So I just started watching the movie clip about CIV_5 and noticed some important game options missing from Elemental.
1) Random Personalities - Elemental has one AI personality for all AI opponents. Hopefully modding will become available so the community can create the personalities while Stardock fixes the game.
2) One City Challenge - This would definitely provide a better challenge, but the end game score should be bumped too. Something so the game remains a one city challenge too would be good.
3) Enable Turn Timer - Multiplayer can really drag without some turn timer setting. I can imagine playing a 90min game of Elemental only to have my opponent overseas decide to pause everything during a battle or research screen while he goes out for dinner. Sure I could exit and then he wins??
4) Resources - We should definitely have a setting where we can decide how many resources are in the world. I'm sure some people want more or less than what's currently provided.
5) Rainfall, SeaLevel, Temperature - Maybe someday when the terrain and oceans are more than just visual.
---- Other Game Option Suggestions ----
6) AI Bonus Units Setting : Where we can choose for every AI opponent to start with an extra 2 spearman or extra 2 pioneers or an extra 2 champions plus modders could create even more unit bonus settings such as 3 pioneers with 3 maceman or 2 pioneers with 8 champions.
7) AI Bonus Sovereign Setting : Where we can choose a custom sovereign we've created for an AI opponent. Also allowing us to bump the stats of the AI sovereign with more hitpoints, speed, dexterity, etc., . It'd be nice if we could fight an AI opponent which wasn't human such as a Troll or Cyclops.
{ I will try adding more later... I need to drive into the office today. }
If I could add:
I've noticed the definite lack of ways to organize my recipes. I mean, really......I've got Aunt Fran's Pot Roast and Mrs. Teutenhaur's apple bake mixed right in with Mr. Frankenshweitzer's Kraut recipe. This madness has to stop, and you can only imagine my disgust when I installed Elemental in place of CookPro 7.3 only to find a complete lack of acceptable ways to organize my Jello salads.
Does anybody know if this is going to make it into 1.0.9?
</Sarcasm>
I would like to see the AI Sovereigns have a personality trait or characteristic, there was another thread about this somewhere. A couple of them that I mentioned in that thread were:
Maniacal--doesn't matter what is going on, they hate everybody and will attack everyone
Aggressive--feel the constant need to expand their territory
Passive--feel taking care of their kingdom is most important
You could even break down personalities by what they research the most. Military vs Magic, etc. I think if each sovereign behaved differently each time you could really have in depth game. Examples a Passive Adventurer, a Maniacal Militarist, etc. You could assign each Sovereign a specific combination or have them randomized each game.
1SuperG, that's foolish. CookPro is a REAL TIME recipe management system. Elemental is turn based.
Do some reading, jeesh.
I like some of the ideas here. Keep adding.
You want to turn Elemental into a cooking sim?
...
/joke
Good Golly Ima gonna get my recipies!
Ok, in all seriousness, I'm having trouble keeping up. In one thread you state CIV is a COMPLETELY different game and really shouldn't be compared to Elemental (which I agree with) and now here you're on board with ideas people have extracted from watching CIV movies.
There is no way in hadies I'm going to presume to understand your job Brad, but while I think it's great that you want to put some ideas from players into your games I think you also should build the game YOU want to build and let it stand on it's own merits too. Good ideas are good ideas, no doubt about that at all, but as a newbie to your forums, I find myself leaving more often than not from flat out exhaustion of all the "This is what's wrong" "This is how you fix it" "It should have been this" "I want x" "Why x game will always be better than Elemental", etc. etc.
I want to see STARDOCK's vision of Elemental, not constant pandering to everyone who drops an idea on what THEY think it should have been. I'd encourage you guys to accept feedback, but maybe ask specifically for the feedback you want rather than the free-for-all list of demands from everyone. It makes the place gloomy and depressing when all I ever read about is how wrong this game is and how it should have been and what needs fixing. It doesn't have to be fanboy central either, dissent is good when done constructively around a stated direction Stardock is looking to take.
By the by, since I have your ear for a moment, I bought your book on the Kindle. Not a bad read, congrats on your accomplishment! Now if I can just get AMAZON to let my Kindle run iPad apps......
While we are ripping other games...
What about 'Advanced Start', where each civ starts with 2 rank 2 cities and a few levels in each tech and a few defenders...
Just because they're different games doesn't mean they can't have similar features.
Also, yeah, the book seems pretty okay thus far. Curious how the "book campaign/characters" will feel compared to the actual book characters.
Even though I rarely move much (for the first city anyway), I really like placing my cities exactly where I want.
Ok, and? I didn't say anything about AI or forced placement...
I'm sure some people will balk again at the comparison, but Civ 4 had an awesome advanced start mechanic whereby everyone got 'points' to spend before the game on units and techs and you could place cities wherever you wanted (within reasonable range of your starting point). You could even adjust how many 'points' players got to tweak how advanced the start should be...
Unit Designer: The ability to Rotate the Model so we can see what it looks like all around. I would suggest by clicking and holding the middle mouse button down while in the display window.
Tile Editor: the ability to move pieces around the way it worked in the Gal Civ 2 Ship Designer. I also can't copy pieces or move them by just dragging them around in the window. It would be a TON more user friendly if you could make that happen pls
But then wouldn't you have access to the map before it's actually been generated? Or would you have 2 cities in your back pocket that automatically start at level 2 when you find a proper place to put them during gameplay?
