I just wanted to say that after stumbling accross EWOM I am extremely excited about the game, that, at last there is a nice fantasy/rpg/strat/turnbased/4x experience with good multiplayer support coming out.
My favorite fantasy 4x game has been AOW:Shadow Magic, which I still consider one of the most technically perfected fantasy 4x's ever made and which this game seems very similar to (which is a great thing).
Having read and watched a lot of the videos and info about the game I was just wondering about a few things:
1. In multiplayer how does it handle tactical battles? In AOW:SM you had to watch others fight which was a bit strange. Of course you wouldn't fight every battle tactically when a result was obvious but for the closer battles it was essential.
2. Can you craft magic items? This was one thing I loved about AOW:SM.
3. Although there are human types of units you can create from your population can you also create more exotic units rather than just recruit or train from diplomacy/adventuring? I.e could I find an item and start creating undead units?
4. AOW:SM had the main map, an underground map and a shadoworld map that layered onto the main map through gateways and stairways. Is there any scope for extra maps to be tacked on to the main map? Could dungeons cover this do you think?
It would be great to create dangerous dungeon/seperate maps that players have to fight through to get items to win rather than just slog it out with each other on the main map. AOW:SM had some great Lord of the Rings type win conditions that you could create based on item triggers and event triggers.
5. Multiplayer race tactics were used in AOW:SM as players played their turns out at the same time. Will this happen with EWOM? For example just as the turn begins two opposing armies are next to a city they both plan to attack, there is then a race to attack in real time to stop the other player attacking before you do. This added some excitement to AOW:SM but sometimes was a bit silly with units being quickly positioned before any enemy players could respond, so its semi-rts sometimes. I don't mind this too much but just interested.
Anyhow I just liked to say I think stardock has provided pc strategy gamers with some hope for the future, with dumbed down, cloned re-hashes coming out it nice to see turnbased/strategy titles that are original and provide huge scope for modding and development being produced.
I really hope this is an AOW:SM killer and will enable me to play an up to date fantasy RPG/4x with the depth and elements that made AOW:SM so amazing.
And you think the ai in AOW seires on higher difficulties didn't cheat as well?
The ai performance was never really improved only the amount of resorces it started with an gained during the game were. I too found the ai in AOW:SM and II very lacking. I actually liked the first one but it was stupid as well.
But, I can still remember the ai in Master of Magic giving me thrashings on Impossible difficulty and streaming lines of armies coming at my main capital from all sides in one game I played on a small map. Best Master of Magic game I ever played.
I think too many gamers play with just one ai opponent and claim the ai sucks because they can beat it on any difficulty (usually by grunt rushing the single starting colony). But, you play with MAXIMUM ai opponents on some of these games AOW included and you'll find a much more challenging game. Not an improved ai but more challenge. I play with 15 opponents when I play CivIV. I played with I believe it is 8 in AOW:SM all on expert. I played with all 4 in Master of Magic on either hard or impossible on a small map and powerful magic and let me tell you those games were fun and challenging and the ai could and can win against you. Dominions III offers up the most ai opponents I've ever played against at 64 unless you count those of the Paradox games and/or Slitherine with their worldly ai of each nation.
I think this game is going to top them all though I really do. I've played GC2 and it's a blast and fun and always challenging. I expect no less of this one and more than likely a MOM dethroner.
Oh AoW cheated too. But MoM cheated on a truly epic level on impossible, with giant sections of the map with every space filled with a full army stack. It was truly insane. The fact that it was still possible to win despite being outnumbered 100 to 1 is in fact a true testiment to how horrible the AI really was.
Usually when people complain about AI they aren't really complaining about difficulty level. Most people don't want an AI that consistently does incredibly stupid things but makes up for it by magically always having 10 times as many troops as you (something both AoW and MoM did, though was MoM was much worse about it because it needed to be to make up for the worse AI). They want an AI that at least gives the illusion of playing inteligently and following the same rules that you do (even if most AIs do cheat at higher difficulty). So increasing the number of opponents doesn't really improve the AI experience in this respect.
Well I don't judge the game by the ai competency alone I also take into account the difficulties and how hard it is to beat and how fast. MOM was just better overall in every respect vs AOW. I add how the ai plays plus the difficulty and how hard it is to beat the GAME not just the ai. MOM once again was just better overall in every respect vs AOW. The only thing really AOW has over MOM is graphics and that's not even that great. Plus more ai oppenents in relevent to the difficulty of the game so it's important to include that and not just play against one. The battles in MOM were more fun. Using magic spells in MOM was more fun and plenty of different tactics could be used. Of course anyone can exploit MOM but if you played fairly there was always a challenge there. Playing AOW as intended led to easy victories every game. Kill the wizard destroy the entire race. That was how it was developed and that was what ruined the series.
