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Stardock's new game "Elemental: War of Magic"

Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
7,269
Personally, I think GalCiv2 is fantastic. The AI in it is top notch, and actually poses a challenge without cheating, the ship customization is cool, and especially with the latest expansion, the tech trees are well done. I don't know what the hiveminds opinion of it is, but I'm not regretting the purchase.
 

lordfrikk

Scholar
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
158
I didn't want to start a new thread, so I guess I'll slip it in here. I started up Master of Magic for the first time yesterday and while I quite enjoyed the first steps, I am IMMENSELY annoyed by one thing (maybe it's just because I'm too stupid to figure out simple solution): Enemy keeps sending ghosts and units, but when I want to eradicate them, they always flee... it is SO stupid... this essentially makes it neccessary to set up zingillion of patrols on every place you want to stay yours (cities, nodes, etc.).

No, I didn't read the manual.
 

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
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lordfrikk said:
Enemy keeps sending ghosts and units, but when I want to eradicate them, they always flee... it is SO stupid...

If the enemy (wizard? a brown neutral town?) keeps sending out stacks so weak they flee when you attack, just ignore them. Keep your towns and nodes defended and there's nothing they can do to harm you.

Edit: And yeah, you should ALWAYS keep troops garrisoned in cities. If you don't, the little bastards will start to rebel and then you lose food and productivity points. You only need a few for one of your towns, but if you capture an enemy town, especially of another race, they'll hate your guts and it'll require half an army just to keep 'em productive.

We really should start a separate Master of Magic thread.
 

Burning Bridges

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Flying Spaghetti Monster said:
Personally, I think GalCiv2 is fantastic.

I tend to agree. But though I havent played it for 2+ years I am finding it strangely difficult to get back into the game.

And one more thing I think they should do away with those graphs. They tell you instantly when you have achieved omnipotence, and the game would be much more fun if there was uncertainty.

Basically goes with all such games: it's really strange to play with fog of war but still have graphs that show exact statistics for all your enemies.
 
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
372
lordfrikk said:
I didn't want to start a new thread, so I guess I'll slip it in here. I started up Master of Magic for the first time yesterday and while I quite enjoyed the first steps, I am IMMENSELY annoyed by one thing (maybe it's just because I'm too stupid to figure out simple solution): Enemy keeps sending ghosts and units, but when I want to eradicate them, they always flee... it is SO stupid... this essentially makes it neccessary to set up zingillion of patrols on every place you want to stay yours (cities, nodes, etc.).

No, I didn't read the manual.
Master of Magic has a number of quirks that you just need to get accustomed to seeing. The computer tries to keep you honest, I suppose, by making sure you protect what you want to keep.

A couple details that may help. Whenever one side flees, there's a chance (I would guess ~50% for each unit) that a number of units will be lost. So, the computer can continue to throw units at you, and it shouldn't be a problem for a while. But, eventually, those units will start being upgraded, so you need to keep up with them. Taking out the cities/wizard(s) that are attacking you is the best solution, of course.

Also, the pathfinding works in such a way that the path is determined once, when the unit first starts moving, without regard to anything unknown to that player at that point. Generally, if the computer doesn't have units close enough to see that you have units positioned in a city, a node, or just out in the open, they'll still try to move through/on to that location. Your units will do the same.

It also depends on the difficulty setting you selected (and patch; 1.3(?) is the latest). Rather than make the AI more complex, the game cheats and gives the computer excessive boni the higher the difficulty level. On Impossible, the computer is probably going to be pumping out Paladin-level unit (the unit with the highest requirements) before you even have a temple. So, if you have it set above Normal, the computer is going to be able to create units very quickly, and it just loves sending them out.
 
Joined
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Messages
372
Zeus said:
Edit: And yeah, you should ALWAYS keep troops garrisoned in cities. If you don't, the little bastards will start to rebel and then you lose food and productivity points. You only need a few for one of your towns, but if you capture an enemy town, especially of another race, they'll hate your guts and it'll require half an army just to keep 'em productive.
Just to elaborate on this some. Two units (I believe heroes and summoned units are excluded) in a city will be able to control one level of unrest (which is equal to one thousand population). Certain buildings can do this as well - mainly the religious ones. If you keep the tax rate at the default setting, you will gain one level of unrest automatically at every 5 (thousand) population. Other actions, spells, and events can affect unrest as well.

