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.
The UI screenshots are likely mock-ups, they were released before the PAX demo build, which had the same UI as we had in the beta.
The fact this can't really be solved (scouting) by 'what would a human player do?' suggests to me that humans need some scouting options too.
Time for two spells?
spell 1)
Eternal Eye. Reveals 3x3 radius. Has an upkeep cost of 1 mana per turn.
spell 2)
Raven of Scouteroos (name not finalised ) Summons a raven with no attack or defense but more move than you can shake a pointed stick at. Also has an upkeep cost of 1 mana per turn.
There are plenty of Espionage/spy/intel threads in the Elemental IDEA section already, hell, I've started some myself. Civ 4's combat didn't need Espionage until the final expansion (BTS) came out and that was geared toward providing the player with more *stuff* to do late mid through late game. Our goal should be to design the game so an espionage crutch isn't absolutely necessary.
There is an option to give the game objects an outline right now, though I do not know how well it works.
How about ranger heroes who come with bows and increased scouting range?
I was thinking something a bit lazier like a scouting pack that lets a unit go through tiles belonging to another player.
Be heavily exploited though if it weren't mutually exclusive with weapons.
I'd like to vote for being able to make a better variety of units, outside of traditional combat roles.
I'm all for more items that would exclude weapons but add non-combat utility. Like a camouflage item for turning a scout invisible for a few turns. Maybe another that would allow scouts to damage or render inert enemy improvements at the risk of getting caught and dying (similar to spies in GalCiv2).
I like the way Lords of Magic handled scouting and espionage. There was a low level scout unit with high movement points that could be seen by anybody... There was also thief champions that could cloak themselves on the world map and in battle. They were detectable with a thief of equal or higher power or through a spell that revealed cloaked units in an area. The system worked well since you could only cast spells on enemy cities that could be seen. If spells were being cast on your city and you couldn't see anyone you would send out a thief or cast the reveal spell to find the culprit and then take them out. having them cloak in battle was pretty cool to cause you could sneak behind the enemy and use the knockout ablility to take an enemy hero hostage. the unit would remain that thief's prisoner until the thief was defeated or the thief returned the unit to a city were they would be disbanded. For the Death race in that game they could sacrifice the prisoner at an alter to give bonuses to their units.
could be various kinds of packs, one for camouflage to scout out enemy cities, maybe a disguise for infiltrating cities, or a sabotage kit?
Yea, that's the trick. How do we justify a pack keeping a player from having weapons?
The unit design has definitely been a challenge because realistically, there should be 3 basic paths:
1. Melee
2. Ranged
3. Calvalry
How do we make all 3 distinct and meaningful? Unit design tends to encourage users to create single glombed mega units that are expensive and largely unsupportable leaving the player to complain about "balance".
could you just have champions be able to do it? It makes sense, being only one man. You could block the Sovereign if you want.
4. Special (creatures, stealth, support, ect.)
Do not forget the non-mainline units! They are the most important of all because they are interesting.
The 3 classes must reward chosing "right" (or shall we stay stylish = ) equipment and behaviour. Without rules, there will be full-plate bowmen on horses which can kill anything, laugh at enemy arrows, and cannot be caught by anything. It's the logical consequence.In fact, that's an issue visible in many parts of WOM. The only choices you get are to "do the thing" and get an advantage... or to not do it. There are no alternative means because (in this case with combat) the rules are so simple that other means are simply not modeled. Without rules it's entirely down to stats and the mega unit always wins.
Melee get a damage and defense reduction for every square they have moved this turn, making them better defensive units.
Also possible to model this as a kind of unit cohesion counter. (CC) The counter for melee can have values of -4 to 0. The lower the unit cohesion gets, the lower atk/def are. Everytime the melee unit moves, CC is decreased by 2. The unit loses cohesion and is more vulnerable "on the move".At the start of a new turn, CC is increased by one. The unit dresses ranks and rests a bit.If the unit doesn't move at all in this turn, CC is increased by one as well.So... rushing melee units all over the place makes them "lose formation". Moving + attacking in the same turn results in a CC of at least -2. Then the unit is weaker when attacking or taking the counterattack. That's a very abstract representation of the old military axiom that the attacker must have overwhelming force to successfully attack even simple prepared positions. Also it makes infantry better defenders because they can attack multiple times per turn without penalty... as long as they "hold the line".
