READ EVERYTHING BEFORE USING

First things first, this was created using the latest MP enabled beta patch, so i can't vouch for it working with anything else, that said it is Single player only.

Secondly, Only try this mod if you know what you are doing, whilst installing it isn't actually that complicated or dangerous it still involves dealing with core files. ie you will break your actual game if you manage to screw things up.

Thirdly, it's an Alpha, so no knew art\tiles\icons (because i suck at such things) so lots of hovering over icons and using the encyclopaedia thingy will be needed. and for the time being this is Empire Only, because that's what i play as mainly so that's where i started.  

Alright on to the mod itself...basically i got bored yesterday and decided to redo large parts of the economy, there are more resources, a lot more upkeep, and general changes so that you have to think about what you are doing more. Whilst the system is more complex I'm trying to balance things such that it's not..... oppressive. So some Specifics....

 
Food

There are now multiple types of food, each of which is 'required' for different levels of housing (described later), the various types of food resource (ie fertile land, fruit grove, etc) provide the different food types in varying degrees (including not providing it at all). 

• Scavenged Rations - your basic level of food, available pretty much every where in small degrees. used for military rations, feeding horses\wargs, and feeding all your population - provided by all food resources, and through other means.
• Basic foodstuff - the next stage up, still pretty much every where, used in providing better housing. provided by about 85% of food resources
• Foodstuffs - more rare,  again only used in providing better housing. provided by about 50% of food resources.
• Luxury Foodstuffs - very rare - again only for better housing, provided only by twilight bees, and enriched land.

Housing

Housing, is due to the food requirements, a lot more involved when trying to level cities, there are 5 levels, only 4 of which you can build, and you are limited to 3 of any type of house per city (this is not how i would like the system to work, but city upgrade levels don't seem to like being something other than population, or at least they don't like custom resources, so we ended up with a strange population storage calculation). 

• Level 1 housing - Hovel, requires 1 scavenged rations to build, provides 1 prestige, 25 population store. automatically turn into level 0 housing at city level 3
• level 2 housing - Shanty, requires 1 scavenged rations, 1 Basic foodstuffs, provide 2 prestige and 25 pop store. needs to be researched
• level 3 housing - (Unnamed, still uses hovel tile), requires 1 of the first 3 food types, provides 3 prestige, and 35 pop store. needs to be researched
• level 4 housing - (Unnamed, still uses hovel tile), requires all 4 food types, provides 4 prestige, and 35 pop store.
• level 0 housing - Slums, unbuildable, requires 2 scavenged rations, provides 50 pop store, but take 4 prestige - Hint - careful management of your slums, can make leveling up cities easier, or if you ignore them, considerably harder.

Lumber

First note, "materials" don't exist anymore. Lumber is a globally stored, primary resource, and is mostly gained from forests, yes you get to build timber mills on all those pointless forests now, 3 per city atleast. Lumber is used in the following ways....

• Basic construction material, with a few exceptions every building requires lumber to buid.
• Lumber is converted in to "simple weapons" (a resource, again further info later).
• Lumber is converted in to "simple armour" (see above), for the record, yes i know it's stupid making leather things out of lumber, but it seemed pointless to add the extra resource just for the sake of it as you would still be getting the leather from the forests anyway.
• Lumber is also used in the production of metal weapons and armour, think fuel for the fires of industry....
•  Lumber is also used for the upkeep of defensive buildings, and the harbour.

Yes, that's a lot of uses, but trees are pretty much everywhere. HINT - at the start, building near trees is probably more important than building near the Fertile Land

Stone

Globally stored, Gained from stone, clay and marble, used mainly in building more advanced (level 3 city+) buildings, also used as upkeep for the "Castle" defensive building.

Military Equipment

Equipping your military just got more complicated, and yet still stays surprisingly simple, there are 5 types of military resource, all stored per city, all created by city buildings from other resources.

• Simple Weapons - used in non-metal weapons, except for the basic club and staff, which are just lumber. made from lumber
• Simple Armour - used in leather armour, also used in accessories, made from lumber
• Supplies - these are used 1 per unit, and are generated from food, the way it is currently set up is that you convert 1 scavenged rations, in to 2 supplies per turn - the initial Pioneer and peasant don't use these so that you aren't gimped from the start.
• Metal Weapons - self explanatory, production requires lumber and metal
• Metal Armour - self explanatory, production requires lumber and metal

 The way it all fits together is fairly simple, each individual item only costs 1 of whatever resource, the upshot of this being that fitting your troops with armour is a lot more costly than giving them weapons.

General Changes and Notes

These are the more general changes, a couple aren't implement fully yet. as well as notes on things i haven't linked up yet.

• Metal - used in more advanced buildings, and creating metal weapons (as noted previously)
• Gold - Removed completely.
• Crystal - pretty much the same, except that certain magic buildings (currently only the temple of essence) will require a constant supply
• Trade Goods - New, used as a sort of half-way house between gold and diplomatic capital. not implement properly yet.
• Food resource multiplier buildings - these only effect certain of the food types.
• Talents, abilities, histories - None of these have been changed to correctly use the new resources.
• Descriptive Text - Mostly unchanged. encyclopaedia entries are the only real way to find out what does what.
• City Resource Screen - This doesn't show custom resources, the full city info screen does though, so use that.
• Locally stored resources (Military Equipment) - I have found no way of making these show up their current totals, so whilst you will be gaining them there is no way to find out your current totals.
• I seem to remember having changed something's between when i uploaded it, and when I finished typing all this out. but I'm not sure what it was.

• Browse to the directory where you installed Elemental
• Browse to the Data subdirectory, make a back-up of the "English" folder, yes the entire thing. i recommend simply renaming the "English" folder to "English - Backup"
• Place the "English" directory located in the mod's zip file in the Data directory.
• Go back to the main Elemental directory.
• Run DataZip.exe, it will open a blank window for a few minutes, don't worry it is actually doing stuff.
• You're done. simply running Elemental will run the mod

Uninstallation Instructions 

• Delete the modded English directory from the Data folder
• rename "English - Backup" Folder to "English"
• Run DataZip.exe again.
• Done.