Loosely speaking, here are the 5 different technology paths and what you’re supposed to accomplish with them. Our challenge is to make sure each of these 5 paths are meaningful on their own as well as can be mixed and match to create an endless combination of strategies.
During the betas, we have been turning on and off different trees in order to get a sense of how effective any given path is.
The purpose of this journal entry is to discuss with you guys things you think would be interesting in these 5 areas that have not been present in existing betas. Some of these ideas will make it into the RTM version, others will make it into the release (day 0) version and some may make it into the future.
First, let’s recap the 4 victory conditions since ultimately all objectives lead to one of the 4 conditions:
Imperium/Civilization
The world has resources. And your territory expands as your influence grows to make use of these resources. This tree allows you to increase your utilization of these resources. The most important resource here is Gildar (gold).
Adventure
There were a lot of resources before everything blew up. More than that, there was a lot of really powerful stuff out there that’s now gone. The purpose of adventure is to give players access to increasingly powerful items and resources that will aid them in their pursuit of one of the 4 objectives. Also leads to the Master Quest. What you are looking to do here is to build a band of powerful champions armed with magical items you have collected.
Warfare/Conquest
Other factions have resources and stuff you want. Take it from them by building armies of increasingly lethal weaponry and defenses of your design. The most important resource here is metal. You need it. Others may have it. Might makes right.
Magic
Besides giving players access to the Spell of Making eventually, the spells you learn can help you achieve any of the 4 objectives when used right. The key resources here are Arcane Knowledge (how fast you learn new spells) and Essence (the maximum amount of mana your casters can hold).
Diplomacy
Sometimes you don’t have the stuff you want and you don’t want to have to conquer everyone. Diplomacy lets you do this. Diplomatic Capital is the resource here. The more of you get get, the more people love you. Trade others to get more of it and they’ll like you even more or trade it away to get other resources or get others to attack each other so that they’re too busy to get after you.
So there you have the basic game mechanics of Elemental. And on the surface, it’s a pretty straight forward game. Of course, actually accomplishing your goals in the game is another thing. And over the course of the next several years, the depth beneath the surface here will increase.
What about if 4 pieces of the adventurer quest were individual for a race, but the final piece was common, and then you had to get it back to your capital to win. That means as soon as it is found everyone knows and mass carnage ensues. (perhaps could get it back to an allied nation for a joint victory.
ADDED later
The best way to balance is to make it so that each of the trees need each other for something. Trade needs empire as you need to have something to trade, adventure can support magic by bringing back magical artifacts that support magical research. Magic can support War through massive spells of damage, war provides better equipment for the adventurers, and safe passage to and from the adventure sites, war or diplomacy supports empire. This gives an easy way to give the AI personality - This AI favours empire and war. wheras this one will use diplomacy to go after magic.
Hmm, interesting twist. I like this idea.
Best regards,Steven.
Its really just a mechanism to ensure a pure adventuring strategy needs at least support from one other element.
- an army to guard them
- an ally to protect them
- magic to teleport them home
- or the fact that home is so close that its not much of a walk
Played some 3c- great improvement over 3B.
AI is coming along! A lot better (still got a ways to go...but great job!). Graphics look sharper, less crashes, and the number of quests/spawned huts seems a LOT better.
One comment that ties into game mechanics is pacing. It feels better in this version but it still feels off. I find im not really building much more than 'individual' troops (no parties, squads, etc) until later in the game. Ie i dont ever really get parties of 'oak spearmen/boar spearmen' when the techs become available, most of my fighting at that point is through my champions.
Is this intended? Currently, the troops i train end up being scouts or completely support (ill train archers, and melee units tend to simply be defenders for areas in the empie were i can' be)
In reply 35 i really liked some of symondus' ideas. namely,
balancing attack and defense. Can we have a clarification how units will work? will it be like MOM, were each man in a party of spearmen 'rolls' an attack (and defense), and killed individually? Or will the units stats simply be a sum of all 4 soldiers in a pary?
Overland magic: agree with everything said.
Diplomatic capital: i like how people are suggesting a 'use' for it- such as forcing treaties, or 'special abilities' (like assasination, entering enemy territory without a non-agression pact/ec'.
maybe make it involved in hiring high level hereos?
