What was supposed to make Elemental special? Why were we supposed to buy it instead of dusting off the old MoM and AoW and Civ games?
Does the release version of Elemental deliver on the promises that were made regarding Elemental being special?
Elemental will be overhauled pretty much from the ground up. I think it's important to step back and try to remember the original vision for Elemental -- and what was supposed to make it special.
The overhaul shouldn't diminish the specialness. If specialness has been lost the overhaul needs to restore it.
Fast is slow, slow is fast. A rush to overhaul can result in a working game but lose sight of the 'vision thing'.
Everyone has their own idea of what was supposed to make Elemental special to them, and how well that was met in release. No one view is right or wrong, they're just different.
What made Elemental special to me is a few basic concepts:
-Essence. Essence isn't mana, it's more. Mana powers spells, Essence powers channeling and the restoration of the land. In beta there were a lot of great suggestions for Essence -- creating special items, not otherwise creatable (more than normal magically enchanted items). Items like special creatures or land features. Things that were otherwise undo-able.
In release I'll argue that essence is merely mana.
-Shards. Shards were supposed to be arguably the most important feature -- it's where magic was confined, it's what channelers learned to control to become channelers and to then overthrow the Titans and first destroy then restore the lands (or however the lore goes...). Originally in beta shards were needed to even cast most spells (no fire shard? No can cast fire spells). Then shards became useless, and a game could be played without ever claiming one.
In release, shards are merely spell damage multipliers. Now that's nothing to sneeze at, but it's a far cry from their original importance.
-Dynasties. Dynasties is a cool idea, but they never intended it to allow succession upon a Sov's death. Many argued for this option, but it was emphatically rejected. So, this wasn't promised (and the non-promise was successfully delivered in release), but it could be a feature that offers a promise of how Elemental separates itself from many other games.
-Small but puissant Kingdoms being viable. This wasn't promised, but the concept of city-spamming not being the no-brainer strategy was given some support by several of the devs (their posts to this effect are searchable and still around). Some will argue that this isn't a feature that would make Elemental special, but I don't think arguing it is is unreasonable.
So, what was supposed to make Elemental special to you, and how did it turn out at release? And if something needs 'fixing', how to do it?
The save/reload issue becomes a non issue if sovereign death is unavoidable. That is to say, Sovereigns can (and absolutely will) die from old age.
Suddenly the idea of succession is viable and important, and strategic choices regarding your dynasty must be made game-years in advance. Succession wars become possible. Traits revolving around succession become viable. Marrying off a daughter stops being the most tactically retarded thing conceivable.
The only thing you have to give up for all of this benefit is the idea that your initial Sovereign is immortal and is "you". Honestly, I don't think the players are connected enough to the Sovereign to care. I know I'm not.
IMO the entire idea of dynasties is completely worthless if your Sovereign is immortal.
I assume this would work for non players as well .. I think its a good choice.. when no heir is apparent a possible solution is strongest champion option..
I am not sure we need a heir system but I think one could add fun to a game. However we definitely need a solution to the "kill one leader" and an empire disappears. Individual rebel cities (like minor races focused on survival not empire), next in line heir(NPC or PC), strongest champion or any combination of these are all viable solutions to take from a immersion stand point..
As to the discussed "save on issue" matter. In a single player game this is a non issue. Let the single player play as they choose, its their game and they paid for it, and frankly how each game owner has fun is not our concern. If I want to play Iron-man style or save on issue only matters to me.. In mp it is up to the other players to self police this and since only the game starter can save and there for load (at least that what I have gleaned so far about MP) the MP community will quickly be able to identify some one who did this as a tactic to avoid bad happenings in an MP game....
True. In games that feature something like this, like Total War games, it is actually important, since your faction leader will unavoidably die of old age or in battle, so you have to keep getting new generals and heirs, otherwise your faction will be destroyed.
And, as someone who loves customizing his characters (and making my main one "me"), I seriously wouldn't mind if my character died and left a heir.
@Froggy Thanks for the explanation It's reasonable.
I'd still like to see an unaligned champion grab off a city to form a new minor faction (especially if said city is poorly garrisoned and/or on the margin of that empire and/or is recently founded) -- minor factions are already in the game so it 'shouldn't' be too hard to include -- but that's just 'icing on the cake'.
It also allows things like:
-if we'd prefer #2 to take over instead of #1, would we send #1 on a suicide mission? We'd trade a short term loss (losing a powerful unit) for a long term gain (better kingdom in the future).
-upon #1 succeeding would there be a chance that the other offspring revolt and grab a city (or 2) and split off?
-random events -- in a 'cut-throat' family/kingdom, would there be a random event (not player-inspired) where one sibling might off the next-in-line to move up?
-etc.
In multiplayer heirs will never get married. Doing so would put the person giving up the daughter at a disadvantage. There has to be an advantage to giving up a daughter.
Only two solutions I can think of:
1) Allow sons to be married off just like daughters. Along with this, it is expected that such a marriage would be considered a trade with a huge trade value for the one losing the child.
2) Make it so Sovereigns die of old age.
While this might be a decent fix midgame, it is pretty pointless at the end, when all you have left is two factions. Killing the enemy sovereign becomes the immediate and only goal. This is also true when you have a three or four way war, when it's very unlikely that the factions would marry their enemies.
