Greetings!
We have a Monday update for Elemental beta testers.
This will be the last beta prior to Beta 4 which is the modding beta.
Here’s what’s new:
************
* Gameplay *
+ Settlements have a Maintenance cost. 0 for the first, 1 for the second, 2 for the third, and on.
+ Significant strategic AI changes
+ We no longer require technology pre-reqs to builds on resources (if you find one, it’s a bug and you should let us know)
+ Attacking a city now automatically brings up a tactical battle, as long as either the attacker or defender.
- New system for determining the cost of a tactical action.
- Tactical moves should take 2 actions, everything else should take 1.
+ Units in tactical battles now counter attack when attacked with melee attacks. Countering costs action points. See next point;
+ Units in tactical battles now have their action points refunded every time initiative switches, AKA when mode switches from attacker to defender turn, or from defender to attacker turn.
+ Units in tactical battles can no longer move after attacking, (this effectively separates each unit’s move phase into moving and then attacking, or just attacking). Casting spells is unaffected, you may always cast spells.
+ Groups of units now have their hitpoints, attack strength and defense properly increased.
- added code so that when applying a modifier with attribute "AdjustUnitStat", and that stat is Essence, if the target unit has no essence to begin with, then not only will they be given the essence, they will also have their mana refilled. This is so when you imbue a champion with essence, they become a spellcaster, but for example end up with 0 mana out of 5 otherwise. If we decide my code of filling up their mana in this scenario is too much, then it's easily taken out.
+ Added message boxes for when a caravan tries to start trade with a city that it is at war with, tries to start trade with a city their home city is already trading with, and when they try to enter their home city
+ Also prevents movement in these cases, the last two would leave the caravan sitting dumbly on top of the city it failed to make a trade route with
+ Changed GetCitiesWeTradeWith to return the cities we have trade routes with, instead of just ones that the world checks are connected passively by roads
+ Added IsTradeCity
+ GetHarvestMultiplierFromTradeRoute checks for the trading cities being under siege or at war before returning the multiplier, fixes bug where warring or sieged cities were still getting food trade bonuses
+ Also added a 10% bonus to the new "crappy road" level that was added after this function was first written, so it didn't have a bonus before
+ Your sovereign can now found a kingdom, even if they already have done so once, if they have no cities and no pioneers, to combat early-game issue of if your first city is attacked before you can train a pioneer, not being able to have any cities
+ Added support for blunt weapon type
+ Added support for Blunt and BluntTwo animation types for BattleIdle, Attack, AttackKill, OnHit, and Dodge
+ Added< AlwaysInTileCenter> tag for unit types
+ This will prevent the unit from moving in tile during attack animations
+ Used by dragon units and larger creatures that don't need to move
+ Changed requirements for UNIT_ACTION_FOUNDKINGDOM in IsActionAvailableToUnit, are now allowed to found a kingdom even if you already have if you have no cities or pioneers
+ Hooked up, sized, and positioned a lot of the new spell particle effects.
+ New music playing while at war with a major faction
+ Allows setting of the ChooseFactionWnd background based on the faction
+ Allows for setting of the background image in XML files
+ Added storage for the Choose Faction Background
+ Added changing the music to the "At War" music when your AtWarWithAnyMajorfaction status changes
+ Removed favorites system from the spellbook wnd, and removed the spell tab from the unit context
+ The cast spell button in the spellbook wnd is now easier to hit, and when moused-over if disabled, will explain why a unit can't cast the selected spell
+ Added strings for tooltips explaining why a spell can't be cast from the spellbook
+ Disabled the spells tab in UpdateUnitTabs
+ Removed per-pixel hit detection on the cast spell button, makes it much easier to press and get the tooltip to appear on now
+ Hid the favorites button under all circumstances
+ Cast spell button is now hidden if the spellbook is accessed from the kingdom screen (no spellcaster selected)
+ Cast spell button now has a tooltip explaining why a selected spell can't be cast (including that the spell isn't known yet, that it is a tactical spell on the main map, as well as the other reasons CUnit::CanCastSpell would fail)
+ Added a reason case to CanCastSpell to explain if a spell can't be cast because it can only be cast once and has already been cast, instead of saying "498237492 cooldown turns left"
- Added a quick way to put spell casts in tactical battle reports. Will need to spruce this up and make it driven by the string file later in the week.
