We’ve been combing through the forums looking at ideas people have had for the game. Now if anyone wonders why we’ve extended the beta testing period for this game need wonder no longer: We want time to put in your ideas.
So let’s walk through some of them here.
Creating your sovereign
The idea has come up on the forums and we agree that sovereign creation should get its own screen and that the sovereign is independent of the kingdom/empire you choose. That is, you shouldn’t be “stuck” with a particular “wizard” based on your faction choice.
Main UI and info cards
I had originally planned to link to the individual posts where these were discussed but I realized that would take longer than just taking screenshots and showing what was discussed.
Sovereign Handling
People do not want luck to decide the fate of their sovereign in a battle. Many people don’t like the idea of ones sovereign dying meaning the end of the game.
The sovereign being a unit in the game is key to the game mechanics that will become more apparent later. But we have been convinced by the feedback that there shouldn’t be an “evade” ability.
Instead, we’re now leaning towards if your sovereign is attacked and your side loses, the sovereign flees to the nearest city. However, if you attack with your sovereign and you lose, your sovereign dies and the game ends. So you can control whether your sovereign is in any peril.
Game Performance
Beta 1A has pretty bad performance. This has been fixed internally due largely to a couple of one line type bugs that affected a lot of stuff.
General Bug reports
Kryo has been documenting these. I’m torn between wanting to put up an interim build this week that lets people have the bug fixes sooner and waiting until next week when there’s a lot more features. By waiting until next week, we don’t have to fixate on a build and more will get done so we’re leaning towards that.
Thoughts on Mopping up
Since there is magic in Elemental it frees us from a lot of the usual “mop up” issues found in traditional strategy games. At least, that’s the theory. Over the next several months you guys will have a lot to say on this.
How similar to Master of Magic?
Well, that’s a discussion unto itself. Elemental isn’t designed as a clone. But it is definitely pretty similar in the key elements that, IMO, made MOM special.
I agree with that.
In the picture of the battle screen, you say that level is irrevelent (which it is), that battle rating is wrong (not sure how its calculated anyway), and that strength/defense are mostly irrevelent. That confuses me. Shouldn't those two stats actually be pretty important to the outcome of a fight? Have you got something else you plan to show instead?
I'm always in favor of more patches. Especially considering that in the last patch things you thought you fixed, you didn't (i.e. the save game bug). It is hard to get into testing when the same bugs over and over keep you from getting anywhere in the game. "It's a bug, check my list... yep already bugged that one"
But I'm very impatient to want to see this game come together and I admit I'm not really looking at the bigger picture.
Looks like sovereign hunting won't a viable strategy. That should help the AI.
When in doubt... defend? Altough it seems better than the Evade skill, I predict the page count of this thread skyrocketing in three, two, one... At least with that option only those who want to use the Sovereign to attack can risk to lose him which seems quite an improvement. But I must ask if that would be the only mechanic related to the SD=GO and/or if you are going to contemplate other alternatives. I'm not talking of dinasties or anything like that but Contingency Spells/Rituals/Skills(/Buildings?). I know it's still soon but it never hurts to ask.
The info cards:
The only true point where I want Elemental to be like MoM is that it's fun and that has me spending hour upons hour on it (like Lords of the Realm... man, that game was awesome too!!!). The only bad thing I could blame on Elemental is that it won't be truly original in it's ranks: dragons? check. Trolls? Check. Horses? Check. Etc. When I first started reading it and its (collateral and maybe purely inspirational) relation with Gal Civ, I expected humans because of certain individual. But I somehow expected the lack of horses per se (maybe some kind of alien cavalry but nothing like in Earth) for example. Altough according to one of the theories I hold, you can justify horses, dragons and even watermelons if you want because of certain individual. I'm obviously speculating but I get lots of fun of it.