Might seem random (but to me its not) ... that Mount and Blade: Warbands is a bit too little RPG. I don't mind the detail so much, but it might be slightly too much Sim just because the pacing is so slow.
Anyways, there are elements of the game that I could see myself using ... but there honestly isn't enough quests or Storyline in Warbands imho. It just kind of drops you in the wilds from day 1.
Now ... if there was a line of quests that went from No Power -> All Power, and at any one point you could go rogue and start your own thing ... that would be better imho.
I really like the philosophy of striving to balance the game so players can choose their own playing style.
As far as suggestions go, I think the shards should be rare but impact all the other areas of the game in some way. The game after all is named because of the elemental shards.
Here are some possibilities with the shards being a more important focus:
Conquest and Shard Combat Bonuses
As has been mentioned in this thread, allow certain weapons to have a bonus if a particular shard is controlled. Fire shards give a +2 attack to sharp weapons. Earth shards give a +2 to blunt weapons. Air shards give a +2 to archery attacks. Water shards give a +2 to polearms.
And you get an extra +2 (for a total of +4) but no magic bonus if instead of building the normal magic shard building you research and build a Shard Combat Forge on the shard instead.
This concept could also give bonuses to specific armour.
Diplomacy and Shard Magic Weakening
Allow another building type, a Temple of Peace. These temples are built on the shards, provide diplomatic points but don't allow a shard bonus. Perhaps they also work to globally weaken the power of the shard they are built on. For example, for each Earth Temple of Peace it would globally weaken the power of earth spells and also the attacking power of blunt weapons. And so on for the other spells and shards.
Magic and Shard Bonuses
Current use of the shards but with the spells relying much more heavily on controlling shards. Owning a shard should provide a boost to spell power in that element but also many more spells should require a shard before they can be called.
Adventure and Shard Thieves
Have a special quest where a particular hero travels to a shard of each type. This hero is considered immune to the impact of crossing other empire boundaries and so is essentially a thief unit. But it can be seen by other players and attacked as per normal.
As he/she reaches each shard he steals the power of that shard until the quest is complete or until the unit dies. Once he has visited one of each shard an elemental of each element are spawned for the use of the player.
Or perhaps a better idea is the hero is globally highlighted once he has stolen the first shard and when he reaches the second shard an elemental spawns on the shard before. If he gets to all the shards in the game that player wins or receives a massive bonus.
So, as an example, the hero gets the quest and first of all reaches a fire shard. He steals the element from that shard but becomes seen by all players in the world no matter where he travels. The next shard he manages to get to is an Earth shard. At this point a fire elemental spawns on the initial fire shard. The hero then continues throughout the game trying to steal shard power and spawning elementals as he goes. If/when he is killed all the stolen shard power is returned.
So this way the shards become vitally important to all modes of victory. Two methods empower the world through shards and the other two weaken the world.
It would also give a simple yet important strategic element to the game. As an example, lets say my channeller has fire and air power but I have an earth shard nearby. I can focus on sharp weapons and archery for when I do get access to a fire or air shard but I can build a Temple of Peace on the earth shard I control to weaken a neighbouring player. Or I can build a Shard Combat Forge on the earth shard and focus heavily on blunt weapons to get the +4 bonus.
I don't know if this has already been suggested somewhere else, but it's a great suggestion.
That could be done in one turn max if you can cast the Teleport spell
Or you can give that item to a unit inside the capital
I like this idea a lot. Diplomatic capital could be a required resource to build these units instead of metal for example.
I'd also really like to see only 5 pieces for the master quest. If you didn't have the proper research you would be totally unaware of where the pieces were. If you kill a unit carrying a piece it disappears and goes back into a random dungeon.
However, if you have the proper research then you would be able to keep the piece. Maybe it wouldn't even have to be a 100% chance to keep things balanced. Additionally, higher levels of adventure research would give you constant awareness of the location of the pieces, as long as someone was carrying them.
Very much this, and it's a big enough problem that tactical battles just aren't fun because you're essentially trading units. Everyone one-shots everyone else, and armor is way too expensive and largely ineffective against the crazy high offense values.
I don't think the solution is simultaneous retaliation (though I don't personally mind that system) or bumping HP, but instead bringing the costs of armor more in-line with that of weapons, and evening out the stats a bit.
