Can't wait to see where this goes. Gl&Hf

EDIT: Having issues with quoting Islanddog

There are many bug, polish, and system issues which I could list here, but there's only one problem i don't see being addressed currently by the team and will focus on instead.

For me, the biggest issue is the giant gremlin in the room . It's the thing on your list of improvements that many 4x and stardock fans really don't understand:

"- More Maps"

As someone else has already said above, no one wants more maps. More maps is a temporary fix. We want a real, working, random world generation algorithm.

All the current statements out of Stardock on other issues give me confidence in the future of this game except this one; When i first heard what the game was currently doing my jaw hit the floor. The mind boggled and to this day remains in a boggily state. I guarantee you this is an issue that will become more and more pressing with time as player's start realizing that the game is just recycling pre-created maps over and over again. The way things work now, most players won't even be aware the game is doing anything differently than they expect when they start a new game and make a new world. But when they do, it will be a rude awakening.

Even 100 or 1000 times the current number of maps can never gurantee a player won't end up in a ruined game. And without a real algorithm, players can never tweak the maps for the base game to their liking, or for mod makers, to fit their mods the way they would expect to be able to.

There has never been a game i can remember in the genre that has not provided this feature or has attempted to get by with this current approach. World creation and exploring the unknown is the core of 4x and without it Elemental will always be less than it should be, especially to the fans that put the most effort into learning, playing, and modding the game.

Civ, Moo, Mom, GC; how many of these games would still be relevant today if they shipped with the system Elemental is using? It's hard to make any sort of positive argument for this approach, especially with how much focus the team has put on saying that the sandbox is the focus of the game.

It's also been said by Stardock that mod creators will provide maps and this will somehow solve the problem long term, but this idea is rather strange. Why would modders create hundreds of basic maps designed according to a strict standard for playability, just to have them placed anonymously into a seed directory. And why should the player have to download them just to guarantee the basic mode stays interesting--not to mention the time a player loads up a map and realizes the ocean is shaped like a penis.

For the longevity of the game, the team needs to come forward and reassure players and modder's that a working world generation engine will happen at some point.

For more reference there was a large topic on this with feedback from many people, including some big names in the civ modding community: https://forums.elementalgame.com/391353

I'm a huge fan of GC 2, Sins, and Stardock's general approach to game design. I just hope you guys come around on this issue so i can breath a little easier. 

I'm glad your listening and working so hard to get this game in ship shape. I know this issue can seems less pressing than bugs, ui, and big game play problems like the magic system, but it's still a really important part of the game and should be given some love as well.

Good lucks guys.

I hope to see some improvement on performance!

I mean even with 97 objects, my Ati 5970 should not have any problems but my gpu is not used "between 0 to 5% maximum" on a clean formated and updated system.

So if we have some optimizations on the way the city is rendered does it mean the game will start using my gpu or just optimization that will give better performance even if the game just refuse to use my monster video card?

Here's some suggestions and feedback (with a few comparisons to Heroes of M&M and MoM). This is all regarding race/faction differientation and customizing units and their combat roles in tactical battles. I think you, Stardock, can sympathize and understand most of this because you've already done it once - Galactic Civilizations 2.

Number one: Faction/Race Differences

Every race should have a passive attribute to their units. (Again, see MOM) Ironeers, for example, could have a natural magic resist. Men could gain morale for every other unit of the same race as them. Wraiths could have high magic resist, but take extra physical damage. The passive benefits already exist - but they're all mundane. They need to be more unique to each race and they need to have an effect in tactical battles to make each race different in combat (right now, all units end up looking and behaving the same). +1 move speed, +1 combat speed, etc.

Faction differences. Every faction should have techs that give their units unique abilties (Just like Champions get,I had one with Dominate? Something like, but specific to the faction). Now, what's great, is the concept I thought about to make this happen ALREADY exists. How do you make your base infantry more powerful? Train them as veterans or elites. It's perfect. Basic inexperienced troops get no abilities, but each level above them gets something, or an improved version of the previous. What kind of abilities? Perhaps wraiths can perform a strike that convert a damage percentage into mana that is transferred to the sovereign. Archer specialists can perform sniper shots, disabling a unit or some such. A faction can have calvary specialization in their veteran troops, granting them additional benefits of being mounted.

These two factors make every unit in your army unique to your army. In addition, it intensifies unit customization when you add the next piece.

Number Two: Damage types, resistances.

There should be at minimum, 3 physical damage types plus 1 magic damage type. Armor should be 1 type, and then their should be a seperate magic resist stat. This is my suggestion. Each of the 3 damage types (pierce, blunt, cutting) affect armor differently. Cutting does extra damage to zero armor units, Pierce ignores % of armor, and Blunt weapons temporarily lower armor for a turn or something (I'm not sure on the details, just some suggestions to get the brain gears chugging). Magic resistance should be for magical damage types (Golems, spells, etc.). If someone has zero resist, spells should do pretty awesome against them (This is also in part of the 0-X damage thing for spells, which is not fun).