Mopping up... Well, I hope that Magic isn't the only solution. Altough it can be fun to end the game with an Armagedon or crashing the moon(s) in the planet, I'd appreciate the effort to design other systems that help with it too. In MoM I played quite often a martial wizard: focus on troops and magical objects for the heroes with some little support magic. Why? Because pure wizard was fun but I enjoyed greatly to focus on all those nice units that each race had. They seemed a waste when not used to destroy my enemies.
Obviously, I like the creating your sovereign part. I should advocate for having some kind of relationship/ties/link between civilization and sovereign. But as I suppose that the idea is to have civilization and sovereign creation totally isolated from each other, that cannot happen which is a pity but I understand. But I wouldn't say no to an option in the sovereign creation screen to link permanently that sovereign to a specific civlization already created, unlocking the possibility of some special perks/skills related to the civilization. In any case, I cannot wait to know more about those four areas you pictured in the other thread. ^^
Why not tie this somehow to borders? Battles within your borders allow your soverign to flee. Battles in enemy turf do not. Neutral turf could act as enemy turf, or some other option? I guess it does give the sovereign a bit too much active defensive power within his own turf... Though maybe if it takes a turn or two after he flees before he's usable again...
There could also theoretically be some sort of capture/prisoner mechanic, but that's probably more appropriate to family members/heroes than the sovereign (particularly as it could tie into diplomatic negotiations and/or recruiting captured units into your own faction).
About sovereigns returning to the nearest city.
I like the solution Age of Wonder has. You return to the nearest city with a wizard tower. If you don't own any cities with towers anymore and your sovereign dies, you are history. Doesn't have to be a wizard tower for elemental, but it should be quite an expensive building to make certain players don't easily build them in all of their cities. This makes a conquest victory a bit easier since you don't have to completely destroy or conquer every single city your opponent owns.
Finishing a game you know you're gonna win is very tedious and a mechanic like this prevents a tedious mop up.
UI: I like what I see so far. I do think that the building selection UI needs a bit of work(say a way to hide older buildings or tabs for building type/role ex military, economic), I really do like the idea of displaying information on mouse-over.
Sovereign: Like it, but there should be some penalties to losing in battle(like can't do anything for a few turns as they recover). I also think that there should be someways to prevent the Sovereign from fleeing. One way would be to have units completely blocking the Sovereign's escape, if the Sovereign can teleport then you would need to cast a spell to prevent teleportation for a turn and have a physical block with your units. This could be countered by an escaping Sovereign by say paying mana(or maybe even essence) to override the teleportation blocking spell or a stealth spell to let them sneak by the blocking units.
Mopping up: large area of effect spells that reshape the terrain are the obvious first choice: we know about rasing a volcano, now elevate to an endgame supervolcano that prevents farms in the radius of its soot from proving food(or other problems soot can cause). There could also be a way to sink large parts of(or even entire) continents into the sea. Summoning asteroids from space would also be cool. Another idea would be to create an ice age that your cities are protected against(say by spending mana to create a magical defense) and watch it kill off everyone else as the glaciers spread.
In regards to Wintersong's comment about focusing on your troops, there could be an endgame spell that lets you teleport your units anywhere you can see on the map from their current location. There could also be a spell that gives every unit you have more power for every turn that they exist(or just single large buff that works on every unit).
I think waiting until next week for a build is fine. Though the other half of me is impatient...
All the points you brought up are great... just one thing, caravans maybe in the beginning just move one turn so you worry about them... but later on you can research some stuff to make them move a little faster but not too much faster. Also on larger maps maybe they by default move a little faster at the start. I mean hell 64bit game and those efing huges maps... it might take a little longer for the money to start flowing when traveling just great distances. Also hopefully there is research for better caravans ie generate more gold/bring more stuff. Im only saying this cause hopefully this time trade will really be an asset and help keep your econ booming.
Cant wait for more features! Dude this is great! Keep us informed! Thanks!
" Creating your sovereign
The idea has come up on the forums and we agree that sovereign creation should get its own screen and that the sovereign is independent of the kingdom/empire you choose. That is, you shouldn’t be “stuck” with a particular “wizard” based on your faction choice. "
Excellent. Don't forget to give us Lots of Aesthetic control.