+ Added a "Trade Routes" section to the city details lorebook, lists the cities a city has trade routes with, if they have a caravan making runs on that trade route, what the food bonus from the route is, and if it is currently suspended because of siege or war
+ Removed some hardcoded strings in message boxes I found
+ Added ability to specify a tile to move the camera to when a message box wnd is unhidden in CMessageBoxData
+ Added strings for new caravan message boxes and city info
+ Moved some hardcoded strings I found into here, too
+ Made city context tooltips use signed integers, so that when e.g. prestige goes into the negatives when under rationing, it doesn't show up as a huge number
+ Added UnhideAIMessageBoxWnd_RejectedCaravanWar, UnhideMessageBoxWnd_CaravanExistingRoute, and UnhideMessageBoxWnd_CaravanIsAtHome
+ Removed hardcoded strings I found
+ Fixed formatting issues in CityLevelUpBonuses.xml and CoreSpecialWeapons.xml
+ Changes to SpellBookWnd.cpp
+ Added Cast Spell Button (replaced entry)
+ Added favorites button (replaced entry)
+ Updated SpellBookWnd.dxpack
+ Fixed tactical battle spell list excluding all spells but those marked as favorites
+ Also, because all known tactical spells are shown in the spell context, favorites button gets hidden when a tactical spell is selected in the spellbook, since favoriting doesn't mean anything
+ Fixed weird highlight behavior when favoriting a spell in the spellbook wnd, where you'd have to click on the current spell again to see whether it was a favorite or not after changing it
+ Fixed cast spell button being available even for spells the player didn't learn yet, once a castable spell was selected
+ Modified the Popup Dialog, PlayCutscene, OpenCampaignBook and SimpleConversation game trigger results to have the option of requiring a particular unit be alive or dead when they’re triggered, or they won’t show up. This allows us to display different things depending on whether a certain NPC is alive or dead at a given point. To specify the unit’s type name, use the “ReqUnitTypeName” XML tag. To specify that the unit must be alive (which is the default), use the “ReqUnitAlive” tag, and set it to 1. To set that the unit must be dead, set it to 0.
+ In UpdatecontextAreaFromSelection, favorites button is hidden when a tactical spell is selected
+ Also in UpdatecontextAreaFromSelection, cast spell button is disabled by default, unless a unit is selected and that unit knows the spell
+ Added additional context area refresh at the end of ButtonClicked when the favorites button is clicked, seems to fix weird highlight behavior when clicking that button
+ Added a message box that pops up when a game modifier unlocks a spellbook for the local player, so that there is some feedback that the player got a spellbook from the goodie hut besides the treasure def message
+ Also found only one goodie hut that was unlocking a spellbook, a tomb in Moriah's Tomb quest, and it had an invalid spellbook specified, so I changed it to match Moriah's spellbook's internal name
+ Added support for using the AI message box as a yes/no dialog, and changed the found kingdom dialog to use this bigger message box instead
*************
* Bug Fixes *
+ Fixed a bug that would cause some counter attacks to fail in tactical battles.
+ Fixed an issue that was causing the graphic of a unit attacking and tacking over a city after a tactical battle to remain visible on the main map. This would occur when the local player was the attacker, and they had other unmoved units off-screen.
+ After the attacking unit would take the city, the camera would move to the next unit before the attacking unit had the chance to be hidden, causing it to remain on the map until the garrisoned unit was moved from the city.
- Players should no longer be able to move onto mountains in tactical battles.
+ Lots of sanity checks in various places to prevent crashers
+ Fixed a bug where the tactical battle AI wasn’t picking new units to target if their old target unit had escaped.
- Small fix to the auto resolve logic for quick battles to be sure the function returns normally.
- in GetResourceProductionPerTurn(), added some else if's instead of having them all be if statements. Will save some string comparisons if the matching string is found early in the set of if-statements.
+ Fixed bug where cities were silently getting food bonuses from trade routes, even if the cities connected by the route were under siege or at war
+ Fixed bug where caravans wouldn't actually teleport through non-hostile cities while on a trade route, instead stepping through each tile of the city one at a time
+ Fixed "attracting 43238498019283 citizens" prestige tooltip when a city is under rationing, now says that the city is losing citizens
+ Fixed a bug where Empires could sometimes build resource hoards without the necessary tech.