Bow units get massive damage reductions from wearing metal armor. (any armor?) Movement reductions are laughable for them as long as 0.0001 Combat Speed allows 1 full bow attack... Range must reduce both their damage (somewhat) and accuracy. Bowmen could also work like melee, using their CC system. It's not easy to aim a bow if you're being chased across the battlefield, unable to catch your breath. Also very important: Target units that did move a lot of squares last turn are "moving fast" and should be a lot harder to hit. That protects cavalry to a degree and encourages having infantry to intercept the cavalry and protect their bowmen. Alternative: The horse "item" gives a defense bonus vs. arrows. Not as pretty but if that way is easier...
Cavalry gets to "charge" only on every 2nd or 3rd turn. Again, the counter system can work there, only it might go +1 to -2. The "fully charged" +1 means an Atk/Def bonus (25% ?) when charging.Everytime after the cavalry unit attacks, CC is decreased by 3.At the start of a new turn, it is increased by one. The unit dresses ranks. (cavalry charges are most devastating in close formation)Using cavalry as "just a fast melee unit" is punished by it working far less effective with every consecutive attack. Instead, cavalry should disengage, get some distance, and line up for another glorious charge. Possible rule: Cavalry takes half counterattack damage if CC = +1 aka when charging.Might be too much because they already get a defense bonus when at +1.
So ideally a cavalry unit is fresh and in formation and attacks an infantry unit which is on the move. That's why there were signals such as "ready to receive cavalry". The melee unit must stop, dress ranks, and prepare for the impact.
The melee unit would prefer to be in formation with other (melee) units. It would stop and take the cavalry charge and another closeby melee unit could then attack the disorganized cavalry while it is weaker after it's charge.
Infantry is vulnerable to bows. They generally do not qualify for "moving fast" and if they try to rush the bowmen, they build up negative CC, lowering their defense... again making them better bow targets. =P
That's a very crude stone/scissors/paper system, added without completely overhauling the entire unit creation and equipment structure. I hope it can be refined and improved because it's just something I made up on the spot. =P
Wow, very colorful maps I like that art style - of course I like the art style now, but the color in those maps..
Anyway, I like that UI too. What's wrong with 1280 resolution? Just curious.
Really like that UI.
Yeah, would help them stay useful as the stacks get bigger.
Perhaps certain types/classes of champions could get a "job" in a foreign city and report the goings on in it, perform saboteur type tasks, etc (kind of like you could have your spies hired in Seven Kingdoms and then you could do such things like lowering loyalty of workers, sabotaging production, etc. Yes, that was a RTS, but the concept could be the same.)
Is cavalry really a distinct path in the current game? As adding horses to strong melee or strong ranged units doesn't seem to have any disadvantage (beside the ressource) I don't see the point of having distinct cavalry units currently (except when you don't have enough horses for everybody, then you just have to design a horseless version of your unit).
Because even though they lowered the bar, there are still people who want it to support smaller screen sizes.
here is an idea I postes earlier regarding archers/bows
and I agree that armour seems to be broken.
