You've never played master of magic?

AoW2 was a very poor MoM clone.

We got our own tactical RPG, like... ehm, King's bounty? I like KB, so it's compliment.

Everything in Frogboy's post is == Master of Magic except for the hero development (in MoM heroes just leveled up).

Not sure how I feel about the loss of designed units. I don't kinda like it that much, but it's really good to have, especially when you are tight on resources. This would really depend on how unique and balanced the new predesigned units are going to be.

Also, yay for FE: LH updates and DLC!

that's both good and bad

 when War of Magic was announced, there were practically no 4X-fantasy games around. now there's this arms race  

anyway, I'm Team Elemental and will always be...

i dont understand your comment ? what is "zerg rush" about having large battles ? i m not saying you should be able to control every single soldier - all i want is (turn based) battles where a unit is represented not by 4-6 soldiers but lets say 40-60. the difference is mostly a cosmetic one giving those games a much better atmosphere.

i personally think Braveheart or Lord of the Rings would be pretty boring movies if the main battles involved 12 dudes on each side. as much as i love fantasy strategy games its always an immersion breaker seeing supposedly large battles being fought by just a few guys, no matter how good those games otherwise are.

hopefully that oxide tech brad is talking about will allow large scale fantasy strategy games. like said, the closest thing we ever got to that (to my knowledge) are Total War Fantasy Mods (LOTR) but those are unfortunately real time.

but the way i read brad this new elemental game will be on the same engine as the last elemental games (or ?) so my hopes for bigger battles probably wont be fullfilled by that game the more i think about it

Only that zerg (or Tyranids) usually associated with hordes, nothing more. A lot of units, regardless of game sometimes, ironically, called "zerg-rush", even if we playing Red Alert and there are like 50 mammoth tanks.

I have no problems with that, since it's cosmetic feature, and battle won't turn into long, jaw-spraining periods of exchanging moves. Unless, of course, we actually would be able to unite several smaller units into one, and operate that increased unit as one, just to reduce micro.

From your reply I got impression you want to increase number of actual fighting units, and, if I'm not mistaken, FE tactical fields aren't that big to accomodate all of those units, that's why I remember Fantasy wars reinforcement - you initial cells allow you to place 12 units, while you have, say, 30. So you placed and moved your first 12, freed "entry" area, and then placed more units. With certain units, or even characters features, you could place them not in just your entry area, but at flanks, or even behind enemy lines.

Yet I'm not sure increasing number of actual units active during combat won't brake game's pace - since larger armies will result in longer combats, and having "trickster" units, ones you can't see during estimation, or ones you can deploy outside of your entry area, that could change gameplay.

Depends on specific game, I suppose, or even specific mission. I admit, seeing Gamebryo "war" with like two dozen of men figthing each other, and that's called full scale invasion, it's just hilarious, ArmA's several hundreds of units strong battles are much more believable, as well as old Cossacks are way better than Age of Empires. But there is always technology problem - will that particular engine be able to handle those hundres of troops, even when united into bigger entities (companies, battalions, etc)?

Very good news all around.

Agreed. Different season graphics and effects I think would be very interesting and give the play (and hopefully the AI aswell) a really new feel from turn to turn.

Other aspects that I'd love to see:

- AI able to upgrade outposts.

- Expanding Wildlands

Unit constructor and auto built roads are great features. Don't lose them!

Tomorrow will be April 1 and Aow3 will arrive! All its features are described here. BTW Unique talent trees for each hero is a good feature. And there will be sieges. That's what LH misses - sieges! It would be also nice to reduce cost of movement on roads from 4x to 2x. Radically different races is not good, I don't like to rule monsters. Your races are great, because they are all humanoid. But where are sieges???

It won't be as much like MOM as one might think. The nature of the lpayer's enemies is very different than the traditional 4x formula.

If it hasn't been suggested already (I read most, but not all posts in this thread), for those of you worried about the removal of the tech tree and the removal of customization of units (I love these features too and am sorry to see them go)...As has been suggested that's a Master of Magic thing, and a good example of recent games (if you don't want to go to GoG and get a copy of MoM) that have done this are the Age of Wonder series (though the latest one in that series is pretty old) which most people know, and the newer game Warlock. AoW 3 will be out soon, and Warlock 2 as well. They're going to be the big competitors that I am aware of at the moment, for Elemental 2014.

My point is, if you're worried about how those feature removals affect gameplay, try Warlock, or AoW Shadow Magic. If you're patient, in a month or two try Warlock 2 and AoW 3. I suggest this to make a good point here about Elemental 2014, in that those games were actually pretty fun. I was never a fan of the AoW series, but 3 looks great (if a bit Civ-5ish), and Warlock was awesome (also Civ-5ish), especially if you're a fan of the Majesty games, since it's set in that universe. Warlock was a total surprise to me, as I didn't realize it existed until like 3 months ago. It will give you a great idea what it's like to not have tech trees, but only spell research, and no unit customization. Again, I suggest this not to promote Stardock's competition, but to show that Elemental 2014 will be awesome, set as it is in the Elemental universe, and with the suggested set of features. As mentioned, I can't wait to hear more!