Besides not being able to build anything on them, and costing me money to get rid of them, what do they provide? Do they provide production points to what ever I build?
No, nothing. In Elemental, there has been a world-shattering Cataclysm and the entire world is more or less dead.
This is something else that never made sense to me. Why put something in the game that is useless except as a nuisance to the player? What is more, it is doubly bizarre as forests were traditionally seen as a valuable resource both for wood and for hunting. In fact, during the medieval period, forests were so prized that they were often off limits to commoners.
Sigh.
I settled near a forest, because I thought it looked beautifull. So basically I started a new game once I saw it would cost me what 25 Gildar to clear all that. So that is like 500 Gildar to clear land. No fun at all if not really getting anything but loosing money.
Something to keep in mind. Doing something that does not add fun is not good. Clearing trees just to have cleared land, just doesn't seem much fun if not getting anything else in return. It's easier to start over again than starting near forests.
I've got to agree that forests as only monster-spawning city-blockades with no positive benefits is pretty bizarre. Marsh makes sense for that sort of thing, but wood is awesome!
Maybe it should provide a prestige bonus for being beautiful for Kingdoms and a Material production bonus for Empires.
Well, in fact it really should do much more.
This way the landscape influences... well, the way it rather doesn´t influence a cities production at all is the one most unsatisfying lack-of-feature for me in Elemental.There really should be a better way to deal with ressources, a way that takes into account the different kinds of terrain.I do like the way that Elemental handles city expansion, and it wouldn´t be very difficult to use this exact same system to build logging huts on forrest tiles and acres on suitable other terrain tiles.
The way it is handled now just lessens my immersion in the game(world).
Actually, in some early versions of the game, you had to build lumber camps on top of forest tiles to get materials.
I still wonder why that got changed, since it would make the map more interesting.
Interesting, didn´t know that.
@Wintersong: it wouldn´t have to be forests, hills or even mountains could provide some materials with a mine that could be built.Or you could get away from the necessity to construct buildings alltogether and just give material and food based on the value that would be given by the terrain tiles within the cities radius. This way each type of terrain would need to have a value for food and material productiveness, but that´s something I would want to have anyway.
Resources are limited to nodes. These nodes represent the last resources present in the land after a magical force destroyed all other resources. While I too expected those hills to have metal or stone in them, I dug in only to find a brittle chalky rock, seemingly the norm for every hill or mountain in the realm. I then went to the forests, sure that I could chop them down for use in my fledgling town. To my dismay, every tree is wet with rot, thin and close to falling.
Eventually my magics could repair the outward appearance of these forests and hills, but the core of these things, their essence, has been drained by a magical cataclysm.
I hope that answers some questions a lot of you seem to be having about the realms of elemental.
More than that I hope you stop posting about it.
Why is that?
While this makes sense in a lore related way, it makes for a very boring map. And imo, gameplay always trumps narrative.
I've never been happy with the way forests were treated in the Civ series.
For example, in Civ I, not cutting down your forests led to much more pollution as forests were a good means of ramping up your production.
In later versions cutting down all your forests was considered a good idea.
I am hoping that forests will play an important role in Elemental somehow. At least much more so then they are now. Being described as a nuisance right now is quite appropriate.
LOL, you have got to be kidding.
I wonder if the mountains I create are actually filled with air, I will have to attempt popping one of them.
Cause it doesn´t even really make sense "lore-related".As troglyte insinuated, the idea of a landscape that looks healthy from the outside but in fact consists of ashen marshmallow cream with zero nutritional value is rather ridiculous.If the landscape really is THAT barren, where do all the monsters and heroes and citizens come from?Where do the materials come from that your cities buildings can generate without a notable materialsource?
But more importantly, this way of handling ressources thwarts the whole idea of bringing back life to the world or spoiling it even more, respectively.Why even bother with reviving or desecrating the landscape when it doesn´t have any effect in the beginning?That does NOT further my gaming experience, nor does it help my immersion in the gameworld.
If I can revive the land, I want that to have an effect. Fertile land etc. could remain special, perhaps with something like +150% to food/materials output from the given tile.And when I desecrate the land, I want it to have... wait. Do I really want the land to be even more barren when I belong to the Empires?I guess, this rather exposes a little logical hole; why do the Empires strive to make the land even more uninhabitable, when they too depend on regular food and materials? Gameplay doesn´t give credence to them being fatalistically selfdestructive?
Or should I take it that this whole "spoil the earth/revive the earth" is "just for the audience", in reality just a cosmetic issue and this whole war just about how the trees look from the outside; cause in either case they will be marshmallow from the inside?
Mmmm... A world made of marshmallows, ooo, and if that brownish water is chocolate sryup that would be sweet. Are the houses made of graham crackers perchance?
@loondenhur: You can pick the flavor of the roofing when creating a custom faction.Like for example peppermint, chocolate, fish or gore.
There are many ways of thinking about this issue. From a lore perspective, I was just trying to satisfy the audience. This is what I tell myself as I play to increase the immersion factor.
From a gameplay perspective, nodes create strategic points worth fighting over. If every tile added a small amount, city spam would be more viable and there would just be too much stuff to harvest, leaving us with too much material, or no way of cutting off the enemy's supply.
From a logical perspective, there would be no limit to what could be harvested from the land, until everything ran out. This is what is really happening to our world and doesn't really seem like a good aspect of a fantasy game.