I actually liked having a way to finish off an enemy and end the game quickly when you knew you were going to win. In MoM you generally knew you were going to win if you survived the first hour or two of gameplay. But it would still take hours and hours of boring battles against endless enemy units with horrible AI to actually finish winning. Being able to circumvent that would be nice. Of course if it's too easy to just wipe out the enemy then that's a problem too.
I still think MoM is a severely overrated game in the minds of many, the game balance, bugs and AI were truely awful. It somehow still managed to be fun despite that, but it was never anywhere close to being as good as it could have been. And it's state on actual release day was really pretty insulting.
High lvl, well-equipped & enchanted heroes in MoM = Gods
What is FFH?
I remember the AI in Black & White being horrifically unfair in this respect. In that game, you played the role of a god who was represented by a disembodied hand (your cursor) and could only interact with the world in your area of influence (basically your towns and the immediately surrounding areas). This, of course, didn't stop the AI from interacting with the world all over the map and even snatching resources directly out of your cities, a feat that was literally impossible for the player to duplicate.
1) If you're playing, say, with 4 other people online, you don't have to watch 2 other people having a tactical battle afaik. The tactical fighting itself is a lot more simplistic when compared relative to AoW:SM, however that isn't to say it is too simple or not fun. EWOM tactical fights seem a lot more like MoM tactical battles than AoW:SM highly-complex ones. THe plus size is that battles in Elemental should go a lot faster, even when fought turn by turn tactically. The only thing I miss in Elemental that AoW:SM had is walls in the city fights. Instead (to the best of my knowledge, I could be wrong) of a physical wall, you get a defensive bonus depending on how powerful the wall is.
2) Not that i know of yet. However, you create a 'ruling wizard' much like you did in AoW:SM and you can equip him/her with numerous items and weapons. And the creation process for making your soveriegn is far far more advanced than AoW:SM.
3) There's not a super dragon unit you could 'create' like you could if you were playing the lizardmen/draconians in AoW series.
4) There is just one level to the world.
5) Elemental has simultaneous turns as well.
As another huge AoW:SM fan, here's a couple more thoughts:
-unlike AoW, Elemental has multiple paths to victory (research ultimate spell, adventure to create ultimate forge, not just conquest) so that in and of itself will give this game a far greater richness.
-unlike AoW, the ai should be able to cast all the spells you can
-unlike AoW:SM, the ai will be able to found settlements (the fact that the AoW:SM ai could not effectively create and manage pioneers was imo it's single greatest shortcoming)
-while I really like the graphics and art of Elemental, it might seem a little sparse compared to the lush and dense environments of AoW:SM
-Elemental has a lot more resources to manage than AoW:SM, which, if I recall, mainly had mana and gold
Killing the wizard only won the game if they had no Wizards Towers left. And if you've taken every city they have with a tower (ie: every major city), haven't you already won anyway?
It was never the case in AoW where you could just go kill the guy once out in the middle of nowhere and win the game.
You could in AoW one, in fact for the campaign I just specialised my guy in assassination and then went and offed the enemy wizards without worrying about building armies or the like. AoW II and SM had the respawn thing, but then the wizard themselves were no longer really effective combat units and the tower mechanic meant you'd rather keep them in the cities where you could target a fair portion of the surrounding map than stick them in an army and pretty much lose the overland spells (well, you could get a two or three hex range, but generally if the target was that close you'd want to keep the mana for combat).
And MoM was easy to cheat as the player. Take a Paladin unit (first strike, and magical immunity), enchant them with physical immunity and the only thing that can even hurt them is phantasmal units, and only if they don't get wiped out by first strike. Doesn't matter how good the AI was, when the game mechanics let you create invincible units the advantage is most definitely with the player
I can see elements of both Master of Magic, Age of Wonders and Lords of Magic in the game. I'm not sure whether you could say it would be a "better" version of any one, since it doesn't completely replicate the features of any one. Of course, considering it looks to be taking the best features of each one and combining them together rather successfully I have high expectations of it being a better game than any of those three
Wow so many people just dipped their toes into AOW:SM.
Killing the wizard as repeated Before DOES NOT end the game.
AOW:SM was an absolutely SUPERB MP game. Seriously if you look at all the features of AOW:SM has it is still is the most advanced and well developed RPG/Strag MOM really pales in comparison. The tactical battles in AOW:SM were fantastically detailed as well as some incredible mutliplayer maps where on one in particular you have to destoy or get an item to win while an armageddon clock ticks down. Seriouosly MOM is literally stoneage compared to AOW:SM in both scope, tactics and 4x. To think AOW:SM was just a dumb blonde is extremely short sighted. Please remember I am talking about AOW: Shadow Magic not AOWII or AOWI plus I am talking about the MP not SP as I only really play on multiplayer.