Serious mods will have to have more types of metal.
This tree really just provides the supports necessary for any other tree to succeed, while it's fairly fleshed out I'd like to see it even more intertwined with your advances within other trees. The game already tracks what rank you are in each tree, would it be possible to have it unlock more powerful techs when two or more trees are at a certain level. In addition to the tech level requirement there should likely be specific breakthrough requirements as well.
Example: Iron reinforced Walls
Req:
10 Civ and Forges
10 Conquest and Fortresses
Or
Magic Reinforced Walls
10 Magic and Enchantment Foundry
There are so many possibilities for enhanced structures that combine the powers of multiple trees, and it makes sense really. Why wouldn't the breakthroughs in various areas lead to more breakthroughs that take from both? This might fall under the category of new research rather than rediscovering old technology. Perhaps once every X turns you get the chance to choose from a list of techs your civilization qualifies for from this special tree.
I understand the intent of this tree but I don't particularly care for the implementation. It is really cool to find ancient artifacts and dungeons but everything attached to the tree seems fairly trivial. Quests are rarely challenging or engaging and despite research into the heroes line I don't often see them showing up. There also needs to be a much larger variety in quests/rewards to make it viable.
The master quest should be more like the Grail from HoMM as in there is only one, or in this case 1 of each of the 5 pieces, and they are scattered all over the world, they shouldn't be anywhere near each other and assembling them should be a truly epic journey worthy of being a game ending event. Each piece should really be guarded quite well, residual power within the shards should draw all manner of powerful beings to them. In return for this obtaining a shard should also offer some bonuses while they are carried. Perhaps instead of just gathering 5 nameless pieces they act as artifacts while you carry them and only assemble once you have all 5. The more pieces you have the harder it becomes to stop you from acquiring more. Thus creating a situation where everyone might band together to stop you.
I noticed some people looking for ways to make champions more unique and this should probably be the tree to do it in. In addition to the current tech unlocking quests and drawing heroes to you, there should be a way to strengthen them within this tree. Passive bonuses similar to what exists in the conquest tree. There should be a way to add combat abilities to our champions as well, also through this tree. Ancient fighting techniques unearthed in the tombs you're raiding, it would go a long way to making this tree a lot more appealing and self sustainable.
While this tree may not mesh as well into the tech combining tree I mentioned earlier it could provide its own benefits to cities and such. Perhaps you find ancient building plans allowing you to construct a new more efficient magic foundry or forge. Discover the location of rare metals that you can create an alloy with iron so any metal armor and weapons you create are slightly enhanced. Discover sources of power that increase mana regeneration, or simply provide empire wide passive bonuses, once discovered all the world can see them and fight over them. The potential for this tree is amazing, it could add so much more to the game than it does now.
This tree is pretty straightforward and is much like the civilization tree in the ways it could add to the list of combined techs. It also cannot really function without the support of civ techs. Unit recruitment is massively expensive and needs substantial support from multiple upgraded cities to even begin to field something that resembles an army.
The warfare tree could benefit from advances in magic tech more so than it already does, via weapon and armor enhancements or personal enchantments. Perhaps there could be buildings that allow you to not only enchant armor and weapons but your soldiers as well. Ways to enhance/speed up training or lower the cost of recruitment via magical means.
The adventuring tree could add new training types as lost arts of war are recovered, formations that provide bonuses to multi-soldier units. Fighting techniques or special training that increase ability with certain weapon types or offer new combat abilities for tactical battles. These are rare and lost fighting arts well beyond what standard military training provides.
This tree is pretty barebones right now, I like the two current repeatable techs, especially the essence boosting one as it allows you to imbue a champion and have them be a semi decent caster from the getgo that can at least provide support with a few spells from the beginning. I believe I saw somewhere that custom item creation would be a feature of the full version, if not, it should replace the current techs that unlock the groups of minor magic items you equip troops with.
Instead have techs that allow you to design items similar to how we design our troops. Those items are limited in the enchantment they can hold based on how skilled you are at enchanting them. Perhaps a combination of your spell level and various tech levels of item enchantment in the magic tree. This could be further enhanced by the discoverable resources from the adventure tree. The base items available are defined by your advances in the warfare tree, higher quality items have a higher enchantment limit.