" Sovereign Handling
Instead, we’re now leaning towards if your sovereign is attacked and your side loses, the sovereign flees to the nearest city. However, if you attack with your sovereign and you lose, your sovereign dies and the game ends. So you can control whether your sovereign is in any peril. "
I really like this idea. This gives the player complete control on putting their Sovereigns life in danger. The only thing to watch out for here is that when trying to kill a enemy Sovereign the game doesn't turn into a big round of "chase the Sovereign all over the map". If we can manage to surround an enemy Sovereign in his city and he has no tiles to flee through then it should be Game Over for that Sovereign, even if it's a Players Sovereign. I don't think that would cause a problem. Chances are the AI won't ever surround a players city entirely anyway so it should be rare for the AI to do, but it will help players greatly when killing enemy Sovereigns.
" Game Performance
Kryo has been documenting these. I’m torn between wanting to put up an interim build this week that lets people have the bug fixes sooner and waiting until next week when there’s a lot more features. By waiting until next week, we don’t have to fixate on a build and more will get done so we’re leaning towards that. "
I don't think any of us expect Elemental to be "super stable" at this point anyway. If we need to wait a build or two then we'll wait a build or two. Other things are more important at this point as long as you know you can fix the stabilization.
" Thoughts on Mopping up
Since there is magic in Elemental it frees us from a lot of the usual “mop up” issues found in traditional strategy games. At least, that’s the theory. Over the next several months you guys will have a lot to say on this. "
Keep an Eye on THIS THREAD: Mop Up...The Debate
I've got a lot of ideas about this in the future and I think the Quest System can be used heavily to help keep the Mop Up phase from becoming tedious.
" How similar to Master of Magic?
Well, that’s a discussion unto itself. Elemental isn’t designed as a clone. But it is definitely pretty similar in the key elements that, IMO, made MOM special. "
You're a fan of old school. We're all fans of old school. That's why we're here. I wouldn't worry in the slightest about how much is borrowed or copied from other games of this type. Elemental is a vision and a masterpiece all it's own.
Edit: The "Quote" function is doing odd things, sorry.
Indeed, and it's a good change. Now let's hope that the AI will play perfectly if he is going to attack with his Sovereign. This new rule will be helpful even in that case. Why? Simply the AI should "calculate" the outcome of the next battle, and if the odds are bad, the AI simply shouldn't attack with the Sovereign, instead wait for an incoming attack, if there is no way to retreat.
Once again you guys knock it out of the park with a good solution that SHOULD satisfy everyone - it won't, but it should!
One thing that I think would be awesome would be a resource sheet that shows total amounts of every resource (both natural and created resources) everything is still considered a resource right? Or am I way off base? I just think it would be great to have a screen where you could see:
Metals: Iron 200 units, Gold 50 units, mithril 10 units
Other: crystal 50 units, wood 500 units, food 350 units
special: honey 20 units, Kodial leaves 40 units
weapons: iron swords 20 units, iron spears 15 units, mithril poleaxe 2 units
armor: iron breast plates, 20 units...etc
etc.
I tought that economy would be simple at first and maybe get more complex depending on player feedback and all that? So no stocked units of anything to begin (and maybe end) with.
In a different post Brad mentioned that possibly owning a resource might produce 1 per turn of that resource but a town might generate .1 of the resource. This is what leads me to believe that the simplest model (do you have a resource or don't you?) is being discarded for a bit more of a quantitative model (how much of a resource do you have?)
I could be mis reading the tea leaves here though.
The idea of Sovereigns only being vulnerable on attack is interesting, I reckon it probably has some tactical implications on top of making players feel secure. Armies with a Sovereign in might jink for position or try to slip past the enemy's main forces to go after softer targets. Not sure if that would be good or bad.
Some alternative ideas:
A lives system, including buying lives back.
Prepare some sort of warding spell at modest cost to teleport your Sovereign to safety.
Emergency spend gold/essence/prestige/the lives of your people to rescue your Sovereign in an emergency.