+ When placing sovereigns for the first time, the game will now remove anything that is on the sovereign's starting tile.
+ Fixed sporadic crash on load by adding critical sections around info card background stuff, and having unit types wait until after xml loading is done before trying to find the info card background info from the name read in from xml, so that they don't search while the list of info card backgrounds is still being created
+ Fixed bug where BattleIdleBluntTwo animation type was interpreted to be BattleIdleBlunt animation
+ Fixed crash when applying items that had models that attach to a local frame on the character that is already in use by another item (ie, the Master Full Plate Armor)
+ Fixed bug where units had the wrong number of moves when removed from an army
+ Commented out code to toggle city improvements on/off in cloth map mode
+ Fixed bug where shadow decals would scale on zoom when scale on zoom option was off
- in ClearData(), moved GarbageCollection call above destruction of sector mapper. Was causing crashes otherwise in game-within-a-game
- fixed bug where you could double-click an entry in the load game wnd and it would click through to the title screen, putting you in a state of NEW game, and Load game, which will always lead to a hanged game save.
- added a critical section to a place where it was looping through players.
+ FillWithUnitSpells uses regular grab of all known spell defs if showing tactical spells, fixes issue where tactical spells had to be made favorites to show up in the spell list
+ Moved trying to find and set the info card background for a unit type to OnEndLoadData from AddStat, fixes unit types trying to find their backgrounds before they'd all been loaded in
-----------------
Known bugs:
- We still have a random crash bug caused by the road geometry. We’re “this close” to getting it but the unfortunate reality is, roads are going to cause random crashes (even if you start out on a map that has roads already).
- If we solve the above, we may release an update because it’s responsible for 90% of the random crashes.
- There are some seed maps that have hard coded monsters still floating around. We’re getting rid of these but your version still has them on occasion.
- We are close to fixing the problem with certain nVidia cards where the graphics are blurry or goofed up (affects a small number of ATI cards as well). Zee drivers, they lie!
Other issues we are ware of and working on:
- The technology trees haven’t been balanced yet
- The relations between factions is still fairly primitive
- There are still a lot of reported issues from beta 3B in this build since Beta 3C is merely what we were able to do over the weekend
What we are looking for from the Beta community:
The beta should be up within the next hour.
I have been enjoying the game thus far, but have seen some issues.
Food production seems off in the early game. Shouldn't there be a building that produces food? Considering that city expansion is tied to that?
The quest are fine as they are - there should be no way to determine how bad you will die on one - it's a quest as in you are taking a risk and reward system
From a military standpoint - why can't we built lookout towers or forts or basically city tiles that are strictly military oriented. This would give us fair warning if an enemy is interloping in our territory. They don't even have to be that sturdy - but just give a decent line of site
I would also like to see forts/lookouts used as a way to stimy city prestige encroachment. You could use them to protect your own cities' potential growth areas. They would have their own (much less powerful) boundary that could vary in size dependant on structure type or stationed millitary power.
These could be built in neutral territory and be attacked without war declaration. Destroying one would simply hurt the owner's diplomatic relations. Similarly, owning one that butts up against a territorial boundary would hurt the boundary owner's relations.
Just a short maybe stupid question:
I want to play on hardest difficult but i'm not sure what the hardest is.
Between "extreme" and "novice" there is "ridiculous" difficulty.
But what does ridiculous mean here?
"The game is so ridiculous easy" (ultra easy) OR "its so ridiculous that you even try on this level" (ultra hard)
I'm not english native so maybe its more clear for a native speaker.
it looks a lot better than it in beta 2, but it crashes way more often than before, so i cant even really make it past turn 20 without the game crashing for some reason... hope yall get that fixed soon...
i was thinking about the unit designs and a certain game came to mind that had a really awesome way to design units and that was sid meier alpha centauri... idk how much you guys know about that, or if you even got it set in stone how the unit design system is going to work, but if you could check out and maybe impliment some of the aspects of that game's unit design it seems like a good idea to me...
where as techs unlock weapons and armor and chassis and also special equipment (such as farming, road building units, spies...) and the chassis also had special slots that made that unit unique like ECM for bonus defense against faster units, and AA tracking for bonus against air units (and speaking of which, why not make flying units? it is a fantasy game after all, some wyverns or griffons would be a nice idea!)
thats just my ideas on that slot... other than that naming offspring and giving them jobs would be awesome...
still need to actually play the game to be able to give more feedback, but i have faith that this game will be epic!