Admittedly, at this point in the game, the suggestions along the line of breaking up into neutral factions, or to different heirs doesn't really help much either (breaking up just makes them targets). The only realistic fix is to either make the sovereign not die permanently, or to pass the empire on.
Personally I think a sovereign should be able to use, expend, cast - not sure what to call it - essence to fertilize land. I then think that every city should HAVE to be build next to a fertile land tile. This would help with city spamming. But when you think about it - with all your Dynasty around this isn't really that big a think. But it would slow the growth of kingdoms / empires and also return the whole concept of a Sovereign being the savior of the people back into the game. Only the very rare Channelers can create fertile land and feed whats left of Humanity.
I also think the game really needs a magical Item creation system based on Essence - something similar to MOM - the items made should be a lot more powerful than the items sold at the shop - and like mom they should look different than other items in the game...
On the old age idea - I don't personally like it - but you could add a spell of youth - a spell that takes 20 or 50 years from your age. the idea being that through a quest you can learn to live a long time. this spell should be an ESSENCE cast. so you lose essence to cast it. You could also add the idea of a spell of Undeath. So a sovereign fearing death could also transform themselves into a form of undead Channeler (call it a Lich or Vampire or whatever) so at that point there would be several options available - through quests. etc to extend your life. Each having side effects on the kingdom.
Just had a thought - the side effects of the "lich" spell could simply be that the Channeler uses all the life essence of the subjects of the kingdom / empire to power his/her spell- thus creating an "Undead" faction / civilization as all their citizens are turned into Undead. The idea of an undead kingdom would be pretty cool. thought a bit of work for all the new graphics for Skeletal warriors and things.
Now that's a compromise I can get behind - it completely changes the situation. Currently, we have an immortal, invaluable, irreplaceable sovereign - if he dies, how many will continue playing as the heir when they can reload and try again? Some, yes, but not enough that succession should be a priority I think.
On the other hand, if no matter what you're going to lose the sovereign eventually (it just might happen sooner if you take some risks with him), then taking risks and accepting his death if it happens is a much more reasonable proposition, and probably not an automatic reload for most people. In this case succession becomes an essential part of game balance, something you want to think about not only for your own kingdom, but simultaneously worry about how your enemy's/ally's succession will work.
A separate idea, not necessarily related: what if marrying off children had non-negotiable, involuntary diplomatic repercussions? You'd still of course choose when to marry them off, but you'd have to choose carefully if it initiated a binding alliance. Say I marry my daughter to your firstborn son, now as long as he's the heir (or even the ruler, after you die), your nation is automatically allied to mine, sharing enemies and refusing to turn against me (we are relatives, after all, my daughter is involved in your court politics and influencing your leadership in my favor, just like real life!). If she dies before having an heir and your son remarries, or the son dies before having an heir and succession passes to someone else, all bets are off - I no longer have any influence over your line of succession. If she does have an heir, we're inextricably linked as long as my bloodline controls your line of succession. This isn't irreversible, of course - you could deliberately kill off the inconvenient heirs that link you to a nation you're no longer so friendly with, it'll just cost you the units themselves and probably provoke war.
This could lead to some really interesting situations - what if your second son is married to a third nation, my enemy? They might go out of their way to assassinate the heir (i.e. the one married to my daughter who favors my nation), so succession passes on to the second son that they can influence, turning you against me. The politics could get very medieval European/Song of Ice and Fire-ish. Keep in mind you only have to let this direct your politics if you want to - nothing would force you to marry off your heir, indeed I'd hope you'd think twice about it first, and you'd always be able to send a diplomatically inconvenient heir on a suicide mission. Ideally a smart AI would take advantage of such a system and try to pressure you into an arranged marriage to seal an alliance, but you'd still have the choice.
Also, keep in mind that the "marrying the heir = forced alliance" idea is not dependent on having a functional succession system or a mortal sovereign as mentioned previously; marrying the heir could have diplomatic consequences even if he never actually inherits (the game could track the line of succession, i.e. first in line for the throne, second in line, and so on, even if inheritance never happens - in fact I think it already does/did at one point in beta?). This of course reduces the heir from "future you" to "pawn in the political game," but that's not so bad - still makes for a very interesting political system.
And a word on sons inheriting - it may be the classical European way to only consider sons as heirs and ignore daughters until you run out of sons, but there's a way to give players the option of having daughters inherit equally (i.e. oldest child is heir regardless of gender): just tie it to the Egalitarian trait. Perfect, isn't it?
Add me to the people who agree with Sovereigns dying of old age.
Best regards,Steven.
I would love to have sovereigns die of old age.
Lets take it a step further, apon death there is a chance that some of your cities might leave your kingdom, or rebel due to instability.
And maybe Charisma could come into play here - the more Charisma your heir has the less likely these things are to happen.
I like it, Brad have a look at this:)
And this would give you a good incentive to level up your heir somewhat and put some points to Charisma.
What if the next in line is unmarried? Does that mean no one inherits and it just goes poof and it's basically a game over for me? Can my unmarried heir take the throne?
Anything that makes Egalitarian more viable works for me (since I always take it )
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