Each race has a setting for how it interacts with other races, which help determine how much unrest you'll see in a conquered city. Dark Elves and Klackon are hated by pretty much everyone. Halflings get along well with most other races. Razing a conquered city (which is available only once, when the city is initially conquered) will avoid the problems in the conquered city, but I'm pretty sure it pisses off other towns, as well as the other wizards.
 

VonVentrue

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A couple of previews and brand new screenshots have recently come out.

Said imagines for your viewing pleasure, pretty gorgeous looking as far as I'm concerned:
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/142/14295360/imgs_1.html

Now, the previews shed some light on the diplomacy aspect.

http://kotaku.com/5344334/elemental-war ... than-magic
http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017713p1.html
The problem with diplomacy in most strategy games, Wardell explained, is that diplomatic relations are handled from a pure numbers basis that doesn't take into account human nature or emotion. In Elemental, while you play as an eternal sovereign you do have a noble family at the heart of your faction, and you can marry off sons and daughters to shore up alliances with other factions. This plays an important role in warfare, because suddenly factions have an emotional interest to come to one another's aid. It also means that the span of the game will cover multiple generations, so the familial ties can get quite complex. And it'll be necessary, too, because there won't be the traditional "land grab" found in most strategy games; the problem with these is that land grabs often determine the outcome of the game just as it's getting started. The player who grabs the most land has a tremendous advantage over everyone else.

It also means that there are vastly different victory conditions than you might expect from a strategy game. Conquering the entire world and all is a chore, after all. As Wardell explains, there's a certain point in those kinds of games where you've effectively won because you've amassed enough, well, mass to win the game. However, the process of closing out the victory is a process that takes a long time as you mop up your opponents. Here, you might assemble an alliance to win the game, cast a master spell (shades of Master of Magic), or more.
 
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PorkaMorka said:
hahaha this game has been amazingly disappointing so far, and I was really excited for it too.

It's not really turn based, they pretty much lied.

Depends entirely on the auto-pause mechanics. It seems that it is turnbased, but running consecutively. If they have an option to pause the game at the start of each turn, then that's fine.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Anyone else think those screens are offensively hideous? I mean fuck. Master of Magic looks better.
elemental-war-of-magic--20090824034835270.jpg

mom1.jpg

Then you compare it to the current Master of Magic-like game, Age of Wonders Shadow Magic.
61893_full.jpg

God damn.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
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The trees are bad (especially sticking one in the foreground, it's retarded that close to the camera) the rest looks fine. I don't really expect any more detail than that out of anything I'll be fielding dozens of in a single battle, and the monster looks fine. Unless they horribly suck at animating the big things, I doubt I'll have any complaints. The Age of Wonders pic looks ok as a screenshot, but crappier to play with. The trees are obscuring units, and the units don't stand out well from the background. It also lacks a movement grid which makes judging distances more of a pita. On top of that, it looks like a turn order is displayed at the bottom there on the Elemental screenie, which is pure win, unlike the AoW pic where I can't even tell what the strength or hp is on the fucking selected unit. Looks like repeated battles will be quite palatable, instead of the usual teeth grinding dreck most newer turn based games have with stupidly long animations and obfuscated battle stats.
 

Selenti

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 8, 2005
Messages
223
Looks fine to me. I could live with those graphics if the game went live today... (which they aren't, it's in alpha).

I wish more games were fine with looking average (like this), and then working on gameplay, rather than blowing the entire budget on a pretty campaign you'll finish in 5 hours.

This is probably my most anticipated game right now, with Diablo 3 after it.
 

VonVentrue

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Multi-headed Cow said:
Anyone else think those screens are offensively hideous? I mean fuck. Master of Magic looks better.

Despite the fact the visuals in MoM ooze with likeable charm and are arguably awesome to boot, I wouldn't go so far as to say said game is superior in terms of graphical prowess. You're trying too hard, really.

Secundo, that screenshot you provided is at least a couple of months old (it dates back to March, I believe) - while I do understand you might not be too fond of the highly stylized, minimalistic (somewhat inspired by Alphonse Mucha's work, I feel) style Stardock went with, why don't you have a look at the brand new screenshots, which represent a vast improvement in the art direction department?
Relatively rudimentary UI design aside, does that look "hideous" to you?

elemental-war-of-magic--20090824034814990.jpg


elemental-war-of-magic--20090824034823661.jpg
 

dragonfk

Erudite
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
2,487
I love their approach to art style. The screenshot showing battle is beautiful. I just dont have the word to describe how I dig the way they took with graphics. And 2D map thanks to which Ill be able to play the game on my old laptop? Pure win!
 

