Elemental is a turn-based strategy game that takes place on a world that was once filled with magic but now finds itself recovering from a great conflict known as “The Cataclysm”. In this post-cataclysm world, only a handful of of beings are capable of casting spells. These beings, known as Channelers, have begun to set up realms across the world.
As one of these Channelers, you are the sovereign of a Kingdom or an Empire. The Kingdoms are realms set up by sovereigns who channel magic through the power of life. The Empries are realms set up by sovereigns who channel their magic through the power of death. As their realms expand, the environment changes based on which source their magic comes from.
Across the world are strewn the four basic elemental shards of power (Earth, Air, Fire, Ice). Controlling these shards allows a given sovereign to cast ever more powerful spells.
In addition to magic, players can research technology, design units, go on quests, negotiate treaties, build a family dynasty, recruit heroes and much more.
Amassing Power
As one of the few channelers in the world, you have the capability of sacrificing some of your essence by imbuing champions in your realm with the ability to cast magic as well. On the one hand, this decreases your ultimate individual power capability, on the other hand, your champions can become powerful enforcers of your will across the world.
More than 4X
While amassing resources is a critical part to building a successful realm, the world of Elemental is filled with neutral beings of various forms who can be recruited to your side. Moreover, players can quest to obtain key artifacts, weapons of great power, and critical knowledge. Having the biggest army is not necessarily the best path to victory. There are many different strategies that change from game to game.
I guess we can expect to have an Elemental: Advanced Gameplay [or something like that] topic as well. Good stuff. Threads like these will be really helpful to all people who are looking for a fantasy strategy game to buy. [Well, until we don't have a demo at least...]
Info! Nom nom nom nom.
*Goes back to praying Wednesday will be removed from the Gregorian calendar*
You must be somewhat sadistic to post such screenshots...
EDIT: Quotes are broken (this seems to be happenning to me a lot lately...)
Has it always been ice? I thought it was water at some point.
[quote who="Orvidos" reply="2" id="2635227"] *Goes back to praying Wednesday will be removed from the Gregorian calendar*
Don't forget that it could be next Thursday
Where do I sign?
You always post picture that are small and finally you post a picture that is big! "I hate you, you are a bad person..."
Please beta 2 on Thursday! Even Friday is good cause I have it off!
Here : http://elementalgame.com/purchase.aspx
Ok, some trivial and unimportant stuff: Am I the only one, who dislikes the appearance/style of the borders?
No, I'm not really fond of them either. But I've assumed that since it's a beta, it's place-holder stuff, although I could be wrong about that.
Nop. I was talking about the strategic borders. Sorry...I wasn't clear enough.
Oh, I was confused too. I though you meant the User Interface borders...
Oh...heh.
I was thinking the same... Eh, and there goes the rest of my social life...
so does this mean that we might find some special technologies from quests as well?
If by "strategic borders" you mean kingdom's borders, I agree with you. They look much like in GalCiv2 and don't look good in a fantasy game. I hope they will be changed in the release version.
If not...this sounds like a good idea!
@Tormy
Any ideas on how they might present the Border? A wiggly line does seem a bit weak.
It appears to use your Faction color palette, Check the SoV.
Any real object would have to be torn down and moved as the Empire expands...
Perhaps a transparent 2 foot high wall (assuming a 6 foot tall SoV) that appears gelatinous\malleable in nature?
MMmmmm
Yummy Dev Journals.
Psst....Water....not Ice...Water.
Aside from that...I CAN'T WAIT!!! Man, this is going to be sweet.
Looks great so far! But you know, something about the map doesn't strike me right. I mean, the world was quite scholarly before the Apocalypse, so why not represent the unexplored part of the map as a portrait of what the world looked like before the apocalypse? For instance, what was once known as verdent farmland would become, as you explore it, spoilands and blighted expanses. An impassable mountain range might be what was once known on the old map, but when explored you would find a terrible, jagged hole torn through it. Your map of old would show the location of famous cities and capitals of granduer but when you arrive to explore them, they are nothing more than ruins buried beneath an eon of ashe and dust or bustling dungeons and necropolises.
A feature like this would certainly add a very chilling feel to the game. You could achieve it by taking the game's currend randomly generated map and running a similar but modified generation algorithm on it that favors a more orderly and verdent end result.
For the borders, maybe either:
Replace the simple thick line with a nice, flowing, utterly fake language. (Think Middle-Earths Elvish)
Or have something less POP (which I assume is "wanted" for ease of reference) like again, the flowing script idea, but built more into the earth, in your colour.
(Yeah, that's Tolkien elvish, stolen, obviously)
Blend it sort of into the earth as part of the environment, or a layer on top of it, instead of the big honking fence of doom we have now. (Which doesn't bother my on the cloth map, but it'll drive me batty with the 3d engine)
(If I had the Photochop skillz, I'd do it, but it'd come out horrendous.)
That was actually my thoughts as well Orvidos. I was thinking perhaps a Celtic knot style border myself, something such as:however the language idea is also very cool, assuming of course Brad and co. have created the characters for one.
I'd like to see it implemented.
Demiansky, your idea is definitely interesting, refreshing and reasonable; but to me I think it is a gimmick that will impress me a few times and I'll then lost interest in that. Also quite a bit of programming is needed to make the old vs new map tell some sort of story you've described.
Nice try, but probably of a lower priority.
Yes, the border presentation need improvement, it feel a bit off. I personally want the border to be more low-key, a thin dotted line maybe better. Something that do not disrupt my enjoyment of the 'scenery' of the map, something just very un-obstructive.
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