So many people here really havent played the multiplayer on AOW:SM as then you'd understand the point I am making. AI's will NEVER EVER be as fun to play agains than other players, thats why I'm not overly interested in AI or the single player.
The wizards were extremely powerful and if you secretely smuggled a wiz close to an enemy you could quickly take them down. Invisibility was obviously good for this. Although you lost global spells when you got near end game you had to throw everything in to beat a strong player including the wizard as the penalty (a few turns without wizard) wasn't that bad.
As I said before the MP was the best you could have and still is. The SP I never bothered with.. as it was crap.
I understand that the LARGE majority of 4x games enthusiasts is mainly (or only) interested in singleplayer.
Well I will disagree with you about MOM is the AOW:SM killer. AOW:SM was by far better than MOM. Don't get me wrong MOM was fun but once I played the first AOW I never went back. Now so far except for graphics, Unit Creation, Modding (we still don't know how user friendly modding will be) and possably AI. AOW:SM will still have better features but this game does have the potential to do great things. We will have to wait and see. Currently I'm playing AOW:SM and the original AOW until Elemental comes out.
Umm yes it is infact it is better than CIV (and I really like CIV) and MOM (which I liked but does not hold a candle to AOW much less AOW:SM)
So there are no beast units, I cant have a goblic or orc or dark elf kingdom.
there is no item crafting.
So exactly what is this game, is it like civilization but just in the middle ages?
Challenging AI has never been a priority to me as long as it's not compensated for by rediculous cheating. I think AoW:SM was great at capturing the imagination and atmosphere. I loved the underground and extra-demensional maps! The campaign was alot of fun but a bit short. It is a game that like MoM, I have dug out of the closet several times over the years.
I have to reserve judgement on whether Elemental will stand up to that. I hope that the finished product will inspire me to keep playing. Speculating is useless I guess.
quote who="gamecat_uk" reply="18" id="2715819"]Thanks for all the replies and information.For people who didn't play much of AOW: Shadow Magic (Not Just AOW, there is a big difference) I just wanted to correct a few assumptions.1. Killing the wizard did not end the game. It stopped you using the wizard for a period of time before he/she re-spawned. Without the availability of global spells this could be a real pain but would not end the game. (unless it was specified in setup of a custom map)2. AOW:Shadow Magic was by far the most complete and moddable 4x game available I still think even now with incredible depth and flexibility. Seriously you have to play a lot of AOW:SM before you 'get' the level of depth available in the game even in its vanilla form with the map maker you could create complex triggers related to items and characters really generating unique maps.3. It certainly was a 4x empire builder with research trees (spells), city expansions (buildings), influence (which appeared in AOW:SM before CIV I think), exploration, inventories for Heroes and creatures, as well as creature evolution (dragons) experience, diplomacy and much much more. Seriously if you havent played AOW:SM to any degree I advise you do so, it was and still is the most advanced RPG/Fantasy 4x. It had its problems but overall was a fantastic game and much under rated particularly as its still 10 years old and still holds its own IMHO.4. The AI wasn't fantastic but provided a fair challenge particularly when it 'cheated' lol. However I tended to play mainly multiplayer with a couple of AI's thrown in as cannon fodder. I think EWOM looks really interesting, and I hope will have many features that I mentioned added as it grows. It certainly has some nice unique features already and with expansion could prove a fantastic system. The only thing I am a little concerned about from the videos is that the graphics particularly the map look a little bland, like a sketch in style (when fully zoomed in). Maybe it will grow on me, maybe it will look a lot different in the final game. Its a shame the multiplayer may not be that developed as I play mostly MP, and for me this could be a real problem. Sins has brilliant MP and has really really come along from the original release with fantastic add-ons, I hope Elemental follows this lead as I really would like to see the future of Fantasy/4x gaming in a game that can hold its own for 10 years like AOW:SM.Just to add a little more. My comments strongly lean towards MP play. I must admit Campaigns in games don't interest me that much. My main hope and something AOW:SM couldn't do was allow me to either play a smaller intense map that you could wrap up in an evenings play or (where AOW:SM fell down) play a long term sprawling map where me and my fellow players could while away hours exploring and expanding our empires enjoying an experience comparable to the single player where final battles are truly epic and generate in our own way a story of our game which I think EWOM could really be a great solution. I hope though that updates won't invalidate multiplayer saves.. !![/quote]
A couple of things.
1. in AOW:SM If your Wizard (Soverign in Elemental) died he responds to a city with a Wizards tower. If you do not have any cities with a wizards tower for him/her to spawn back to then yes you loose the game. I don't mind this but I do wish there was an option to still play if this is down.
In the original AOW you could also choose an option at the beginning of the game called 'No Leaders on map' (or somthing like that) That allowed you to play without worring that your leader's death would end the game.