Yes I like this in addition.
i think ridicoulos means extremely heavy... and yes food is the most scarce issue in the beginning...that lets you look around for the best food spots... that can make the game very interesting or very annoying cause you spend lots of turns looking for food and cant develop your cities...
really liked 3-C fixed a lot of issues I had, and the game runs a lot better for me now ^^. Thank you Frogboy!
Not being a Beta tester, I get excited just reading these journals. I am hoping you will consider putting in some sort of watchtower structure, as mentioned a couple times previously. Being able to uncover FOW either around your cities, or to be able to monitor choke points for potential invasions, etc., seems like a great idea.
Keep up the work Dev's and Beta's. I am counting the days...
*casts level 9 "Support and kind words* at Stardock offices. If you want me to cast level 10 you'll need to finish Beta 4! . Seriously though, game seems to be shaping up awesomely . Still work to be done but can't believe how much it's changed since I started with 3A. Just played a game from start to finish without a CTD and... it was fun! . Still needs work but... good times . Thanks chaps/chapesses.
"Ridiculous" in this case is the hardest difficulty. Though since the AI is still a work in progress, no promises it's actually that hard.
That's not even a kiting problem perse, since a ranged unit can kite just fine by moving then shooting. It sucks for a melee unit though.
I really just wish they'd switch to one of the proposed tactical movement vs combat speed ideas rather then doing all these things to try and make a one stat system work.
I get the following when i Pick up azure armor or something like that from a fight with lvl3 spiders
roblem signature: Problem Event Name: BEX Application Name: Elemental.exe Application Version: 0.9.2.0 Application Timestamp: 4c44facd Fault Module Name: MSVCR80.dll Fault Module Version: 8.0.50727.4053 Fault Module Timestamp: 4a594c79 Exception Offset: 000461ab Exception Code: c000000d Exception Data: 00000000 OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3 Locale ID: 1033 Additional Information 1: 23b4 Additional Information 2: e326b7f84f900a53b60042bbee362824 Additional Information 3: c7fb Additional Information 4: 709f33c6a4f6281b13cc6e8e984ced41
Nothing wrong with that. Hey I would love if this game did just that ala. AOW:SM. Or maybe if you want a Melee soveriegn he could give out combat bonuses or skills to his troops. Per happs if he is a popular General a moral bonus that short of thing.
Edit: Also, nice work Stardock team! The progress just during Beta 3 is incredible (not even going to compare it to Beta 2). A friend asked me what this Elemental game was like and I didn't even know where to start; things have changed so much with just the last update, and I can't imagine where the game will be at release - I just told her to ask me again in 6 weeks.
Yeah halting movement after an attack seems pretty harsh to the melees, and really does nothing to ranged (it doesn't matter much to ranged whether they attack then move, or move then attack, or move then attack then move, unlike melees they don't need to be standing in a very particular spot to launch an attack). I wouldn't expect a melee to wipe out crowds of weak units quite like a caster can, but if he has enough movement he should at least be able to kill two peasants a couple squares apart.
Disclaimer: just my first impression, not having played a melee in 3C yet, I'll have to test it more tonight.
I'm still not liking the city building system. I'm still inclined to create starfish cities, especially in early game, because it can move my borders just enough to grab a needed resource. And there's no apparent downside for doing that.
Once that early game is over, I might as well select the buildings from a spreadsheet, because city building is boring.
Out of everything else, this is the part that worries me, because there have been great improvements in every other area of the game, but city building is still the same old chore that it was in 2A. I'd almost rather have the city just be 2x2 and have improvements take place in a separate screen, as in Civ. Building cities on the overland map just isn't fun, and I don't know how to make it fun.
I do like the level-up bonuses for cities, however. Those are excellent.
I am impressed when I see the Dev Blog list out pages of changes and updates, even with such a quick turnaround as Beta 3B to Beta 3C. We are finally starting to see the major game elements come together and interact with each other.
I honestly like that aspect. Just like in real early cities/towns, they did not just form blocks, they expanded to gather resources, along waterways and into the forests. Early cities where not just placed in an open area and built on a grid, most had a purpose of some sorts. Mining towns, Farming towns, Port towns ect. Though a lot of them stated with a single purpose in mind, many grew into each other and eventually became a single city.
edit - nevermind, I'm a noob.
