emmagine

Reply to Elemental: Revisiting the Great Cities of (my) RPG Gaming in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Reading over these posts I've been trying to think of any memorable cities in 4x games. The only one that really sticks out to me is Orion, from Moo2. When you found that planet, It became a major goal to build up enough fire power to take it out. The thing that made it memorable, was that it was similar from one game to the next. So I think the first key, is name recognition. To aquire that you need a good number of filler cities first. Cities that don'

Reply to Some thoughts on succession in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I think that's the point nathaniel. When the AI realizes that it has no chance of winning the game, it retires. and gives its kingdom to the player who is married furthest up in his family tree. Like when empires surrendered in galciv 2, but this way is much more predictable and visible as to who will obtain the country.

Reply to Some quick battle notes in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I think we are starting to read way to much into the fact that they added some damage types. Assuming more will not be added, Assuming they are all going to work about the same, assuming things that are not covered by the other elements will all be lumped into mystical, assuming all spells from an air node will be electrical damage, and on and on. When coding at this stage alot of stuff is just setting ground work. Take the AI for example. They'

Reply to Some quick battle notes in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I think the issues with the damage types in galciv are a few fold. lack of tactical battles doesn't allow for mixing different ships in an attempt to thwart the defenses of a particular unit. the most effective strategy in galciv is to load so many of one type of weapon on your ships that the enemy would have to completely neglect it's alternate defenses in order to protect against it. Firing first in gal civ with enough firepower to prevent t

Reply to New movement code in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Also, sneak attack would be exceptional as noone would trust you again afterwards so you'd never get another open borders agreement. This is exactly what I mean. A spell that ports enemy troops out of your lands I think would be a much more fun strategic option than automatically porting them out upon war declaration. I think we are all sort of thinking back to the broken AI of master of magic, where little hobo armies from every

Reply to 07/04/09 - Star Trek for TA - IS AVAILABLE ON THE NEW FORUM in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

I think you hit the nail on the head there Chris. Or in this case coffin. It's unfortunate, I was really looking forward to it being completed to the point of individual racial tech trees.

Reply to New movement code in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I am fine with the 'port 'em out mechanic for now. I'm actually of the hopes that the AI will allow this code to be removed at a later date. "Yes, we have a right of passage, but you moving that mammoth army towards my capital is totally unacceptable." Even better if the AI does it in some sort of United Nations meeting. Severe diplomatic drawbacks to violating treaties should be doable with the experience stardock has been getting with AI's. The biggest on

Reply to Happy Thanksgiving! in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

baldurs gate was not real time. There was an arbitrary time limit after taking an action before you could take another action. That action could be cast a spell, attack with your dagger, drink a potion, use an item, etc. The movement of your character was not tied to this "turn" which gave a much greater appearance of real time vs turn based. Starcraft is real time. as fast as you can select a unit, hit a hotkey, and target an area things happen. after a un

Reply to Elemental Beta ideas discussed: October 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I do not think the idea of no penalty while defending would be good.. It turns your sovereign into a very abusable tool. A very powerful unit that doesn't actually die. You could attack enemy weak units, or just stick him on defense in your town, forcing a war of attrition upon your advancing far more powerful opponent that is entirely unrealistic. A few ideas to alleviate the concerns I have. When your sovereign dies, it takes a

[CRASH] Out of memory in WOM BETA Builds Elemental Forums

I'm not familiar with the site you want us to use to post the dxdiag file. The game shut down after taking my sweet time about a game (several hours) and finally attacking one of the neighboring settlements. when I tried to attack what I think was his soverign, it just moved me into the same square. After that, I tried to move off of him and back on, and the game shut down throwing an "out of memory" error. In fact, it gave me two.

Reply to Costs of doing business that are still surprising in Personal Computing Elemental Forums

I'm currently studying to be a paramedic, after a career running my own business. I made enough to not have to do it anymore, and got out because of exactly these kind of headaches. It isn't just about having to blindly hire people, other things like how difficult it can be to fire someone once they are hired. And yep, you do drive a nice car, or in my case sack aside substantial amounts of money in order to retire at a young age. That isn't what stresses you out t

Reply to Majesty 2 demo now available! in PC Gaming Elemental Forums

thre are a ton of ways to beat the scenario. rushing to dwarves and building a couple of those towers where the bear men come in, a wizards tower, and one guard tower fortified me from them just fine. Priests of krypta are bad to the bone. Particularly if you recruit them from the northern and south eastern temple plots, as there are lots of undead there for them to turn. the dwarves themselves are very tough. I did build one temple to agrela, but I didn't find

Reply to Snake with a 'foot/hand/claw' Evolution in progress? in Everything Else Elemental Forums

I always find the points of how similar our dna is to ___________ interesting. Heck, our DNA is 88% the same as a bananna.

