Some old ideas, some new ideas, both big and little that need to be considered to improve the Game.
Races need to be each unique either through appearance of armor and weapons, and/or through bonuses and penalties. Each race should look different in their armor. Having slightly different eye/skin/hair color among the 6 tribes of humans means shit under the armor, they all look alike.
When creating a custom faction, we need to be able to tell which bonuses don't work with Empire or Kingdom, seems simple, but apparently not. Also, when I am choosing colors for my faction, I should be able to see it modeled on the...um model on the right. Hard? Think not. Also, I should be able to change skin and hair color for my factions.
I should be able to play agaisnt enemy factions ,and I should have the ability to design their AI like I was able to do in GalCiv2.
When starting the game, I should have the option of how many neutral factions there are, how many resources there are, and so forth, options, options. Things that we had in GalCiv2.
Minor factions should be a little more active, and have a large diplomacy rating so AI doesn't just wipe them off the map for no gain. Let them at least arm themselves, have a few spells, and maybe a few troops and send out caravans. They should even be able to create a little army, and maybe have special troops that can help allies. Like if the Orekeepers ones had troops with that pressed iron armor and longswords they make, they could at least protest themselves, and if they are are conquered, instead of them disappearing, that neutral city is special and can only produce their special troop and items, making them both valuable to keep alive or conquer, depending on how you play. Also, non human factions would be nice.
Quest are too few, and fairly pointless. Why put the work into getting the Sovereign sword, when by the time I have it, I have better weapons? Orthe Sov Shield I can buy. Make quest items special for the whole game and unique. More quest, and have them pop up randomly. Also, maybe a random event that is centered around one of your champions and they have a quest. "Viy, you must seek out the great Sage at Darkroot Mountain" and then Viy gets some special item or ability. Something like that.
When you take a tech that produces the resource, please make the fucking resource pop in my fucking area. Great, I got darklings that showed up in Kraxis control, hope they pick the same tech and theirs shows up over here so I can use it. Dumb people, really.
And Stop letting other factions create cities in your area of influence. So stupid.
Sovs need to follow the int requirements of casting, or you need to make int more important to the damage that spells cause, otherwise, I will continue to make retarded Sovs.
Make allitems usable for everyone. Why can only humans of the race of men can wear the Azor quest armor or the the pressed iron armor and why can't Ambrose wear human armor? Frustrating.
Add "wizardly" items to the game. Maybe I don't want all my Sovs, champs, or children to be iron clad warriors. How about magic robes that don't offer as much protection as iron armor, but add dodge bonus, and magic staffs that work like bows?
We need separate light armor tracts and heavy armor tech paths, maybe I don't want to specialize in heavy steel armor, maybe I am a iron poor nation, so I specialize in armor that needs less iron, but provides more mobility and agility? Add back in the scale and chain armor and make them an alternative to the heavier, more iron costly armors.
Champions need to be more diverse and interesting. They are all human now, they all have boring clothes or leather armor on. Wow, boring. They should be each of a race or nationality, and list it in their description, "Viy a Yoren", or Tarth, or whatever, and since every faction has a unique look to them, armor wise, they will stand out in your army, most likely as they have their own armor look and color scheme. Neat, huh? Also, a Champion with a city based profession, like farmer, should gain exp every turn he sits in a city that uses his skill. They should have different personalities, and maybe form rivalries or enemies with other champions, they should have loyalty and a glory stat, if you are not giving them chances to gain glory, like combat then they get less loyal, or if you keep using a farmer to fight, then they lose loyalty. Champions shouldn't be killed, they should be captured and put in prison and traded on the diplomacy screen.
Tactical combat needs a complete overhaul. Units need ZOC, meaning that you can't just rush past the unit or through units. Spells and Arrows need much smaller ranges, you should have to position yourself to land a good shot. We need meaningful terrain. 3D terrain like in Final Fantasy Tactics battles, or at least rivers, mountains, forest, things that change movement, line of sight, and dodge bonus. Movmentand positioning, make up, of your armies should be very important. Unit types, like Heavy, light infantry and mounted should provide bonuses based on the terrain that the battle is fought and who they are fighting. Look to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Brigandine, and Final Fantasy Tactics for ideas. They are old games, so don't tell my the new fancy game cant do it.