In addition to this, the magic tree should also offer research into specializing your spells more. Not only to do more damage but to add secondary effects. Say you specialize in frost, the first rank increases damage a bit, the second causes frost spells to have a chance of slowing the target, the third raises that chance, and the fourth gives a small chance to freeze as well. Since damage types are in the effects could be tied entirely to that damage type.
There could be research into spellbooks discovered via the adventuring tree as well as research into combining the schools of magic. Volcano is a current implementation I'd love to see more of, dominions 3 has many spells of this nature and could be a good place for inspiration for this, they've got a similar setup of mixed elemental spells.
Spell of mastery as a win condition is decent, I fear on larger maps the conditions will be too easy to meet and there might not be as much conflict required to actually gain control of one of each shard. Maybe scale the requirement up on larger maps to be a certain % of ALL magic shards on the map controlled with at least 1 of each. If this spell you're casting is going to end the game and control the world you should have to control a substantial portion of the magic in that world.
This tree is practically empty currently and most of the techs are unlocking treaties that shouldn't really need to be researched to begin with. I like the diplomatic influence as a resource that raises your standing with people and think it's cool that you can trade for it. I'd like to see more ways in this tree to create this resource but also turn it into a diplomacy/espionage tree. Intelligence, spying, and sabotage are all integral parts of diplomacy and always have been.
I suggest a line that allows you to build units for these purposes, diplomats, spies, assassins, saboteurs, and even bandits to raid trade caravans but without your banner. They could be enhanced by magical abilities from the magic tree, skills and items found with adventuring, equipment from the military tree. Maybe even have them designable from the troop design but with a different base unit than a military soldier, somebody that can level up but only in their specific ability.
I'd also like to see more enhancements to the trade aspect, stronger caravans with armed guards (military), magically enhanced caravans that can travel faster and carry more (magic tree). Trade ships for overseas trade routes, hire privateers to raid enemy trade without your banner being involved.
Perhaps we could even have units that can work to convince cities to join our kingdom/empire. If you manage to infiltrate the city with enough units you can eventually start to sway the local government and overthrow the town in a rebellion. This would be a hit to relations with the enemy nation but nothing your diplomats shouldn't be able to handle You are the master of diplomacy and espionage afterall.
The diplomacy path is a bugged one : why would everyone ally with you if that make them lose ?
Diplomacy in itself (civlization too) can't win.
Sorcery can crush enemies)
Military can (crush you renemies)
Quest can (avoid being crushed while you go on quests)
Every winning path leads to warfare at one time or another. Diplomacy could be the anti-militaristic way to avoid being held from winning.
For instance you use "diplomacy points" (or any system that would fit) to avoid an enemy attacking you, or preventing him throwing spells at you. Or he could do that, but at a cost (rebellion in its citie$s for instance ?), or the ability for a high diplomatic player to force low-diplomatic ones to fight for them.
When you want to win, war will be your main tool to do so. Civilization, military, quest and sorcery will help you refine your war tool. But Diplomacy ? Trading ? It's not enough.
Even weddings aren't a good thing : why would you let another kingdom have a foothold on your kingdom ? For 1 character ?
I already know I will never ever marry with enemy, because that would hurt me on the road to victory. Nor would I trade.
Is diplomacy condemned to be used only when weak kingdoms need to gather up against a strong foe ?
Diplomacy MUST be a weapon in itself. Hard hittin genemies like volcano, or food starving or questing.
Could you make it where you couldn't teleport someone with a piece of the Master Quest forge, as it's cursed or something?
Here's the crucial factor for Diplomacy being useful: if the AI can make the human do something it doesn't want to do with it- then it's useful.
The game is fun as is, but magic doesn't feel as epic as it should be in my opinion.
I'd like to be able to put together powerful combinations. Like others have said: being able to get a flaming sword, or a sword of haste would be great. I think these things should only be craftable if a caster hero, or the sovereign is in the town that is producing them, with sufficient mana reserves to cast the spell. This will force you to chose between sending your hero out adventuring, or leaving him at your keep to produce the more powerful troops.
