So right now the team is working on getting v1.09 of Elemental out this week. I’ve been working on the AI which continues to generate a considerable amount of pain for me but it’s getting better but as I’ve gotten better at the game I’ve found it very problematic at certain things.
What I’m working on tonight is a detailed user manual update that will be based on v1.1 of the game (global mana and population as a resource). Population as a resource was something discussed in the beta a lot and was one of the core design elements of the game got lost because, at the time, the engine didn’t support non-storable resources (i.e. resources that are calculated each turn).
Playing Civilization V
I’ve been playing a lot of Civilization 5 recently. I am enjoying it quite a bit and I really really wish the Civ and Elemental communities would cease sniping at each other. It may seem hard to understand this but Stardock and Firaxis are on the same side. We’re not competitors. We’re friends. I think I can safely say that we want Civilization V to succeed and Firaxis wants Elemental to succeed. What neither of us want is for everyone to just throw their hands up and decide that Elemental II/Civilization VI should be a first person action game.
Anyway, my point is, please don’t use our forums to criticize Civilization V. Given the state Elemental launched in, it makes us wince (glass houses, stones, etc.). But flaming Civilization V is about the same as flaming Elemental to us. They’re our friends. Please back off.
Elemental UI
Now, a lo of people have been talking about the original Elemental PAX Beta UI:
So why did we change from that to our current UI?
There were a lot of reasons but a big one was, at the time we had to do a UI, performance. These are development journals so one assumes some of you guys like technical details. But basically, at the time we had to finalize our UI, we couldn’t support having a context-sensitive detached UI like this (the highlighted object would bring up a context-sensitive mini UI where the current item was). It also required 1280x1024 which we weren’t prepared to require as our minimum resolution.
After Elemental: War of Magic, we’ll be able to reevaluate what the engine can support.
Other Ramblings
So v1.09 is still mostly about bug fixing, memory optimization, etc. A broken API got fixed that made the AI considerably better but it’s still way way too unaggressive. Having a non-cheating AI kind of stinks sometimes because the AI doesn’t usually know how weak your cities are. In GalCiv, the AI could come up near your planets and see how poorly defended. But the same technique fails in Elemental because they don’t get close enough to your cities to see how weak they are and then coordinate. So it’s something I’m still trying to deal with. But if anyone wondered why the AI wasn’t “aggressive” enough now you know. It’s something I’m painfully aware of.
Demo version
The demo version won’t come out until v1.1 and will be based on that.
Best Buy and Walmart content
v1.09 will also coincide with the special content for people who bought the game as Best Buy or Walmart. They get their own special quests. That said, we will be providing this content for free to all users 90 days after their availability to those users (they paid for them so don’t feel like you missed out).
Similarly, if you bought the book Elemental: Destiny’s Embers, the full map of Anthys, will be released this week for those who bought the book.
The book is at a bookstore near you. We’re pretty happy how it turned out and the book takes place 800 years AFTER the War of Magic so you can get some hints and allusions to things coming up in the game world over the next several years.
Are these pics actual screens of the working engine, or just mockups from designers?
Some art there and UI is much more awesome than what release version has.
*cough*Frogboy should make a UI Mod*cough*
doesnt he say those are pics from beta?
High Five!
The magic system could be used to improve many areas in which the AI lacks.
I'm of two minds reading about the AI fixes. On the one hand, I'm happy that the AI is being fixed. On the other hand, I haven't been able to win a game of Elemental at any difficulty outside the main campaign, so reading about how easy it is to beat the AI is disheartening at times. Having said that, I do love this game, and I am persisting on playing a mixture of Civ IV and Elemental (moving between one and the other depending on my mood at the time). I haven't seen Civ V, but I will be picking it up around Christmas time, so it will be interesting to see how it plays. I wish both Stardock and Firaxis the very best of sucess with their respective games.
Cheers,
Raven
That's too "free" and automatic, really.ZAP - complete intel report on the city. No fun, no gameplay.The only defense against that would be another deux ex machina spell that cloaks the city from such spying attempts - setting everything back to square one... like it is now.Not such a good idea, IMO.
A variation of the cloaked unit would work better.
You build a unit that looks like a generic weak bandit to the enemy and can enter the enemy's (or ally's = ) ZOC without causing a diplomatic incident.Since the AI would not have lots of roving patrols to intercept such "bandits", this spying would be about as powerful as magic since you can travel through their whole territory practically with impunity.More restrictions are needed, such as the unit really turning neutral after it has "spied on" one city.That would give the AI armies some free XP, too.
Still, this spying system does not rely exclusively on magic (which it should not) so any no/weak magic strategies are still an option without blocking access to the one and only spying mechanic.
Well, at least not from open beta. "PAX" is game expo, as I understand, so its more like demo rather than beta.
The problem I see with a unit disguised as a bandit but still visible is, the AI may not have patrol stacks, but the human does. If the AI tries to use it against a human, the unit will get killed before it ever reaches a useful target.
That's why I suggested cloaked units, but there's certainly nothing wrong with having multiple forms of espionage, each with different pros and cons (and risk of discovery weighted to balance out each technique). Since this is a fantasy game, I think there should be a certain element of magic involved. It would add some much needed flavour to the races if each one had different methods of spying and counter spying, or if different spell books gave you different options, e.g. a spell that lets you control wild animals in an area for a few turns and see what they see.