L'ennui

Magister
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Apr 6, 2009
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I'll join my fellow Codexers in saying that the artistic direction for this game is very stylish and refreshing. I think they are achieving more with less with these graphics, I like it. (And you won't need to buy a supercomputer to run it, as has been mentioned. This is a big plus.)
 

dragonfk

Erudite
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
2,487
Solohk said:
catfood said:
Unfortunately it's being made by Stardock.
As someone who is a fan of Stardock, I'm curious why you say that.

For me Galactic Civilizations 2 lacked atmosphere and soul. Something was not right with it. And this comes from a fan of MoO(best one), MoO2(second best one), BotF, MoO3, Ascendancy, AC, basically every Sci Fi 4X. Also I don't think I am the only one.
 

Seboss

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
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Considering that Wardel announced that a book (sigh) will be released about the same time as the game, I would say that we can expect a lot more lore and story than in previous Stardock's games.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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dragonfk said:
Solohk said:
catfood said:
Unfortunately it's being made by Stardock.
As someone who is a fan of Stardock, I'm curious why you say that.

For me Galactic Civilizations 2 lacked atmosphere and soul. Something was not right with it. And this comes from a fan of MoO(best one), MoO2(second best one), BotF, MoO3, Ascendancy, AC, basically every Sci Fi 4X. Also I don't think I am the only one.

Same opinion. GalCiv2 was a game I just couldn't get into. The best Space4X games are MoO and MoO2, but I could get some hours of enjoyment from all the others, too. Including the rather boring "real time 4X" Sins of a Solar Empire. But GalCiv2... tried it at least 6 times or so, but never really liked it. There's just something lacking from it, both in gameplay and in artstyle.

Doesn't mean I automatically say "Stardock games are boring!", this one looks at least stylistically a lot better and the gameplay seems to offer more than GalCiv2 too. Just gotta wait and see.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
VonVentrue said:
Multi-headed Cow said:
Anyone else think those screens are offensively hideous? I mean fuck. Master of Magic looks better.

Despite the fact the visuals in MoM ooze with likeable charm and are arguably awesome to boot, I wouldn't go so far as to say said game is superior in terms of graphical prowess. You're trying too hard, really.

Secundo, that screenshot you provided is at least a couple of months old (it dates back to March, I believe) - while I do understand you might not be too fond of the highly stylized, minimalistic (somewhat inspired by Alphonse Mucha's work, I feel) style Stardock went with, why don't you have a look at the brand new screenshots, which represent a vast improvement in the art direction department?
Relatively rudimentary UI design aside, does that look "hideous" to you?

I assumed the picture I clicked was new, since IGN had it listed as August 24th. I'm still not a fan of the examples you give, though. I don't particularly like Stardock so maybe that's coloring the way I view the screenshots, but when I look at them I just see a blurry mess trying to be artistic while just succeeding in annoying me. "What is this faggot cellshaded blur shit?" if I was Emotional Vampire. The colors are too washed out, there seems to be no detail to anything, and even though it's relatively unique looking, it doesn't strike me as having much personality.

To compare what I like about the MoM battle screenshot and the Elemental screenshot, the terrain in MoM looks better. Even though it's ancient and pixelated out the ass, it's easy to tell grass, a small hill, and a tree. In Elemental, the green soup that they're standing in is apparently swamp, looking at the interface. The units themselves in MoM all manage to look straightforward and easy to distinguish at a glance, while being unique depending on race. In the Elemental screenshot, it's harder to distinguish swordsmen from spearmen to shootymans. It's definitely not impossible, or even difficult, but enough that it annoys me. Then finally the interface, nothing stands out as bothering me with the Elemental interface since I'm not sure all the choices you get in a battle, but what does annoy me are the unit portraits. Those seem to be relatively decent pictures, but they're let down by the game graphics. Generic looking soldier holding his sword with shining plate armor out turns into a brown lump with a white head stuck on in the game.

And I'm not trying to troll you, I just don't like how this looks at all.
 

Gwendo

Augur
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
989
Me likes the looks.

And no way MoM looks any better!

But I confess AoW:SW still looks very pretty.
 

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