Elemental: War of Magic (Stardock's fantasy game) announced!

bah, a strategic game is good when it is balanced for multiplayer. This happens from Chess, went on with board games, and with loads of titles for PC. I really think the balancing "nightmare" is cheap as excuse. Again make up something better for an excuse, if you really want to give any. When you can play a complex strategic game (like TB games are) only vs AI, it has a short life generally because reality is that the AI is scripted, hence after some time a player will know what the AI will do before the AI itself knows it. And that is a game over...

So much hate!

Play GC2:TA before bashing the game based on your understandings of other game AI. I've never won a single game at their equivalent to noble difficulty. I suck of course, but I can spank Civ4 AI all over the place at the max non cheating level. I couldn't even beat it before they improved it to adapt to the players tactics, and it's one . .. .. .. .. . of an adaptive opponent. It's fast too, makes the Civ4 end turn grind look like a nightmare. It's probably the best game AI in existence.

The no multiplayer bit does kind of annoy me though, not that I'd play it any in my current circumstances. I'd have liked the option just in case.

onedreamer said:

bah, a strategic game is good when it is balanced for multiplayer. This happens from Chess, went on with board games, and with loads of titles for PC. I really think the balancing "nightmare" is cheap as excuse. Again make up something better for an excuse, if you really want to give any.

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Uh.. notice something about those games you mentioned? For the vast majority of them, each "side" is virtually identical. Balancing FFH for example, where each side is vastly different WOULD be a balancing nightmare.

Great, onedreamer is going crazy attacking the ONE thing stardock did right with GC2... *sigh.*

On GC2's AI: It's a very effective builder that doesn't know the first damn thing about fighting. Basically... the worst thing an AI can do to you in a 4x game is take your land, thus knocking you out of the race. GC2 has specialized units for conquering planets (which function like cities in most 4x games), and these units can't fight at all. Imagine if, in civ4, all exiting units - swordsmen, macemen, riflemen, etc - all had the "no taking cities" property of gunships, and then there was a new unit with the strength and speed of a scout, a considerable hammer cost, and the ability to capture cities with no defenders. It's key to winning a war, then, to protect these city-takers in the open field, and GC2's AI doesn't understand this even on the "smart" difficulty levels. As long as that stays true they're a non-threat.

Monkeyfinger said:

Great, onedreamer is going crazy attacking the ONE thing stardock did right with GC2... *sigh.*

On GC2's AI: It's a very effective builder that doesn't know the first damn thing about fighting. Basically... the worst thing an AI can do to you in a 4x game is take your land, thus knocking you out of the race. GC2 has specialized units for conquering planets (which function like cities in most 4x games), and these units can't fight at all. Imagine if, in civ4, all exiting units - swordsmen, macemen, riflemen, etc - all had the "no taking cities" property of gunships, and then there was a new unit with the strength and speed of a scout, a considerable hammer cost, and the ability to capture cities with no defenders. It's key to winning a war, then, to protect these city-takers in the open field, and GC2's AI doesn't understand this even on the "smart" difficulty levels. As long as that stays true they're a non-threat.

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I know this isn't a galciv discussion but I didn't find it actually that bad at taking cities... quite often, the AI would send a fleet and knock out all the defenders on a planet over and over then invade while I was trying to build more.

GRANTED.... the biggest problem i had with galciv is how they handle planet defense. It was often not worth it to even build good defenders because for the most part you were attacking a single defender with a fleet. IE imagine if every defending unit had the guardsman promotion... so you had to use an active defense.

It sounds like Monkey hasn't played it recently. The AI has been continuously improved, it's godlike compared to what it was around release. I whip their individual fleets just fine, but they tend to go for cheap and numerous and bury my ass in the long run when they out tech me due to my costs. They guard their transports, use fleets effectively, adapt their research priorities to match your offensive weaponry with the optimum defense, and defend their own planets exceptionally well now that they use orbital fleets. I haven't been able to beat challenging on a large map since before the expansion packs.