2) I don't care much for campaigns that come with the games usally. And I did eventually play the AOW:SM campaigned but much perfered the SP sandbox games. And I like the fact that MP games were basically the SP game but with multipule human players. Also AOW:SM had Hotseat which was great.
3) Now I have played MP with Smaller intense maps that you can finish in one evening so I'm not sure what you mean by saying AOW:SM did not have this. Also Large maps (what my friends and I play most in both SP and MP) are usally long term and have great exloration on them as well expanding our empires just like SP infact there really is no difference except you have some human players as well as AI players. (We usally play with all 8 opponts, 2 or 3 Players and the rest AI.)
Have you played it after the Public Patch that the Modders put out after Triump stop supporting the game.
This improved AI and made for very fun SP games.
(I also modded the game wiht units and such that made SP maps very hard.
Actully SP was pretty good if you did not play the campaign and played with many opponets. Also it was really good after the Public patch.
I still play Shadow Magic with my friends, in fact we have a Shadow Magic session scheduled tonight. We play with the community patch and Dwiggs content mod. The AI is truly horrible though, as others have mentioned, but then again I find all TBS's to have horrible AI, though GalCiv2 was palatable. I also thought the number of useful spells wasn't extremely high, but at least they were diverse.
I am trying to convert my Shadow Magic group to an Elemental group so I too hope that Elemental can be a "Shadow Magic Killer." Frogboy has been scaring me lately though, talking about disabling features in multiplayer for the sake of balance. I hope he winds up giving players the choice to decide whether or not to play with imbalanced features enabled. Balancing the game for the ladder is fine, but I hope we can do whatever we want in custom games.
The one thing that Elemental could instantly improve on in the multiplayer department over Shadow Magic is to not force players to watch each others tactical battles. We're absolutely fine with the fact that tactical battles in multiplayer games will bog the game down, but at least let us manage our empires, read the hiergamenon, level up their heroes, etc. while some other player is fighting.
What I meant wasn't that AOW:SM didn't have small maps it was that it didnt have massive maps that you could explore and delve into more before conflict really kicked off. Thats what I'm hoping Elemental will have.
Yeah the patches and mods did help signficantly.
I agree about tactical battles in fact I've been posting about alternatives here:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/390935
And you are quite correct. As you can see the MP "I'm better than anyone" crowd is trying to movein on this game. Downing the greatest single player fantasy strategy game MOM. I really pay them no mind. I'm glad Brad is paying them no mind as well and putting MP way on the back burner. Brad should get the single player game going strong before even thinking about the MP element. About a year should do it for a start like GalCiv2. Couple expansions and then think about MP and putting a few bones out for those mutts.
AOW was and is a CRAP game all around. It never reached the value of MOM or any of the others. Hell I'd rather playe HOMM II & III than any of the AOW series as at least once again the ai was fun and challenging.
I would also suggest to Brad that when they do work on MP that they take out the tactical battles element so at least the games can probably be finished in a days play or at least a weekend. Watching others play boring tactical battles was never a favorite of mine when I did play MP games. These kinds of TB games really just aren't meant for MP. They take too long.
MOM didn't have to hold a candle to AOW series because it is the FLAME of all of them. AOW is the worst of all of the strategy fantasy games. Even HOMM and DIsciples is better. Hell even Warlords IV is better. lol Why do you think the devs turned away from AOW after AOW:SM? lol They knew a sinking ship when they saw one. Can't say much for their other game Overlord I & II though those are crap games as well.
As you can see the MP "I'm better than anyone" crowd is trying to movein on this game.
Cmon seriously.. are you that offended by people who want to see a good MP come out of this game as well?
Hey psycho, try comparing the features of both of the games and you'll see that AOW:SM is far more advanced and I think satisfying overall. MOM is a great game but an example of what you are doing is this:
I think Lasersquad is amazing and much better than X-COM.
There are litererally years seperating them and a whole list of features more. Seriously this isn't a retro competition of what is best. MOM was a much earlier and different game in many respects to AOW:SM but AOW:SM was more advanced and overall was a move on from MOM in many ways.
You obviously are hurting from anyone criticising MOM.
I can't take you seriously when you say:
"AOW is the worst of all of the strategy fantasy games."
Is this just bad trolling or pure ignorance?
Who knows?
Anyhow I say bring back "Moonstone" that was on the old Amiga, now there was a game.
Well I agree with psycho ....gamecat so what are you doing? Trolling yourself now? He has a right to his opinion and the opinion of others is right along side of him on most every board that compares the two. Master of Magic is a Civilization type game that's what puts it miles ahead of AOW series since it's ai could never utilize the pioneer units like the civilization series. So take your pompous attitude somewheres else because he's right without having to give a long list of reasons why.
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