Lastly, I'd add that a little risk can make you value and get attached to a unit more, and add to the excitement of a crucial battle. I suppose it's when you lose the game to some stupid little skirmish that things are annoying.
This is a great point. If you get your super stack WITH sovereign into enemy territory, the enemy is not going to want to attack it because they are going to get chewed up by the sovereign and then when the smoke clears the sovereing gets away. The sovereing stack can attack weaker stuff with impunity, and yet if they are attacked the sovereing gets away. this makes me feel that the solution of having a bug out spell that can only be cast in the first round of combat is a better choice, maybe the option to do so is only available when the sovereign is attacked (not when he is the aggressor). That way you can chase the sovereign off by attacking his stack, but he doesnt get to stick around and snipe your forces and then bail when the battle is lost. I prefer that if he stays and fights, his fate is tied to the outcome of the battle. It still gives those who want to protect their sovereign the option to do so.
I liked the previous poster's suggestion using the borders to determine whether you are the aggressor or the defender.
The idea was that having a resource provides a bonus of some kind. This seems to be a good method. I always hated in Civ 4 where you happen to get a map with all the Iron on the other side. It put you at a serious disadvantage for a really long time.
I wanted to add to the Sovereign escaping thing because a strategy really bugs me.
What is to stop me from using a unit with my sovereign not to attack, but simply antagonize my opponent? Go after caravans knowing that if the AI attacks my sovereign simply flees? Buff up my armies with him that siege the opponent again knowing he simply flees.
I'm fine with the sovereign fleeing, but you need to LOSE SOMETHING in order to do it. Whether its Essence, Mana, Health, etc, there has to be a cost to prevent it being exploited and used repeatedly.
Otherwise I'll exploit the heck out of being passive-aggressive and it will lead to some silly gameplay that isn't really the preferred method.
Regarding resources, I think that nations should have the opportunity to build some sort of marketplace or bazaar that they can use to trade resources. That way the "Iron mine produces 1 iron per turn" could be used but starting positions would not be destiny.
The sovereign-can-escape-on-defense idea is a good way to avoid wanton Sovereign-assassination strategies, but a little refinement could help as others have mentioned:
- if defending sovereign is in non-ally influence they should have at least a reduced chance of successful flight (i.e. if they've been cut off from their normal sources of support in getting away); that way:
-- a really aggressive sovereign can still get cut off and killed because they've made the choice to stick their neck out
-- it allows an attacker to isolate a defensive sovereign by taking all the cities around them and then attacking them when they're all of a sudden in enemy influence. Otherwise you could run into some excessive mop-up situations and it also makes it a tradeoff to have your sovereign in your frontline cities as opposed to something deep behind your lines.
The reduced chance of flight should probably be proportional to the length of the path back to friendly influence, rather than a simple on/off switch.
Edit: another refinement is to make a successful flight cost some quantity of essence, proportional to the difficulty of the flight. If you don't have enough essence, bye bye. Adds a tradeoff on how much of a safety buffer the player wants to have given their plans for sovereign usage.
This is an acceptable compromise, although I still think it could be handled more awesomely.
"medallion should be a thumbnail of card picture"
Maybe I missunderstand, but I would prefer the card pictures to be a larger medalion, the medalions are awesome.
Also this is fantasty, since when did cards have to be rectangles?
rectangles are efficient text holders?
I like the idea of the sovereign escaping when attacked, it gives the player a lot more choice / control. It seems to me that there should still be a penalty when your sovereign flees - maybe a loss of resources, essence, prestige or even time (turns that the sovereign is unavailable).
One thing I'd quite like to see in battles where the sovereign may actually die is a 'last gasp' option. We're told that the battle is going badly, and the sovereign can make a last ditch effort to win the day. If they win, a great battle is one. If they lose, they're dead, game over. OR they may chose to flee, and take the resulting penalty (more hefty than normal perhaps) . This way, a player can use their sovereign in battle (initiating an attack) yet still exert some control over their fate.
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