I think very hard just release game - with all these manuals, crashes, glitches and other stuff, which you don't want to do, maybe, but it necessary.

And now, you can rest and take some kind of reward - do, what you want to do. I mean: developing AI, creating quests, invent new techs for tech tree, put some new in gameplay, some different ways of playing at all. Base already here (it hardest part), so you can easy advance it, and it cool.

I am glad to see change in balance in patches, and it cool. Bear is funny, but it just awesome at start, you off em - it good. I think should do AI much more aggressive, because without fear to be conquered - you can grow very fast, and then i can just kick other factions like puppies. Even on Extreme difficulty - world still not challenging at all, and other factions too. (But they defeat one by one, but why they don't attack me? - hard question)

I think  good move start rebalance from different models of playing. For example, i can be:

1. Majordome

2. Conqueror

3. Adventurer

4. Diplomat

5. Powerful magician

So, i must able to playing even without some boring (for me) kind of deeds. For example - like Majordom i must have possibility to conquer with my troops and heroes, even not leaving capital city (and take bonuses for this). Just bribe em from wilds by my gold.

As conqueror - i take on war path, and take support from war. Gather metal after golems, gold after killed merchants and raised towns. Like killing caravans now.

Like adventurer i can not rise my city at all, just leaving em  on level 1, and use it like base for my quests. Build hospital or some, for rest my HP, maybe - different kinds of shops for assist in my quests. But all resources i must able gathering from quests, and maybe equipment too. So it need much more quests at all for this way of playing, and different too - will be nice.

Like Diplomat (i think it very hard way to play) i need spent my diplomatic capital for make harder lives of other factions. Yes, i can put em all at war, but i still don't have direct profit from it. For example - if you support someone in war, you can get some towns from em just  for supporting. It may be realized like starting campaign or like  join in a conspiracy with you ally. You and em put in war with something third, and you plan divide conquered cities and arrange for amount of forces, joining into war and other things. So you can even give your troops,resources or gold to him, for success of campaign. If campaign have success - you get you reward, as planned before. It all like investing. And faction quest from SOSE too will be look nice.

Like magician - i will able take all what i need from magic. Summon benefits for towns (like now, bot much more), summon summoners to summon summoners etc., and even on 1 town with lvl 1 feeling good, because i nearly don't need em at all (like in adventurer path).

Atm , game have potential to all these paths of advancing, but i think good to see it more different in gameplay.

Great game anyway, it just - Wake Your Mind Up )

p.s.

You guys are awesome 

First off, you can have all the items you want but only one of each kind can be active. So I don't know where you get the idea items stack. 

As for your other suggestion...that is a terrible suggestion. 

Take a few days off and rest up chief, you earned it!!! And when you get back don't forget you owe us modders some sit-down time to answer questions....I still got this list here.....*unfolds list*....*gets buried in paper*....*mumbles unintelligibly*

Not true, I can equip multiple (never hit a limit) HP, movement, and Defense Magic items and reap the benefits of all of them simultaneously (which is game-breakingly bad on it's own). That is where he gets the idea.

A immediate level hero should be able to beat weak squads.. A god-like hero should beat almost everything..

Makes me long for the days of DOS.

DOS is Awesome, Best OS I have ever used ever. It's simple, clear and it does not work while you turn you back. (I hate when my hard drive spin continuously and I am doing nothing with the computer. Yes I deactivated indexing). I heard that they were making a 32 bit version of DOS that would remove the 1 MEG memory restriction and allow accessing various file system like fat 32, but I don't think video game developpers will ever devellop again on this platform even if the OS would become better.

At that time, everybody had to simply follow the VESA Standard for video cards and you were in business. I also programmed video games with Allegro and everything worked like a charm. You could make a game run on linux, DOS and windows without changing a single line of code.

I miss my old DOS, I tried installing it on my Mini HP and it crash during installation. So does Windows 98. Can't tell why.

Okay, first at all - i spot 2 different switchers of  difficult, in 1 and 4 screens of starting new game.

I start on extreme with 2 factions near me, my first city have good placing with 1 food, 1 gold and 1 lost library sources. Then i have build start buildings at lvl 1, some scouting by sovereign and Janusk and spot some good place for second town. Early even than Peasant i trained my Pioneer and heading there.