No reason to have the entire kingdom disapear like a fart in the wind when the Sov is defeated. That should casue the faction to have a new leader rise up, either a child or a Champion, and maybe the remaining empire splits up into factions. Also, see Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Need random events, like the ones that GalCiv2 had and FFH2 had. Also, more interesting world places, like FFH2 had that trapped angel, that stonehenge thing that provided certain bonuses with some of the factions. Or giant dragon bones, neat shit like that, that makes me think, oh cool, this part of the world is special, unique.
Thats's it for now, sure I will think of more.
Possible changes to the caravans that I like to see:
1: Some basic defence for the caravans(like guards)
2: Watch tower that when manned, make caravans immune to attack within a given radius, ie you have to take out the watch tower first, cities would count as a watch tower.
3: Caravan is lost only if you lose it twice within 20 turns.
Armour
I would like to see three very basic different chest patterns to chose from in faction colors,
Well said! Total agreement.
When you close the door on succession, you close the door on a ton of gameplay potential that could make EWoM absolutely riveting. Personally, I think succession enhances the RPG element rather than detracting from it. Sure, it may not be only about your Sov anymore, but it will be about his entire family! Talk about the possibilities for a fascinating interactive soap opera!
Precisely The game, for me, is firstly about the story of my Empire - and you can't have truly epic stories without sensing the passage of time, and the lifetimes and struggles within them. I want to think back on the story of my game, recall how my Empire flourished under one Sovereign, struggled to find its feet under another, and rose again with the next - or various permutations of this.. I want my game to be Shakespearean in scope, not just another action movie. You can't have true glory without a little bit of tragedy...
I don't really get 'attached' to my sov, but there's one problem I see with this: With the length of games sovs are going to be dying off faster than I can replace them. Most games I don't remember to get married till I'm over 100 years old, and my sov, and my wife, and my kids... all just sit in a random town and do nothing. I stopped going to war with them because it makes it too ridiculously easy. In total war your family tree would more or less take care of itself, every once in a while you'd click OK on getting married and OK on getting a new kid, and that was fine. I'd wait for them to grow up and take the strongest out to battle and the rest would sit in town and become spoiled pansies.
There's not enough to make characters distinct in this game to warrant a new sovereign. It's just like resetting your sovs level back to one every 80 years. Maybe he gets a new haircut, and a new name. There's not a big need for generals in this game either, at the most I might have 2 armies roaming about. Usually a city's ZOC almost fills the land mass that it sits on, there aren't a lot of borders to defend. In it's current state I would see succession as just one more thing to bother you.
All of this is very true. Although with each turn now representing only a season, we could still get a good 300 turns or so from one Sovereign. But you hit the nail on the head, when you said that they just aren't distinct enough. If Stardock's aim is for the Sovereign to be the key element in the game, then I think that they really need to focus on this distinctiveness. One way to do this, would be to give each offspring random traits, such as the ones you choose for your Sovereign at the start of the game. These traits would need to be ramped up in their significance, and have consequences throughout the game. For example - if your son was 'headstrong', he may suddenly choose to take off with a band of Champions, and go adventuring in the wilds. If he was 'scheming', he may suddenly decide to rebel against his father, and attack his kingdom - maybe even found his own Faction. I think that this random and unpredictable element could add something pretty special to the game, and make Dynasties a dynamic part of it.
The big problem with creating interesting units, is that there are only somany weapons worth using at the end, usually just two. I think the weapons need to be more evenly balanced, and then to add more depth, add a more advanced training civics for the units. Instead of just equipping the soldiers with just items, we could equip them with trainings also, like 3 max
Examples:
Dagger fighter, Dmg +3 with daggers equipped
Light Armor expert, +1 armor per armor equipped that has no dodge penalty.
Quick warrior, +5 to dodge in light armor
So we could then research special trainings and then equip the troops with them, and make vastly different troops with a variety of different abilities. Also, if you have little to no iron or horses, you could find a way to research down a path that would let you produce viable soldiers with interesting training and abilities, so every game would play different based on the resources you find and what your enemies. Stardock should start writing me checks.
I have been pushing the training idea for a long time. It would add so much to the game.
That must be where I stole it from then. I always think I'm original...I'm still taking credit
Go ahead. I don't care much about credit as long as it makes it into the game. It would diversify units so much.
There must be a carrot for replayability. Ask Bugs Bunny.
All great ideas... I was thinking about something similar...
I am just averse to my Sovereign not having any reason not to wear full plate and wield huge weapons, and I had an idea.