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I think that is where we have had a communication error. Yep auto generating tech trees is a much better way to put it. I never wanted the core techs to be hidden. They should be visable. The upgrade techs, and the fancy extras should be hidden. Core techs (fixed tree placement, visable.) - bowmen, calvery, farming, etc. Advanced techs (variable tree placement, hidden until unlocked.) - crossbowmen, heavy calvary, irrigation. Excentric techs (

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I think a part of what I'd like to see in the research isn't quite making it through. I would not want my research to be "get a random tech". Instead, I finish researching long bows level 5 (my choice), and suddenly have an option for 25% range increase on long bows that is totally random. It doesn't sub the range increase in for what I already got. It just gives me an extra little side tech out of the blue that I could chose to research. Secondly, I'm researching shor

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I agree with you on the time is money front. But not so sure where you are getting "notoriously unreliable". To my knowledge there has never been a non-morpg game that has undergone anywhere near this length of a beta, let alone a public one. Secondly, I cannot think of a single game that attempted to alter anything based on the qualities of your starting location. It would be a nightmare to code for sure. And no, you don't wind up with a no strategey at all ef

Reply to Death & Life magic system (For, Against, Abstain) in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I was under impression that the difference was more in graphics for aquisition, and the real difference lay in the type of spells each sort had. deah = spells that cause death decay destruction etc. Life = spells that heal, buff defenses, resurrect, grow, and otherwise protect. Was I mistaken in that impression?

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

And I don't want to play a game where some guy wins because the RNG decides it likes him today. I can get that experience by rolling dice. With random spell research this is already going to be a problem. But the replayability it will bring to a single player experience will be huge. With the proposed 1 year beta, I would suspect there will be plenty of time to test the tech trees to the point where no one is going to get screw

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I like the idea of a base line tech tree, that you can research "short bow" "claymores" "large axes" "crossbows" etc. Or in another branch perhaps "copper, bronze, steel" etc. Off of those tech trees could be the random techs, that modify their base components. "range increase for short bows" combined with a lucky "speciatly short bow training center" for example might have you utilizing a short bow long after your oponents are working x-bows, and never hav

Reply to Very happy about random techs and infinite research in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Diminishing returns in gaming typically means each level of a skill gives you less benefit than the last. What you are describing KellenDunk, while technically accurate means every leveling system from every game I ever played had diminishing returns. takes 2x as much xp to get from level 3-4 as it did from level 1-2! So yes, this is a diminishing return for xp gained, but it is not a diminishing return of the level, or in this case skill.

Reply to Could the beta program be an experience unto itself? in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

You have a lot to read so I'll keep my comments short. My only concern with the timeline laid out, is how everything meshes. I think you might do better with a more complete product earlier in testing, and then a very long period for the last phase. Either way, it does sound as though you are pressed to meet your current timelines, and I think the community as a whole are just excited to be able to finally take part in the development, and see what you have so far. <p

Reply to Concerns with life & death magic in War of Magic Elemental Forums

master of magics combat resolution was actually very good. It produced very predictable results the vast majority of the time, while allowing for that one off chance to give you some hope that just MAYBE you might take that big nasty thing out with whatever you could throw at it in a dire situation (granted, the AI didn't offer enough of a fight to grant dire situations. but multi player it did)

Reply to Concerns with life & death magic in War of Magic Elemental Forums

haven't there been more recent ones where they showed a much more chaotic looking battle? or am I imagining it? If this is obviously the route they are going, I don't see the reason for the big debate? Saying that they get 8X the benefit is misleading. If you gave a great wyrm 8 +1 dmg buffs, it had a much more drastic effect than giving a squad of spearmen a single +1 buff.

Reply to Concerns with life & death magic in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I think you misunderstand the game mechanics of MoM. giving +1 atk to a squad of pikemen didn't give you +8 atk. It gave each figure +1 atk true. Each figure in a stack rolled to hit, and had a 30% chance to hit. modified by + hit modifiers, or - hit modifiers. Then as I recall, it's attack strength (swords) were rolled off vs the defenders strength (shields). It was not an attack made at the sum total of the attack of each individual figure, it was one attack pe

Reply to Concerns with life & death magic in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I don't think you'll see cookie cutter builds at all. I think the idea is, you will not have the same resources from one game to the next. One game you may be able to outfit an army with steel swords, the next..... you just don't have that option. Bows perhaps for your real damage, and clubs for infantry to keep them off your archers long enough to do the deed? That's not even adding magic into the mix. Since it doesn't look like you'll be making spell book pic