I think the way mana works detracts some from the epic status of overland spells. Powerful overland spells should require that the caster sit stationary, and spend many turns casting them with very high mana costs (costs that would require multiple mana pools of the caster). This would allow such spells to be far more potent, without making magic unbalancing compared to the warlord route.
Having access to every spell every game also detracts from the cool factor of magic, and the strategy variation. I think this format works particularly well with random spells. I like the level requirements, but I think what you unlock with each level should have more variation from one game to the next.
I'd still like to see some randomness to the tech tree as well, but it would not add as much as randomness to the spellbooks.
The games that have kept me coming back for more decade after decade, have opted for "Lots of possible 'game breaking' combinations" rather than "lots of nifty little bonuses." Choices that make you go "OMG that's uber...... oh wait but that's stupidly uber too!..... ohhhhh but wait! THIS is bad to the bone ... which one to use?????" Each of those choices was a massive investment, some at character design, some you made as the game went on. Heroes of might and magic series did it with the different castles you could start with, and the different spells your heroes could get. Master of Magic did it with the various spell combinations or racial unique units you could get. Both gave you options (unit types) that you could choose, and spells that you did not have nearly as much control over. Populous had several "game breakers", and multiple ways you could dominate your enemy. But the options were far fewer than the later caster games. With the modable terrain, this game has far more potential for devastatingly powerful overland spells. Being able to create mines, fertile land, crazy powerful creatures, even raise or sink continents... are all possibilities.
I am excited with this post, this is the direction I want to see. I've presented more or less the same idea here 5 Unique playstyles by making each individual tech tree viable . During the discussion the major obstacle of the suggestion is the difficulty of getting the balance right. But if Stardock is committed to overcoming this challenge, EWOM can be revolutionary!
My emphasis is on having 5 unique playstyle instead of "Getting stuff". No doubt that getting stuff is important, but I think adapting a different playstyle is more important still. When player focusing 90% on the Magic tree, they will found that their empire will have a unique 'magical' feel. How the empire is governed, grow or achieve 1 of the 4 victory conditions is designed to be completely different to other trees. I hope it is designed in a way that, IF I play it right, investing 90% on Magic tree still allows me to win a Conquest/Quest of Mastery/Diplomacy victory condition (although it maybe easier to win by "Spell of Making"). A 90% focused tech player still have more or less equal chance of winning when competing with other 20%/20%/20%/20%/20% tech players. Whatever resource/economy/tricks they need, it is already included in one tree. Whether to research a few trees or not, is decision instead of a game requirement.
Adventuring (and tech distribution)
If I invest 90% of my research in "Adventuring", I should still acquire magical/civilization/warfare/diplomacy related resources, by the means of "Adventuring". My kingdom will have so many sorcerers/wizards that even I do not have the tech to build any magic school, I can still use/acquire magic in my own 'adventuring' way. The adventuring kingdom will not have the most powerful/versatile magic (comparing to another 90% Magic tree player), but it will have all magic related to adventuring that fit some of my magic needs.
Having some control the dungeon and its occupants like Troll/Spider should also be a focus of this tree; refer to my aforementioned thread for detail.
For the Diplomacy tree to work well as a independent and balanced tree, more tech relates to bring unrest/disrupting economy & relationship belongs there. Focus on how to cause revolution, bribing champion, espionage, and means of manipulating human psychology. Focus on how to bring neutral country (or mercenary) to defend my country, or even join me for a right price. Your champions can charm their way out of tough/closely matched battles etc. Diplomacy capital (& money) can be spent doing these evil tasks.
For Diplomacy victory, alternatively you can win if everyone is at war is everyone else (just a thought). This would be one wicked game if one wants to play evil.
With above idea in mind, I don't think "Spell of Mastery" should require any pre-req in Magic tree. It should be a level 1 Magic spell with huge research cost. Any player spending significant amount of time casting & researching it will win the game.
I don't like this idea of yours. Spell of Ownage Mastery should be the last spell which you can research. It's the most powerful spell afterall.
Why not make the quest items for the mastery quest Strategic Resources? Each one gives a different bonus. Let's say the Forge gives you a bonus to metal production or the ability to make magic swords. Let's say that the Tree of Life gives you a bonus to materials production, or perhaps gives one point of health regeneration across your entire domain. The Shrine of Fortune gives you a bonus to random rolls. The Temple of the Ancients gives you a bonus to magical research. The Pool of Antiquity gives you a bonus to Technology research (it's waters naturally increase intelligence). The Scales of the Ages give you an innate bonus to economy.