Why not attach strength requirements to armor and high level weapons and make magic scale much better with Intelligence? That way, you'd have an actual trade-off when leveling up your Sov and champions without having to go to anything like a class-based system.
I really liked this idea, but it has at least one problem that I can see, and that is the training of "normal" units. They obviously wouldn't meet the requirements for high-level armors. And then I had an epiphany- use training levels to allow the assignment of stat points. Each race would start with a base set of stats (see, it's also a way to differentiate the races!). Basic training would yield a nominal amount of stat points to distribute, Elite would recieve a large number. Then, after these were assigned, weapons, armor, etc. could be assigned. You could have training level determine production time, and gear determine material cost.
Of course, you would need to Int and Cha do more for normal units, but this could easily be done. Int for group size determined bonuses, etc.
I think system would add alot to the game for me, personally. What does everyone else think?
I have discussed this with some other players before and some were for succession, an some were against it. I know this may be asking to much, but what about having it optional under game settings or something. Me personally, I would like all my hero's/ sovereigns to age plus die, and for kids to take the throne. Extra goodies like having my sovereigns son assassinate him for the throne, would be nice too. For me it makes it a more breathing... living world. Plus it helps to control the overabundance of hero characters. I understand Elemental is about the Sovereign but I also think it has a lot to do with the Empire/Kingdom you have created. I may be completely wrong when I say this, as I haven't had much time to play, but what can a sovereign do that an offspring can't. Don't offspring's have the ability to cast magic from the sovereign? To me personally the dynasties are more eye candy, than useful right now.
I agree with alot of what Lord Xia says. I haven't read every page but I wish they stop over simplifying some of the most important factors in the game. (Ex. Only land that has a resource on it is useful) All land should be useful not just a place that has a resource on it. Stupid when you can only grow food on fertile land out of hundreds of acres of grassland. Stupid. Forests should provide some food and lumber.
City building is way more complicated than it needs to be. Why do we have to build housing? If the city is worth living in the people will come and build there own housing. I think we should build housing only to increase the growth of the city. Only buildings that you place should be important buildings like libraries and schools. (I would rather not to place any buildings because all it does is take time away from the gamer. Doesn't offer any strategic bonuses or defense = pointless)
You are a nation living some time after a cataclysm so why do you have to research every little bit of tech. Too much research into mundane techs and not enough focus on magic. Why do we need to research civics to build bigger housing? Way to complicated for a simple game mechanic. Our research should give us bonuses on things we can make if we have the resource. (ex. if you have iron and a blacksmith shop you can make iron weapons but if research steel you can make weapons that are sharper) This game plays more like everyone has just left their caves and discovered fire.
Anyway sorry for ranting in your thread Lord Xia but I really don't understand why this game should resemble GalCivII more than MOM. I know they made GalCivII but I bought this game because I am a fan of MOM and I am sure alot of other people did too.
I agree with most of Xia's points in the thread above and I am heartened by Kael's comment that many of these (plus others are in the queue for addressing).
And since this seems to be yet another thread for these sorts of things, I have some additional thoughts:
I think there are too many champions. Did I really just say that? I think champions are a cool idea and I love them, but when I end up with 2 (or more ) 12 stacks of just roving champions... well, it seems a bit silly. I think getting a champion should be a bit rarer occurrence or there should be some kind of recruitment penalty for having too many. Possibly have each require a maintenance cost (in either gold or resources, or demand to be the only hero of a certain type in your empire... something).
I saw the imbue spell mentioned in the thread and the idea that magic casting should be the exclusive domain of the sovereign. I somewhat agree here. I think magic should be very limited and powerful, but I also think throwing some spell books out in the land (loot) that could be read by a champion to convey upon them a certain spell or spells to cast would be a cool way to keep magic a fairly exclusive club, but add a magic-based game reason to continue questing (besides the spell of making) as well as add some differentiation to your hero set.
Succession. I am disappointed the way this was implemented. When I first heard this was in the game, I thought the point of having kids was to pass you empire on to in the event your sovereign was killed. I'd like a better way to "raise" your kids in the game, especially if it was implemented in a "cool" game mechanic. For examples, I'd like quests to go fetch them after they've been kidnapped, fix them after they've been cursed, save them from an assassination attempt or sticky situation with the local hedge mage and at the same time have the chance to grant them abilities or stat increases as a reward for the thing.