Any spying attempt should have a corresponding risk of discovery which leads to the target player finding out who the perpetrator was, which should lead to a diplomatic penalty. If the human catches the AI spying, then they get to know the AI is planning an attack, so it goes both ways.
Great news
But about the book: Make a sequal, PLEASE!
There is lots of story left to tell, and I want to immerse myself in that great world you created more and longer! (the first book has around 500 pages) Please do consider writing a sequal.
Related to that is a point of concern for me: What about the channelers in the 'global mana pool'-world?
I loved the fact channelers were powerful unique beings like in the books: Angenica, Mirdoth, Calis. They shouldn't just be resources in human form sitting in towns generating mana each turn for the global pool... They should be the heroes of the world. Please figure out something so that they will still feel like it's in the book and in Elemental 1.06.
Thanks
Well there is a spell for that! The one that reveals tiles in the FOW - can the AI not use it?
Apparently following them and actually reading them are two separate things. Those are screenies from beta, and he goes onto explain why those were not included in the release.
Those PAX beta screenshots look so much more awesome than the current game.
Disagree, sorry. Much too cartoonish for my tastes.
Reading too many internet forums will scare you off of anything. Civ V is great and it will get better.
Cartoonish, maybe, but more playable IMO.
The objects (like trees, mountains, or monsters) are far more visible because they are off-scale and (which is the killer) have the dark border that is used to differentiate objects.3D objects typically do not have such a bright object / dark border layout so they blend into the background.
The cartoonish map is the clear winner in the contrast and useability categories.
Well, you may be right. I've never had a problem telling the difference between the trees and my own units, etc., personally.
But, back on topic, I do think that that UI is better than what we have now.
I think the best solution would be a modification to the Diplomacy tech tree:
Remove the creatures from the Diplomacy tree and replace them with new technologies, that display the location of all cities (first tier), information about all friendly and neutral cities (second tier) and information about hostile cities (third tier).
Another problem with the AI starting champion is wandering into enemy controlled areas with no or very small troops and then it is an easy target. Once destroyed, poof, there go all of the AI players cities . You have to hold off attacking the AI champion ( and hope it does not attack you) until you get control of the other cities, otherwise you lose those cities. AI champion should not be killed off until all of its cities are gone or at least don't let the cities vanish. Let the remaining cites and troops keep fighting. They may have considerable firepower left and can do fine without the original champion.
The champion Carrodus is unbalanced with it intimidating ability, at higher levels just he alone with a small army can cause a much larger army to freeze with panic. Even if Carrodus is killed off a the beginning of the battle, opposing troops still stay in a panic state and the much smaller army of C just walks up to them and wipes them out. This only happens it tactical combat. If you choose auto resolve, then C is defeated. Otherwise in battle which you control , there is no way to defeat him unless you can kill off all the troops before C has a turn and causes all of your troops to panic and freeze for the remainder of the battle. Only way to escape then is to revert to auto resolve ( no attacks allowed). This needs to be fixed.
Speaking of the auto resolve, this needs work also , In tactical battles with archers you can most often win with little loss. However in auto resolve your loses are much more severe and you can lose a champion who otherwise would have survived. Auto resolve only works well if the opposing troops are a pushover.
This is a great game with great potential. The AI just needs to be smarter. This however has most always be the major weakness of most strategy games. The AI just cant play like a chess master. I continue to have hope however, that you will make significant improvements to the AI. Thanks for keeping us informed of what is going on.
One other thing , the confusion spell seems to result in a negative attack value rather than cutting the attack value in half, as the spell is supposed to do. I also get a 0 value when I cast the heal spell in battle. These must be bugs.
I really like the spy idea, even more if they can pull of espionage missions as in Civ IV and V. Also it would be cool to get spells that inflate/deflate apparent strength of cities/stacks so you could lure other into attacking or at least not avoiding a strong stack or avoiding a weak one. Strategic possibilities are intriguing.
As for Civ V. Thanks Frogboy, they are both solid games and very fun and very different from each other. Civ V has its issues, but it is very fun, and very different from simply an "update" of Civ IV.
being able to summons a flying unit that does not attack would solve this problem of AI aggression: or on the other hand if aggression is what your looking for then have the AI brake his diplomatic treaty'sat a cost. this happens all the time in fantasy movies, meaning the AI may have agreed to a NON-Agr-pack just to see that you left your kingdom undefended (which you should never leave your kingdom undefended anyways) beside that this adds the element of treachery! by the way don't forget about the reveal spell.
I have to agree...I really wish Elemental looked like these Screenshots. I really love the dreamy, fairtytale cartoon look, and the UI looks slick and useful too.
Can we make this how Elemental looks forever, please?
the original screen shots rock!! you gotta make it look like that. Hands down. the tactical screen shots are 100 times better looking as well.
The graphics might be tricky. True 3D is harder to give good contrast because you can't use a bright object with a black border.That way you'd make it visible like the green trees on a green background.But in 3D there is no border around an object. Only the vertices of the object and since the player can rotate the camera, you can't realistically control the background.
But that's just the theory. Maybe a real 3D person can correct me. I kinda hope so...
Let's just make sure we get Elemental 1 where we all want it to be before we start talking about Elemental 2 please
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