Fuzzy, build orbital fleet managers if you want to defend the planet directly.

Edit: Oops, double posted instead of editing...

psychoak said:

Fuzzy, build orbital fleet managers if you want to defend the planet directly.

Edit: Oops, double posted instead of editing...

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Yea, but its a matter of taking up a precious land slot to build the manager... and my best ships usually need to go into my attack fleet anyway. Probably I simply don't play very well I haven't played it in a while though, the unending sameness got pretty boring.

Essentially, I found the game plays very similarly for each civ which got tiring after you figure out some closer to optimal paths to do things.

Last time I played it was with that TotA patch that reduced tech cost inflation.

The enemy AI can knock out planetary defenders just fine but that's completely pointless if they can't get a troop transport to the planet. And they can't, because they don't cover the troop transports with combat fleets, which means that you can make cheap tiny ships with 1 gun and high-end engines and just have them sit in deep space until a transport gets in their range, which they then run down and destroy.

I still wouldn't like GC2 if this issue were fixed so whatever.

There's a nice addition to the journals: http://forums.elementalgame.com/329219

In Elemental, when a city grows, it gains a new tile which can be placed where the player wants it to go (as long as it's adjacent to an existing tile). So cities are a multi-tile affair in the game. Now, how you choose to build up your city heavily determines how defensible or productive, or rich it is.

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There's instant-resolve (i.e. two armies meet, one dies), there's auto-resolve where the game zooms in and shows a tactical battle but it's all handled by the AI (ala GalCiv II fleet battles) and then there's full tactical battles where both sides play.

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The spells are going to be intentionally de-balancing in late game. I.e. by late game, you'll be able to do Populous level damage to the world.

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Sounds really nice.

The only thing that discourages me a tiny bit about the game is that it only has 2 factions. Apparently its moddable, but that doesn't leave much room for story and interesting interactions. They have a slim 6 mana types too. But I think that could be cool it they really detail each out with distinct strengths and weaknesses.

From what I've gathered, the mana types should be doubled for practical purposes. Each sphere has negative and positive aspects depending on your alignment.

Only two factions? Thats worse than the 3 factions in Sins of a Solar Empire. I really wished they had made more civs, such as breakaway Adventists, Vasari, and TEC rebels.
The only Stardock game I have played is Sins. Is Sins average for a game they make or is it really good?

Stardock didn't even make Sins, they just published it. Ironclad Games was the developer for Sins.

Stardock games in general are pretty average, although I've only ever played GalCiv2; I don't think they have other critically acclaimed games that they developed in house (in fact, prior to Sins, GalCiv2 and its expansions were their only releases for about five years). As a 4X TBS, It has some relatively unique characteristics, some traditional characteristics that they handled well, and some other characteristics that I thought were handled poorly. Generally I find it a pretty strong game, but it could be better if it took itself more seriously (see: the blurbs for some of the techs) and if the interface was more polished.

Play GC2:TA before bashing the game based on your understandings of other game AI. I've never won a single game at their equivalent to noble difficulty. I suck of course, but I can spank Civ4 AI all over the place at the max non cheating level...

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FYI I think some of the difficulty in GalCiv's AI is that it cheats at all levels. In particular I think it doesn't have to deal with the fog of war, as is the case for the AI in many games. For instance, I've often noticed it sending colony ships to planets that it was very unlikely to have revealed already. You can see this for yourself with the automated space miners going to asteroids that are still obscured with your fog of war.

As for Elemental: a mere two factions is a big turnoff, even if it can be modded. I found Sins pretty boring to begin with, with three factions, especially since there isn't much difference between them. Using the 'hard to balance' argument is pretty meh; it just seems like they are going the lazy route and hoping players flesh out factions themselves. Differences don't need to be significant to set races apart: you could have small but lasting innate bonuses (Alpha Centauri style), moderately different unit characteristics (Starcraft), a couple unique buildings and units (Civilizations), or even unique techs (Sins, or GalCiv2 if you have lots of time).