Number three: Scout Pack, Medic Pack, etc.

These should be used as specific "trainings" for units. I love the concept of them, but they need to be polished. Each pack should add a combat ability (or in case of Pioneers, a city building ability ). Medic pack should allow the unit to perform a physical heal on an ally. Assassin Pack has a chance to ignore armor. Scout Pack allows you to position your units before Tactical combat, because you had the scout recon. Ranger Pack allows the unit to attack in melee even if they have a bow equipped. Etc. Etc. Endless amounts of packs can be put here, but you get the idea. These should, combined with race and faction differences, add more awesomeness to unit customization. Big important part: One pack at a time.

Number 4: Weapons.

Weapons need more fleshing out. There should be advantages to each, disadvantages to each (see damage types above). Two handed swords = no shield. Swords = slower than daggers. Spears = attacker cannot counter attack. Etc, etc.

Finally, Number 5. this is already in the game, you just need to apply it to the unit creator. COLORS. I can color my sovereign's clothes and my peasant's clothes in the faction editor, but I can't make my plate armor black or red? Please add this. And on a final cool note, I'd like to see a Standard Bearer pack that raises Morale of the army, so we can bring standard bearers with us. Note: Does not stack.

Please check this out. I'd like the players to read this and comment, too. Again, great game. Just needs polish!

Fixed.  This is just personal preference.  Random maps are nice and certainly add to re-playability and options, but I imagine for a lot of players (myself included) playing on non-random maps just creates a different set of issues and familiarity with a map presents new challenges that are appealing to many players - especially in multi-player matches. 

After all, empire-building and warfare in the real world never had a random map...

Overall fun game and very promising, a bit rough on the edges.  I rather enjoy the questing and such along with the world campaign.  One thing I noticed in my games so far is one AI dominates the others seemly early on, in my games so far it ends up being a 1v1 without me ever engagnig the other factions.

Misc Issues:
1) crash when I cast imbue champion at times, I had a stack of 5 or so heroes and I imbued one (would be nice to have a way to select which hero to imbue - maybe I missed something).  Imbue again and crash occured for me.
2) Janus (first hero/advisor) icon picture sometimes get swapped with spouse's. 
3) Battle with enemy soverign does not give gildar after victory (case I noticed the sov retreated). 
4) Control issues? - swear a lot of the times I click with the battle icon on and my unit ends up doing a circle around the target.
5) Inn/quest giver not always disappearing after quest complete (assuming it's suppose to go away...)
6) Age counter, not sure what the deal is..card said I was 26, spouse 26..but first kid was 19.

Improvement suggestions:
1) Scalable AI in game - option to increase/decrease the AI mid game.  Lot of times on one difficulty I dominate with any issue, scale it up one notch and then I get beatdown hard...be nice to adjust midgame.
2) More help text and details.  For instance I was trying to see if caravans generate any revenue and couldn't seem to find anything related to that (far as I can tell they don't give any additional revenue if trading between own cities - been using them just to build roads really).  There was a Trade: 0 and a Unit: 2 in the income summary, would be nice to drill down there to see more as well. 

I agree with your entire post.  Devs, especially Frogboy and BoogieBac, are we going to get a true random map generator?  Because otherwise your game will be 3X rather than 4X, and a lot of people will give up after a while when they realize this.  And sooner or later, they will.

Best regards,
Steven.

Well, don't underestimate my lack of sense of orientation IRL. Going to work everyday is for me like a somewhat random process. It is seriously detrimental to my world conquest plans

Yep, the different packs could be unlocked by different tech trees. These packs could be unlocked from the Diplomacy tech tree:

- Assassin Pack: The unit can reduce the population of a city by 1 without attacking the city defenders.

- Spy Pack: The unit gets precise information (defenders, production) of a city (that should be disabled without the pack).

- Thief Pack: The unit can steal 10 gildar from an enemy city without attacking the city defenders.

I like the game and I can see a lot of potential in where it is going.  I do have one question and one bug to report.  First, the bug to report. . .In tactical battles if I click on anything in my inventory slot, once it was a silver flute (which wouldn't have helped me) and once it was a healing potion, it kicks me out of the game.  Second, are there only two types of bows in the game, the cedar short bow and cedar (long)bow?  Will there be more variety of ranged weapons?  Admittedly, I have not gotten through all of the techs in the game so there very well could be. . .Thanks,

Truly random maps are defiantly in the pipeline. We figure there are around 80-100 man-hours left to get them up to speed (they were working pretty well at one point, but got messed up along the way, plus we need that stamp intergration, ways to ensure players dont start in blocked sections, etc.)

No fears, we're not ignore it...just trying to get some other items hammered out first.

Random Maps: NOOOOO! I'm not leaving the pipeline and YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!

Sorry, that image made me giggle. I think the word you are looking for is "definitely".