But when i come - place is being occupied by other faction. Dam, huh, i am later! But i  spot, that he place town in middle of resources, and it be first lvl. So, he cannot reach em for some turns. Then i move my pioneer forward, and place town directly near resource i need (food), but between enemy town, and resource (actually, i some stupid around for range 5 cells from other town). I take non-aggr  treaty with them 2, bribe em some gold, because their cities stand on my path, and i cannot go through without war declaration and cannot spread my kingdom.

Then i train some peasants, and one more pioneer as early, as i can. Spells research too very easy, and i take my first summoned unit - familiar too early, at my taste.  So, i scout around and spot other 2 factions (4 atm / 8 at all). I put all my research points into Civilization and first at all learn housing, then gold productivity and then knowledge.

Phase 2, i think

So i very fast take out world knowledge about housing,gold and gathering knowledge, build 2 more cities, bribe pair heroes, without any idea as i can use em, just for count, because i have about 500 gp, and don't know where spent it. Hero have some army, with combat rating about 150 (only summoned creatures and clay gollem from whistle). I still not in war an any foes.

It interesting moment, because some past of it - two factions one by one declare war to me.  So i be very cautions, and anxious about no defense in my towns at all. I hope start training peasants before enemy comes to conquer me, but i remember teleport spell, and it work well, i can deliver my best squad to city under attack. So i switch off training tons of peasants.

I haven't look any enemies come to me, i don't know why. Instead i capture two weak towns from one of em (and he want declare peace) , and i spot message, that my other enemy just game over by someone. I even didn't seem em at all, maybe i am just miss it.

Soo... phase 3

Without wars at all, with 5-6 cities and tons of gold and knowledge i learn some first step in diplomacy  (for taking benefit from tech and trade alliances), and put all my knowledge to Warfare. First at all i finish thread with weapon, and can build units with Lord Hammer. Ololo it 40 damage, i like it! And i discover last armor in game, still without wars.

After then one faction (my girl next door  - first faction which i meet in game) - declare war on me. It strange, because we have some kind of neutral relations and non-aggr pact (maybe it just end, because 99 turns passed). I again start think - where i can take some troops, for defending. Because all his towns be near, and his heroes and army scouting very close.

Atm i have about 1-3 heroes in every of my 5-6 town, and about 10k gold (because i don't spent it at all), so i dress up my sovereign into heavy full plate and take Lord hammer. Bingo!, 1 hero have combat rating about 200-300, from zero. Huh, i just dress up my 3 heroes in border town. They be merchant, wiseman and someone else (not warrior or assassin), all lvl 1, and attack by em (without hero) army of my enemy. It about 1k combat rating against over 200-300 (big army, with pair of parties, and pair of heroes). I wiped em without any damage.

So, i get pair of towns (okay, maybe five), and make peace with em, i'am peaceful ruler

After this - no one not be able declare war to me, and for 36 turns, 300 materials and some gold i  train 12 avalanches (melee troops with these hammers and plate), so 1 troop have combat rating about 1500, and really devastate dragons with bliz wins. So relations with factions slowly raise up

After all i end my knowledge tree, and take 7 or 9 lvl in spell book, i don't remember. Think about conquer world, by army of 3x12 avalanches, but it have some glitch about disappearing my men, they just dieing at march, i don't know why, even without casualties in battles.

---

 So, some resuming here:

1. As game advice - first at all summon all what you can and lead it by sovereign. And be prepared teleport it to city under siege

2. Take non-agression pact with all foes (even if you conqueror - chose time to attack by yourself)

3. Learn 1 food, all housing and all gold production (gold can buying anything)

4. Bribe all champions, too much as you can, for further (they bring profit too)

5. Learn equipment and be able dress-up even weaver for battle (you can take 300 combat rating per champion just instantly, w/o waiting 36 turns)

6. Take towns of you enemies without defense and siege, and another part -

7. don't attack troops of you enemies (c)Sun Tzu - "Art of war", i think

Sorry for huge posts, but it hard say about whole game on large map with pair of words. And sorry for my english too of course. Cya 

++

It will be nice, when we get the real release version... But until then, the game is barely playable many computers, and even unplayable on some.

You, Frogboy have something than nearly all other game developers lack: real passion. With its great advantages, but also its nearly as great problems... I'd wish you get enough money to afford a good, fully staffed QA team to slow you down when you get too enthusiastic, and the time you need to finish things enough before the releases. You seem like someone who pays a (too) great personal price for his passion, for what little I can see. If you are not single, it must be hard for your family...