Niveras said:

Stardock didn't even make Sins, they just published it. Ironclad Games was the developer for Sins.

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That's true but it can be a bit misleading. Stardock didn't just publish Sins - they helped develop the game. Stardock's relationship with other dev studios is different than a typical publishing house. Stardock is also helping develop Demigod, from Gas Powered Games.

I already pre-ordered, so if it's a problem all you'll need to do is read the forums. They haven't banned me yet, so I probably wouldn't get banned for . .. .. .. .. .ing either. I'm hoping the customization aspects should solve the boring problem that might arise from having two sides. It kinda sounds like they're going for highly adaptable sides that can be tooled for whatever it is you want to do that particular game.

On Galciv, negative. Challenging is supposed to be non-cheating ai that doesn't have fog of war removed. Everything below that is handicapped in some way, and everything above cheats.

Also, they put out more games than you think, they're just really under the radar. Political Machine and Corporate Machine were released in 2005, Political just got a sequel last month. They got good ratings, but they're about as niche as a game gets. They also made a side scroller, but I hesitate to count that as a real game at this point.

it looks like a crap game. i havent read it through, but from the . .. .. .. . screen shots, the fact there are 2 civs and very little diversity, i wont be buying it.

Hi guys, Brad from Stardock here.

A few things:

There are 12 factions in the game, not 2. There are two races. Civilization has one race (humans).

Each of the 12 factions gets their own spell book and their own technology tree so they will play very very differently.

The screenshots are nothing near as good as what the final game will look like. Remember what the first screenshots of Civ IV looked like. As the engine develops, the lighting will continue to improve and the graphics will continue to improve.

Regarding Galactic Civilizations II -- you should check out Twilight of the Arnor. The AI was heavily improved, each race gets its own unique tech tree, weapons, improvements, etc. and super ability. They play very differently.

Over the coming months, I think you'll find there's a lot in Elemental that Civ fans in particular will like. It's not GalCiv with magic. It's a very different game.

Draginol said:

Hi guys, Brad from Stardock here.

A few things:

There are 12 factions in the game, not 2. There are two races. Civilization has one race (humans).

Each of the 12 factions gets their own spell book and their own technology tree so they will play very very differently.

The screenshots are nothing near as good as what the final game will look like. Remember what the first screenshots of Civ IV looked like. As the engine develops, the lighting will continue to improve and the graphics will continue to improve.

Regarding Galactic Civilizations II -- you should check out Twilight of the Arnor. The AI was heavily improved, each race gets its own unique tech tree, weapons, improvements, etc. and super ability. They play very differently.

Over the coming months, I think you'll find there's a lot in Elemental that Civ fans in particular will like. It's not GalCiv with magic. It's a very different game.

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great to hear from you!
I am really happy about the way you included tactical combat! that´s what FfH is missing

If we can help you in any way, let us know.
And if you need another beta tester, let me know as well

Draginol said:

Hi guys, Brad from Stardock here.

A few things:

There are 12 factions in the game, not 2. There are two races. Civilization has one race (humans).

Each of the 12 factions gets their own spell book and their own technology tree so they will play very very differently.

The screenshots are nothing near as good as what the final game will look like. Remember what the first screenshots of Civ IV looked like. As the engine develops, the lighting will continue to improve and the graphics will continue to improve.

Regarding Galactic Civilizations II -- you should check out Twilight of the Arnor. The AI was heavily improved, each race gets its own unique tech tree, weapons, improvements, etc. and super ability. They play very differently.

Over the coming months, I think you'll find there's a lot in Elemental that Civ fans in particular will like. It's not GalCiv with magic. It's a very different game.

Click to expand...

Great to hear Brad, especially about the 12 factions!