*Confused*
No, read the rest. You get 'points' before the game starts. Stuff costs points. For simplicity, let's say you get 100 points (which is adjustable). Cities cost 30 points, rank level 2 costs 10 points, a 'peasant' costs 5 points and level 1 techs cost 20 points.
The game starts in 'pre turn' mode with my hero in it's original starting location. I have an editor up in 'pre-turn' mode where I can buy and place stuff with my points. I can only place stuff in my field of view, so fog of war still applies, I don't see the whole map. So I decide to buy a city and place it near my starting hero, this may or may not reveal a bit more of the map. I then use more points and buy a second city on the fringe of my view near another resource that I can see. I know have 40 points left. If I choose to 'rank up' the cities, I will have 20 points left with which I can buy a few units or a tech. Once I'm done buying and placing stuff, I hit the 'start game' button and the game starts as normal, except now I have a few cities, a few units, and possibly a tech or two...
A simple example, but you see where I'm going....
It would be nice if you could set up team games, or at least set relations at the start like you could in GC2. I agree with the OP's idea about resource settings, also like in GC2.
That's actualy a fantastic idea for MULTIPLAYER games. It would make them much more streamlined and get rid of the slower early game (which isn't really conducive to a multiplayer experience).
I would give your Sarcasm a big FAIL!
That is all.
OP I agree with you. Elemental is missing a lot of options that should be a standared in most TBS games
Yep, that's basically the whole point, to get to the 'meat' of the game quicker. Again, it's not my idea though, it's ripped almost word for word from Civ 4.
Hey Wayninja, do you know if CIV5 is going to have that Advance start feature? It was pretty dame cool in Civ4
Oooooh, you got me good there! Here's the part where I fall into a depression and cry that mommy wants me because some random 1 or 0 in the world didn't approve of what I wrote and tried dinging me with a trendy word..........Whaaaaaaaaaaa!
Or not.
I don't specifically know. From what I've seen almost all the other options from Civ 4 are in there so I don't know why this wouldn't be. In other words, I'd be surprised if it wasn't.
1. The game does need random AI personalities.
This is probably the minorest thing in the world but I would love it if you could adjust campaign and tactical music separately. I like the campaign music, but I'm getting really, really bored of the 1 tactical song that plays over and over and over.
Here's a few options I'd like to see added:
1. ARROW KEYS HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL SCROLLING! Seriously, this is such a common strategy game convention, I'm shocked it's not a part of Elemental. Scrolling by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen and "dragging" the terrain works fine, but allowing us to use the arrow keys will give us the ability to use our mouse and keyboard simultaneously. The carpel tunnel can be a killer without it.
2. NPC Monster Severity Options. It would be neat to have a slider, when starting a new game to decide how often monsters spawn and how aggressive or intelligent they are. This way we could create games to focus purely on faction-to-faction play, coop monster hunting, or a combination of the two.
3. More Unit Customization. I know, I know, Elemental already does this pretty darn well. But I'd like to have the same options from sovereign creation for unit design. So if I want my warriors to be a certain skin color or all have purple hair, I should be able to do this.
agree 100%... and wow, i cant believe no one has requested that yet! thats a very annoying feature in the editor...
lets day i meticulously place my object on the groud, then rotate and notice it should be nudged over just a hair "thatta-way"... what? i cant just click and drag as before? i have to manipulate coordinates to get the desired change???
Definitely want this, while we're at it, wasd scrolling is nice too.
Otherwise.... the standard map generation options in games like civ and galciv would greatly benefit elemental. I also would like to see the ability to change things like the number of heroes that can be recruited on the map (not necessarily an exact number), the number of monsters generated over time from the adventure tree/rate of increase/advancement, and amount of resources on the map/basic placement (scarce, average, plentiful; balanced, random, geography based)
I really like this idea. Having a slider like other games (yes civ included) to decide just how many monsters you want roaming around would be really helpful. To expand on your idea of the coop monster hunting. I think a co-op and/or competitive quest mode would be awesome for multiplayer. HOMM had a few of these where you eventually had to kill an uber powerful dragon or find some ultimate artifact. With the RPG elements already in elemental I think it would be a great multiplayer mode and with modders their could be all kinds of custom quests added. Have either a common goal 2 sovereigns have to unit and try to form a rebel group by recruiting local peasants to overthrow an evil kingdom. They could split up their forces to hit multiple targets, or unit against a capital city. Or have a mode where the multiple sovereigns are in a race against a great object or to destroy a powerful creature.
To expand on the RPG quest mode you could have some of them where you are limited by maybe only visiting other peoples cities and not managing your own or limiting it to one or two cities, to better focus on the quest at hand. Like just having a group of seven heroes who you must figure out how to use effectively to vanquish an evil from the land while at the same time avoiding an evil players group who may be working for them, or may run into a player with a similar goal as yours and you could team up to take out more powerful enemies you couldn't on your own. Even just the basic outline of this mode so modders could go crazy making their own stories and quests with it would be more then enough and all within the current game parameters.
[Edit] I should note that I would figure the mod community would eventually make this or something similar to it, looking at the other rpg style mods for other strategy games, but stardock getting the ball rolling would be better IMO.
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