It really is unplayable on many a computer. Some people can't even use the "end turn" button without a crash. This is only one of the worst, but they are many others, just look at the "tech support", full of [crash] [bug], and other [CTD]... When I write, the poll tends "disappointed" a lot with 42%. I think that it's mostly by people that have technical problems, and some that have problems with the balance (these heroes and their magic need power so badly...)

And even when the problems are overbearing, there always are fan boys that can't even see honest criticism when they see it. Do you think people made up the reported crashes and bugs?

Indeed. But it's not simply game industry. It is the worldwide society, including a very big percentage of regular people that often hope to become rich, and would not hesitate to make easy money, even with amoral methods, if sure they don't get any harm from it. Even they are eager to complain. This makes Brad's kind of dedication most precious.

This journal post hints how aware Stardock is about these... I'm pretty sure they are their priority. But don't forget it is a team work; a graphics designer cannot really work on bug fixing, at most bug chasing; even with the proper competences, in a big project, some people generally really master only their part of the program, and are the only ones able to efficiently bug fix them. You wouldn't want the ones that cannot fix bugs to wait for the others to finish to fix bugs if they can add stuff to the game at the same time, would you ?

++

[quote]how do retailers break the street date?  [...]are these people just morons [quote]

For what I've seen, they're mostly just morons... It's often about some employee receiving the boxes and directly putting them to sale without checking.

Well, err... Not so new... Just look at the © at the bottom of this very page, the one above all the logos: "© 1995-2010"...

I have to say 1.05 is much worse, I have even more bugs since... New bugs (people icons going black) and old one occurring a lot more (the mouse click point going down).

wow that's not good current build is so much better here.. have you posted debug.err files for them (only suggesting in case ya have not yet so they can help)?

Thanks Stardock team for the work you are putting into this.

I too believe you should focus on the technical issues, especially performance,  before anything else.  I am finding the graphics very choppy, even on low settings... simply having a team of adventures move across the screen is quite choppy, and after playing for about 45 minutes, it gets alot worse to the point where it is unplayable and I have to exit the game and restart it. I can run games much much more graphic intensive without problems.

This alone is making it difficult for me to get into the game with the features it already has, and really is just making it not very fun to play.

But I love everything that the game has content wise, looks very promising.

Well, so far I'm content.  The game does not crash except when I try to do an in-game reload from saves.  It does crash then, but it loads them OK from the starting screen, so no biggie, I know it will be fixed.

As to gameplay, well so far the AI is not really too aggressive on Normal but the critters are a nuisance, even if the other factions don't attack much.  The one real attack they tried so far sent in the troops piecemeal, which was a mistake for them but good for me.    I know that Brad plans to work on AI so this too will pass.

The complaints coming in about the game are mostly from people who expect perfection out of the box.  Normally, I do too, but with Stardock I know it is basically a crew of game nuts gathered around a guru who loves what he's doing, so I look at them differently.  I'm allowed to be part of the game building process (regretfully, I did not have the means to do so this time, but I watched closely, believe me, and I appreciate the participatory nature of this developer.)

Anyway, this is a company, and a game, for fanboys of TBS.  It may not be for all but it is entirely for a few of us.

Keep plugging away, Brad et al, kudos for your work to date. 

As for the rest of you, if you want Brad to turn this into another lawyer led, marketing driven game company that puts out drek and walks away from it after release, good luck with that.  You guys can have those other crappy game developers and their crappy products that I don't even buy any more, with the possible exception of Civ V which, thanks to Sid, seems to still have a soul behind it, even if barely.

Hey all Elemental fans I"m a freelance reviewer and seeing as Elemental is a game I've passionately followed for a while, I wanted to share a review I put on gamespot here with everyone. Feel free to rip it apart if you will

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/player_review.html?id=734724

I'm having such a blast with this game, and it feels like its been almost 15 years since i've played a game as ambitious and fun as Elemental!!

The problems that result from a broken street date all have 1 singular cause.  Developers release gold code that is not ready for public consumption.  If your gold code and your launch day code are the same thing, then a broken street date is not an issue.  You won't get bad unfounded reviews.  You won't get a forum full of people complaining of an unfinished game.  You won't have to write lengthy apologies for raging on a gaming forum , etc, etc.

There was a time in the gaming industry when going gold meant your code was ready for the public.  I'm not sure why, but at some point it changed from that to meaning the arbitrary release date is nearing and we've sent what we have to the manufacturer.

It would be a real tragedy if Stardock were to adopt murderous rage inducing DRM just because of a couple broken release dates.  Especially given the fact that such things have a history of creating just as many launch day problems as broken release dates and incomplete gold code.