it looks like the damage calcs only look at health, not armour type, eg all plate armour should be bow resistant due to small openings in them(assuming a full suit of armour, but if only helmet then should be almost no difference, and I also think that dexterity should also count more with bows due to being a two hand weapon, as does the distance due to greater difficulty in hitting a exact position at greater distances(example calc ((strength * dexterity * bow kill ability(damage))/(20* distance (in tiles)) as piercing damage against (armour pirceing total points* health points) example sov with 8 strenght 14 dexterity+ longbow (1 shot per move) totaling ((8*14*12)/200 ) 3.4 net damage at a range of 10 tiles 10 health leather armour no crush defence against sov with plate armour suit helmet (2 pirceing defence)+curiase (4 pirceing defence) +full legs (2 pirce defence) + arm guards (1 pirce defence) total 9 pirce defence and 10 health and a lord hammer dealing 30 damage per hit 1 hit per turn starting 10 tiles apart both with three moves per turn,bow sov at 10 tiles could average 3.4 damage before armour per shot
and here is a chart I worked up to fine tune the idea
attack calcs stats for both sovs bow sov hammer sov strength 8 15 dexterity 14 7 inteligence 9 8 wisdom 10 8 combat moves per turn 3 3 health before armour 10 10 weapon damage 12 40 weapon range 10 1 attacks per turn movement 1 armour head 2 2 light plate note these are assumed values for lightplate armour vs arrows & hammerarmour body 4 4 light plate armour legs 2 2 light plate armour arms 1 1 light plate the formula used is ((strength*dexterity*distant weapon damage)/(20*distance))*(distance<range) bow table distance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12peak damage 67.2 33.6 22.4 16.8 13.4 11.2 9.6 8.4 7.5 6.7 0.0 0.0average damage 33.6 16.8 11.2 8.4 6.7 5.6 4.8 4.2 3.7 3.4 0.0 0.0 hammer table distance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12peak damage 210.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0average damage 105.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0range 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12armour effectiveness arrows 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9armour effectiveness hammer 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9now down to the damage vs distance vs attack mitigation re armour the formula used is average attack effectiveness-armour zero and negative answer is NOT effective distance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12averagearrow 24.6 7.8 2.2 -0.6 -2.3 -3.4 -4.2 -4.8 -5.3 -5.6 0.0 0.0hammer 96.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0peak arrow 58.2 24.6 13.4 7.8 4.4 2.2 0.6 -0.6 -1.5 -2.3 0.0 0.0hammer 201.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0now to work out the kill range against each weapon assuming 10 health and damage done at distance through armour average arrow -14.6 2.2 7.8 10.6 12.3 13.4 14.2 14.8 15.3 15.6 10.0 10.0hammer -86.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0peak arrow -48.2 -14.6 -3.4 2.2 5.6 7.8 9.4 10.6 11.5 12.3 10.0 10.0hammer -191.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0in the kill per shot range table above it is assumed negative is dead over 10 no effect so hammer in range is oneshot kill but arrows against light plate (assumed ratings) effective at injuring out to 7 tiles and can oneshot a 10 health at one to three tiles and against unarmoured troops it would be effective out to six tiles for a oneshot per trooper at averageand all of this is before the dexterity dodging the attack
harpo
Simple you make it like this:
Bow < Melee < Calvary with the exception of spears or pikes then the infantry would have the advantage.
Armor the lighter armor would offer less protection, but would offer more flexibility (higher attack speed, and movement speed) and drain less stamina during battle.
While the heavier armor would offer the best protection, but the person using it would attack and move at a slower rate and tire much quicker and once that happened they would be more vulnerable. Think of it like that fight in the tales of Ice and Fire where the Rogue that was fighting for Tyrion allowed the heavily armed Knight to tire himself out before he slipped in for the kill.
Also certain weapons would have an advantage over certain armor types. For instance slashing would work better on light armor, but suck on plate. While blunt weapons would work better on plate and less on light armors. While a spear would be a good all around weapon.
One problem with Cavalry in Elemental, is that you never actually get Cavalry- I've gotten it maybe once in 20 games.
Theif's Guild
How about a theif/spy guild, you build one per game, that let's you build thief's that can spy and steal from other cities.
ok what you do, is create a spy pack. this pack is special in that it allows the STEALTH ability to a unit. the stealth ability allows you to enter a factions influence WITHOUT starting a war, AND it also makes the unit somewhat invisible. the more stealth units you stack the more likely that they will be seen and thus give the player being spied on the choice of capturing the spy and killing them automatically(regardless of CR) and starting a war with that nation. or letting the spy go, kick him out of your borders and NOT start a war.
Better: interrogate them. You get to interrogate captured champions in Lords of Magic, letting you see where then enemy is that turn (though it was buggy as I recall and after the first time in the game it would say that the prisoner has already told you everything and you get penalized for mistreating them).
Can't believe I forgot about that in my little LOM rant earlier......Was hoping this game would be similar to that one so was saddened when I heard the real time battles weren't gonna be in elemental. But anyway, you could also hold them for ransom and if not give will be able to see a chosen area of the faction the spy came from.
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