Nodes work. Nodes are well balanced and simple, while not simplistic. Certainly it has been done other ways and we are all entitled to our opinions, but why try denying that the world is barren, when from what I understand that is the point of most of the map, creating a feeling of emptiness that the user then fills.
My idea that the changes are merely cosmetic fits very well into the actual function of the game, except that with the new version you can cut down forests, which I am deeply annoyed by, because you can't build on the land after it is cleared.
As to the idea of life vs. death influence: there were supposed to be life spells and death spells in one of the original conceptualizations of the game. Kingdom territory was supposed to emit life, while Empire sucked it from the land. As of now we get bonus and penalties to drive this home. I agree, not very driven. The simple fact that so much has been cut out and so much has been added or drastically changed has made certain holes in expressing some of the core concepts.
There are obviously some areas that need explanation and as a purveyor of fiction I would like to offer my own lore up as a solution to many holes in the fabric of Elemental.
I thought the eternally barren thing wasn't half bad.
I want specific special quest huts / quest-related locations and goodie piles spawn in forests. That will make them interesting enough.
Somewhere else, I'm pretty sure I posted something about the project's Single Biggest Mistake being a failure to put content as at least first among equals with engine development when it came to resource allocation and scheduling. Good engines last through several projects, at least. Good titles rise and fall on the strength of their content, even if that content is something as simple as the 'universe' for a game like Worms.
I haven't loved a 'twitch' game since the late '70s when most of us still had to get to and stand up in an arcade to do all that furious fondling of input devices. But back when Worms was young, a deck-loving friend of mine persuaded me to give it a try, and I had some fun. Was it because I loved the visuals? Only secondarily. The real fun for me was the idea of worms with crazy weapons. Content.
Elemental pre-mid-beta was similar for me. The ideas were very engaging, enough that I had fun just thinking about what the first beta build might be like. But somehow as the builds passed, the engine rolled over many of those ideas. Now, instead of knowing details about life & death magic and how restoring/whatever-ing lands works, essence is gone from the game and the terrain differences are a set of art assets mixed with a designed-by-committee set of bland combat modifiers.
And we're left with forests whose only apparent functionality anchor is that they are part of the GUI. I still want to know why there is no set of faction traits that mean you need to found cities on different terrains. The ideas came up very early on the boards. They didn't require that the game include elves or dwarves or lizardmen. Sure, there was a visuals burden for the 3D layer, but it still seems plausible to me that a large-enough audience would have accepted some art kludges in 3D in exchange for being able to have factions linked to the terrain types so that one faction's useless/obstructive forest was another faction's home.
When you say you were trying to satisfy the audience, are you a designer? I am new here so I don't know who is whom.
Having too mush stuff to harvest and leaving us with too much material, basically tells me the maps are too big then. It also tells me that if we had too much material, then it values are set too high. They should be lowered then. This is almost as bad as Civ V. You only have one or two tiles to worry about. Less choices for the player to make. One of the reasons why I got this game is to have more choices not less.
I haven't played much of the game, waited for the 1.19 beta, so not familiar with Nodes.
I haven't tried this. What do you mean you can't build on the land after the forest is cleared. WTF?! This is BS! Why would I want to even clear the land then?
Well yeah it wasn't bad, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, from a gaming perspective, it's nice to have change. I spent an hour restarting the game because I wanted Green lands, because I tired of the barren landscape. I don't know, I guess I just love having my green lands.
Hopefully they will include mod tools allowing us to check what terrain types are within a city's boundaries, and apply bonuses based on that. Ability for custom buildings tied to terrain type, and city-level-up choices tied to terrain type would be a bounty for mod ideas even if SD doesn't want to use it themselves.
Mods, schmods. There's a 'silent majority' of unknown size out there who care only about the base game, and hopefully its updates. Hopefully, late Elemental and/or early Enchantress will have a terrain that is both interesting and 'logical' in terms of the game world. The forests as they are now are just eye candy that slows most units and clashes with the settlement-building systems. There's nothing wrong with those 'basic' functions, but they (and other terrain types) also need to be homes to some, raw materials to others, and mere obstructions to still others.
Agreed. I'm one of the "sometimes silent majority" that doesn't typically make or play with a mod. I prefer to play a game the way the developers intended it. I'm all for extensive modding support for those who will use it, but not something that interests me.
My 2 cents - the base game should always be enhanced ahead of modding support. That way provides the most benefit to the greatest number of players. Most of whom will never post on this forum.
@seanw3: I don´t see a "nodes"-based system of ressources as a principal gameplay problem.They work. If you´re lucky and the gameworld contains enough ressources, you will probably end up with excess ressources, don´t really having to care anymore about them.
Let´s say, I don´t like how the availability of ressources progresses ingame.First you have near nothing, later this rapidly grows, and with certain buildings suddenly explodes.Like when you start with two patches of fertile land in a city and later get an orchard or an apiary, or both, then get all those city enhancements that pump your food-output up to an amount that let´s you supply your whole empire/kingdom with that city alone.
I would rather have a more steady progression that scales better; where you start with more but don´t get that high bonuses later.
Forests as a source of spawned monsters are quite useful. A good source of monsters is very handy to level your heroes (to get charisma to increase prestige). Especially good for stay-at-home heroes.
Raise Land will get rid of your forest without pay gold (can kill a 3x3 zone of them). This is also useful for accelerating exploration if you have the mana to spare. Its one of the reasons Raise Land is high on my learning list.
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