You get the idea. The matter, the offer bonuses, people want them, they let you win. They are a Big Deal.
This builds on the idea of the shards (in Galciv II) being a strategic resource, as well as the way to win. And one should probably be spawned for each starting race, which means the more people you play with, the harder the quest is to complete. You shouldn't probably be able to see these resources until reaching a certain level in the Adventure tree (as I think it is now). You could have a player build a city somewhere really odd, only to find out later that they found the Forge, and will do anything to proect it from you.
Also, there needs to be a way to extend your domain artificially. This would allow you to strategically take control of resources (and allow the computer to do so). It would make the land grabs a lot more interesting, like starbases in Galciv II.
Just my two cents.
Ishantil
Hmm. I think this concept of multiple ways of "winning" the game is somewhat misleading. Or at least the gameplay effect is not as defined as I interpret what you've written.
Essentially, you can't win the game by concentrating on only 1 tech/research category, and it would also be fair to say that in order to even be able to win the game, you will need to have a spread focus accross the 5 categories. E.g. you can't have a Conquest victory without a certain amount of Civilisation research and development to enable you to pay for armies, mine the resources to build them or climb the tech tree in the first place. The same goes for a Magic victory.
On a broader point, I agree with other posters that the Beta 3C tech tree ought to be expanded. I find that before too long I'm already researching tech bonuses rather than new buildings or improvements. Maybe this is a pacing issue but i think people will always want to be in the process of climbuing the tech tree than just reaserching endless iterations of "future tech" (to use a Civ example), so more detail in the tech tree and more tangible results of tech advances (not just bonuses) please.
Perhaps this relative colapsing or compactating of Beta 3C tech trees is why there is little differentiation between the cities I build? By forcing the player to make more choices about what to research, based on what they get for it, you'll get more variance accross factions and playthroughs.
I think the rare techs would help with the tech trees somewhat. I do want the twilight bees to come back though.
Definitely..just like rare spells would/WILL?! enhance magery! I would like to see LOT OF different rare spells. Froggie has mentioned a long time ago, that we gonna have spells like these. IE. It's possible that 1 specific rare spell won't appear in the game 'til weeks of playing. Just imagine: 100 rare spells with a 10% chance / spell to appear / worldgen. That would be cool. [Yeah, I know that 100 sounds a bit too much, but ah well...]
when it comes to balancing i think certain spells are op. For instance i cast a firestorm and 1shot 10 soilders X). That could be because basic units are given too little hp. To fix this adding leveling to trained units could do the trick. Just like leveling your heroes but you cannot change the stats of the trained units. Basically leveling the trained units would add hp and attack strength. defense would be based off gear.
I don't know if this has been mentioned because I only skimmed over the thread but I had an idea to make diplomatic capital and the diplomacy tech tree of value even in multiplayer. The fundamental idea is:
Diplomatic Capital = The respect of the people
This implies that your words (or that of those who speak for you less so) has added weight. This could allow you to do things like give an inspirational speech in one of your cities at the cost of diplomatic capital that would boost production dramatically for a period. Alternatively you could denounce the rulership of another sovereign in an enemy city slowing production or even throwing the city into revolt. Diplomatic capital should also be used to recruit heroes (those looking for a worthy cause as opposed to a quick buck) or possibly even to sway soldiers away from an enemies cause. Thinking this way diplomatic capital could be expended toward a whole host of options that could act similarly to non-magical spells. These options would need to be unlocked by technology (study of psychology), and would be modified in effectiveness based on a units charisma rating. Certain actions would award diplomatic capital (picking the noble choice on a quest, honoring an allies request for assistance, killing terrible creatures that are scaring everyone), and some would deduct diplomatic capital (breaking treaties, sneak attacks, picking the cowardly choice on quests). What does everyone think?
Awesome idea. This could make battle for resources a lot more fun. Instead of having a hit and run approach (where you run in, blow up the mine, run away, dude builds it again, start over) you can have standing battles over resources.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