True the quest interface is horrible most of the time I don't know what's going on....would be nice if there was a quest window to keep track of all your quests, possibly hinting where to complete based on reasurch of adventuring. I mean we are already putting turns into developing this tree.....
Another thing I don't like is the lack of understanding of the unit design....like i had civilization lvl 10+..... I could make windmills & walls but i could not make 1 sword or spear? Would be cool if I can build a blacksmith or something & maybe even let the smiths specialize so one town makes shields better & another swords.....
The tactical battles suck, the enemy runs away & the game crashes if i win....so i just auto resolve. Would be nice if they were fun though & mobs did not run....
All & all the game looks fun but don't think it's ready for release....as a lot of things are just weird (conquering towns, some towns can't build anything, quest & dungeon system, cant build mines unless i have an adjacent building, no option to build blacksmiths or arm my troops with swords, tactical combat is horrid)
Hope this helps & can't wait for the real thing
The problem i have with cities right now is that the buildings provide far too much of what they produce (or the services don't require enough). There's still no need, nor real ability for that matter, to specialize.
I had one city that at level 5, gained access to maybe 9 resources. One bonus structure for each within the city boundary amplified this to insane levels.
If these amplification structures provided a much lower bonus you'd have to place more of them, using up valuable build slots. Wouldn't that encourage specialization? I'm not keen on lowering the build limit too much because that would lessen my fun with creating city layouts lol and i'd much rather see a farming town with 6 granaries than 1.
EDIT: only 9 resources, not 15
So far I am liking the quest I have seen, "suspicious bundle , more than meets the eye" I was expecting a huge robot to pop out but I like dogs too. I got hemmed up real quick by the AI cities so I have not completed too many quest.
Balance still needs help but coming along nicely.
I have had more weird loops related to tactical battles getting stuck, so that is making it not as fun as it could be, not even trying tactical battles any more. I am still have fun despite your best efforts to make it otherwise. JK
Seriously thanks for all your time and effort in the design of this game, this has been my first official Beta experience and from the post I have read from others seems to indicate other companies are not as open or helpful as Stardock. I guess that means I am spoiled for any other Beta testing. Keep up the good work guys, and don't forget to eat and sleep once in a while!
The team did a pretty good job with this build. It's the most stable build I played in a loooong time. I've been away from the game from quite some time so I'm still trying to figuring out where mana shards and multiplayer went. I reckon the magic system has been through a lot of streamlining. Suppose I'll have to catch up on Devs Journals.Still, the game really is in a really enjoyable state right now. Of course, I got a couple gripes though.
I think the map creation algorithms still need some work. It's far too frequent to be completely locked behind mountains or on a tiny piece of ground without any hope to join the action on the main land. Did I miss something about harbors btw? I've not been able to build one yet.
About the tactical battles, well, I find them underwhelming to say the least. I like the Master Of Magic-ishness, but I expected something much grander from what Brad described 6 months ago. Like I said, I've been out of touch with the game for quite some time.Balance wise, it seems to me that the player who has initiative has far too much of an advantage. With a 4-move sovereign on the field and a decent AOE spell, the enemy is pretty much toasted before getting a chance to do anything, even sovereigns. Horse archers are pretty much the "I win" unit from what I've seen too. Only one of these guys is enough to decimate stacks of lightly armored squads singlehandedly.
More to come
This was happening in game, about every 40 turns or so with version .91, version .92 fixed it.
The mana shards got changed, and MP has been disabled until release I think.
There is a fun game in Elemental now, I just think we'll need a lot of post-release support for the game to become a classic. I know Stardock will do that, so I'm not worried about it- Stardock with their efforts and sustained support in the past, has earned my trust.
But what's the downside of starfish cities? What's the point of even having city building on the overland when (a) it affects one very small part of gameplay early on and (b.) there's no tactical tradeoff for starfish vs. block?
Right now, the game is just wasting my time by forcing me to plunk down buildings. Either make building placement interesting and important, or get rid of it altogether.
City building as of 3C is less complex than a Dora the Explorer flash game. I'm not saying this to be insulting to the dev team; I'm saying this because it's true and because I want it to be better. I expect a lot from you guys.
if you want to establish a mil outpost just send a dude to a location and use the Fortify command. It's not like you are commanding a million man empire here.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
