign, etc) will likely result in many players making choices not based on some RP character/kingdom design concept, but because of the bonus it provides. It is inevitable that some bonuses or combinations will be seen as better than others, and so some symbols will show up more often. Personally, I’d rather see a variety of coats of arms than everyone using a black camel surrounded by fire, on a background of white and green vertical stripes (or whatever) just because it happens to be the most powerful combination.
The perfect example of the type of system this would result in is the game Spore where certain types of body parts gave different bonuses. I don’t remember exact numbers, but the point was that if you wanted a powerful critter, you were limited in what you could choose to get the best stats. While there were maybe 20 types of hands, only a few made for the optimal critter.
Perhaps a coat of arms in itself won't give a bonus, but a bonus could grow over time. If you had an item, the Royal Banner, which you could choose to send with an army into battle, then that banner might accrue benefits over time as it participates in victories. Depending on the odds of the battle, of course. So if you take the banner into a tactical battle with the odds significantly against you, and yet you prevail, then the banner may in the future give some morale boost to any army in which it resides.
I like this idea. It’s not tacking bonuses onto actual symbols but to an items that can be won and lost.
Yet you could still see everybody picking the same traits for their sovereigns if they aren't balanced properly too. Or units. Or spells.
That's fine, just that those examples aren't good. You rprevious comment about balanced was enough and correct tough.
I think Coat of Arms is a good idea.
We can customize our own coat of arms boogie! Great news!
Good discussion.
Thanks, guys!
Also, thanks for the update Boogie!
Great to hear you're planning to do this, I actually suggested something like this when the first screenshots with the coat of arms appeared. What do I win?
Anyway, if I understand this correctly, you'll be able to learn a lot about a unit / hero / ... just by looking at it's coat of arms like what dynasty the unit comes from, and in that way you might know if it's a magical proficient unit or unit with weak parents and thus something you can ignore...
I agree with Jeffries. As well as resulting in similar banners in multiplayer (especially since those games tend to be more focused on warmongering, leading to everyone using the same few sword icons, or whatever), it would also be tiring to see the same or similar banners when you go to play the same type of nation multiple times. Odds are you'll acquire a favorite strategy at some point, and that will end up being your banner every time you try that strategy, and you'd really have no choice about it. Similarly, what if I want an eagle, and it fits with my nation's background that I thought up, but the bonus of "+5% to Air Magic" doesn't make sense with their mining-based society? When you are forced to make cosmetic decisions based on arbitrary gameplay elements, that's not good.
However, the idea of banners GAINING bonuses over time is great. I also wouldn't mind overly if the individual banners for heirs had customizations added onto them, besides the mixtures caused by parents, say a lion for winning a battle against incredible odds, which gave bonuses, just so long as the player couldn't directly control them (leading to every general having a lion, every governer having a scroll, etc.) and they didn't become repetitive.
In fact I hope that the graphics you choose won't have any influence on the game.
I don't want to get "melee" bonuses if I choose a lion, because I want to play a magical sovereign with a lion on his Coat of Arms.
Just a note: I think that the CoA shouldn't give any bonuses. It should be a "cosmetical feature" only.
My coat of arms would be a Dragon's eye. +10 diplomacy with dragons, +20 diplomacy with lesser draconic mercenaries and giant reptiles, and +2 hp +5 defense for tatooed dragon-core members, whose loyalty is first to the King, and second to the Dragon.
And yes, I think graphical Options should be separate from bonus options, you can make your own interpretation. If my Dragon's Eye looks like Sauron's eye to you, its your own fault ... or maybe I was too lazy to find a sufficiently reptilian eye.
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