Caravans are lame. Once the road is built, there should be some kind of caravan automation, a meter for the current level of danger/trade return of the route, and a slider for how much to invest in caravan production.
I think the way that the stats are implemented now is poor. I think they should be used more in every aspect of the game. There should be an "average" stat level, possibly 10 since it what your sov starts with. In that case, any number less than 10 should grant minus modifiers and over 10 should be plus modifiers. Some uses might include...Strength: Melee damage (major), amount of gear worn (armor weight), types of weapons used (weapon weight), total weight carriedIntelligence: Spell level cast, spell power, weapon damage (minor), experience gained rate, trade / mana bonus (when stationed in city)Constitution: hit points, spell resistance, poison resistance, farming / mining bonus (when stationed in city)Dexterity: to hit chance with weapons, spell casting (minor), dodge bonus, initiative (first striking)Charisma: Morale / leadership, faction diplomacy modifier, prestige (when stationed in city)
I'd also like to see ability paths opened at certain stat levels for certain champion types. "Ignore pain" ability at constitution = 20 for adventurers, for example. Or "Charm foe" at Charisma 25, trade monopoly for merchants with int 30... something like that to promote champ building in other ways than just strength and HP.
This a thousand times. Yes please.
BUMP da on da noggin n' steal all da gold.
Felt I should bump this thread since it has so many wonderfull ideas for EWoM. Keep up the good work everyone; here's to hopeing they read this from begining to end and give many of these ideas serious consideration.
An excellent thread indeed and thanks to Lord Xia. I'd like to see many of his and other people's ideas get implimented.
I especially wish there was an easier way to protect your caravans. Maybe pay to have escorts for it or something or guard towers as someone already mentioned.
I'd like to see champions that have various limited magical abilities. Some might be able to summon basic illusions or others might be simple clerics with a healing spell or two or maybe turn undead. Others might be able to charm a person or animal. Keep it limited to a spell or two though.
Anyway, keep up the good work all.
GalCivII:
Sir, we successfully improved our miniaturization tech, so our hull size increased.
https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Miniaturization
Elemental:
My Lord, our people no longer live in huts but in houses now. That means, we can feed more of them with the same amount of food.
Thanks for pointing that out puntarenas!
Couple of problems with 1.11 I've noticed, When a dragon breaths fire, that fire never goes away, it just keeps blowing. Lot of slow down, I'm about 700 turns into my game now, and getting slow down and OoM errors fairly commonly now.
The Ai is markedly improved, it has been making stacked units with good armor and weapons, but still not aggressive enough. Gilden actually took a well defended town from me. I had a 12 long bow archer unit, with magic items, and master armor on, a well armed champ and a 12 stack of shrills and the AI was able to defeat it. Now, I did auto battle, so that might have been an issue, but they were able to take it, I was impressed. They haven't been able to put up any other great assault though. Might have to do with the time it takes to train a 12 stack, takes for freaking ever, even with building improvements.
I've done auto battles and got wiped out, reloaded to tactical and won in 3 rounds without taking a hit, and without a champ. Something is screwy with the way it calculates auto battles.
The big problem, I think with Champions, is just how gear centered and dependant they are. for the most part, how powerful your Champion is is based on the gear they have, not the champion themselves, so they might as well be all the same. Think of a level 10 D&D character with average 1st level equipment and then think of a level 1 D&D character with level 10 magic items and gear. Who would win in a fight? Almost guaranteed the level 10 guy, but if you do a similar comparison to Elemental, the level 10 guy has almost no chance. This is why they all feel the same, because they are not who they are, they are simply the gear they wear, making them good soldiers, but not champions.
Agreed ! (though if you used Rolemaster as a comparison there could still be a chance for the underdog to role an open ended critical allowing for a mere lowly farmer with a pitchfork the miniscule chance to defeat that ravaging undead dragon)
Ah Rulemaster!
The E Crits were always the worst I seem to recall.
I only played it a few times. Kind of interesting.
I made a Q. Elf for my character and I rolled like crap for stats except for a 121 comeliness score.
All beauty and no brains or brawn, that one.
It was an awesome rpg.. you actually needed to be skilled at 'math' to 'play' through combat resolution... they actually made a program for really really old comps (back then it was cutting edge.. lol.. modems the size of cadilacs) that helped the more math challenged players have an easier time of it. When it came to 'fun' though in combat, Stormbringer was classic with its 'parry-riposte' combat system. Very deadly and took 1/10th the time to resolve.^^
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