Jam3

[952] Map and AI Expansion in Fallen Enchantress Elemental Forums

To start with the game is a vast improvement over E:WoM, I played almost my entire labor day weekend. I designed a couple of map scripts for CiV IV and really dig cool realistic maps. With any 4x TBS square/hex based game you get into map issues with exploration/expansion, number of opponents, starting position, symmetry/asymmetry asthetic and balance, size of map an number of potential settlements, total number of turns in a game, movement, etc. Min/Max since E:FE is now single playe

Reply to [.915] Master Scouts seems really powerful in FE Beta Elemental Forums

This is beyond op at the moment, settlers that cant get attacked is an I win button considering the rarity of settlement locations even on large maps. You either have to remove it from pioneers or allow other players to put stealthy on their pioneers, or something. I stopped playing with it when I scouted the map and I had 14 cities and the closest to me was 7 from the tarth ai with everyone else way behind.

Reply to Really need to be fixed NOW: pioneer spam, tile yields and population in FE Beta Elemental Forums

Population size could be a factor in available unit sizes.

Reply to I know it's been asked a thousand times, but is there EVER going to be multi-core support? in Sins Rebellion Sins Forums

Architecting a multi-threaded app almost has to be done from the very beginning of the design. Anytime one thread needs to communicate with another thread it is an incredibly complicated procedure in the code. And putting that thread communication signaling logic into an existing code base is more work than writing it from the ground up. Look here http://www.co

Reply to Map needs love in Fallen Enchantress Elemental Forums

Yeah I really hope there putting some for of Ocean travel in the game.

Map needs love in Fallen Enchantress Elemental Forums

So the most important thing to me in games is immersion. I want to be tranported from my life into a place that is interesting to be in and now while elemental is getting better as a game its not getting better at an escape which to me is really an essential part of any form of RPG. The map has gotten soo so much better from EWOM, the introduction of true random maps and rivers (which could look alot better) is excellent. One of the key components I think missing though

Reply to Welcome to Fallen Enchantress in Fallen Enchantress Elemental Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="4" id="2983702"]Fallen Enchantress, from a design point, is much less barren. This means that "terrain matters". Engine-wise, the continents are randomly generated (in WOM, we had premade continents that were filled with stuff random). [/quote] To hear that we have true random maps is very reassuring. I don't know how important this was to you personally but to alot of people this was a huge dissapointment in eWoM. My further

Reply to Concerns about Fallen Enchantress in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Mistwraithe" reply="80" id="2980400"]My response is that I think a very good fantasy TBS game (eg A- grade?) can be written without any of the items on your list. None of them are particularly important to making a great game. They would be great things to add to your core game to flesh it out and might help you to turn your A- game into an A+ game but their absence doesn't mean an automatic fail.[/quote] I agree completly with that sentiment. All you ha

Reply to Concerns about Fallen Enchantress in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Mistwraithe" reply="68" id="2978323"]Well, we disagree then. "just a matter of having the right design" is the part which stops 95% of games made from being classics. I see designing a GOOD game as a very difficult task and I also see it as the core problem with WoM. The engine no doubt got in the way of them adding more fun and so on but I don't think the disjointed nature of the core gameplay mechanics can be blamed on the engine (and if it can then that means Stardock basic

Reply to Concerns about Fallen Enchantress in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I think the concerns are about using the engine, the game mechanics are an easy fix (programatically). It's just a matter of having the right design, and that you can map out on paper. The limitations within the core engine regarding random map creation and problems with random terrain generation are the real problem. Heck river's weren't linking up with the ocean properly and they just took river's out. There are some real fundamental problems with building FE

Reply to Still Disappointed in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="31" id="2923471"]Eh, didn't care enough to this one to respond to OP. People really throw out that fanboy bullshit around a lot. Read most of my post and you will see that the majority of them are bitching about some half-assed part of this game. Yet, just because I think this game was very bad when released and still has a lot of fuck ups in it, doesn't mean I am not able to recognize that Brad has gone beyond the call of duty

Reply to Second Chance AKA Regaining Trust in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="kenata" reply="5" id="2918809"]If it's a sure thing then let the consumers of your game test it now, so we can have something to enjoy, not be frustrated with like WoM. [/quote] One of the things I am truly trying to recover from is the relationship between stardock and the open beta testers for EWOM. I heralded the move and thought with strdocks experience in non-game software development we would see testing between a developer and the community in an absolutly

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Yeah because everyone in here has never said anything bad about a former employer. And you would be laughed out of court if you filed a civil suit versus an ex-employee you didn't have a contract with, thats the entire point of contracts. And since we don;t know what happened with Civ or with the conversation between Brad and Jon that lead to a decision to hire were not beating a dead horse were running around like chickens with our heads cut off because we don;t have any good info

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I respect your decision to not want to defame your former employer, you better than anyone know the rhetoric flying around on the internet about your involvement with Civ 5. I am sure your a nice guy and we have all been in over our head, or not supported with a proper budget or team, and various things that cause problems for anyone doing jobs and projects. I truly hope you, Kael and Brad succeed with Elemental. That being said a choice to honor a prior companies policy is just

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I would bet he isn't you really think they want to payout a second salary just to keep an ex-employee from airing grievances? Activision canned two of the largest names in the industry cause they didn't want to pay them bonuses (albeit rather large ones). That mentality is like 10 years old, companies don't just sign contracts with people who don't work for them to "keep quiet". And even if they did its probably not for very long.

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I mean Brad and stardock can't frame this debate and not have any comment on it at the very least they can tell us whether he's bound by contract or if they dont want to talk about it. And if they don't want to talk about then they just have to deal with all the crud that comes from a community not having accurate information, that not our fault that's their own fault.

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

They'd have to be giving him a check. It's more understandable that he nor stardock doesn't want to defame Firaxis for purely understandable political industry reasons but if there's no contract and they can talk about it then they can find a way to get th story out and be politically careful.

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="LightofAbraxas" reply="165" id="2864953"] Quoting Jam3, reply 164 Well maybe someone can address the problems with Civ 5 here now that Jon is here lets give him a chance to defend... On second thought, NDAs mean that this won't be adressed. I really don't care to get involved in this debate. [/quote] So you know for a fact that Jon is still under contract with Firaxis? Or is this just stabbing in the dark?</p

Reply to And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental??? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Well maybe someone can address the problems with Civ 5 here now that Jon is here lets give him a chance to defend End game Replays - In the Civ series since civ and a great end game recap made winning fun gone in Civ 5 let's just start there, no that major right? and tack on wonder movies, tile animation, and poor victory u win screens/movies. ICS (Infinite City spam) - A core gameplay/design problem that started somewhat to be remedied in civ 3 and was basically fixed in

Reply to Are there any surprise goodies in 1.1 that were not in 1.0.9W BETA? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Considering one of the biggest mistakes they made was not releasing a full version to the beta folks because they didn't want to ruin the content for those players I would really hope that we are getting complete version. i also hope the don't cave to any for of release pressure, end of year, clamoring fans/press. They need to follow some good release management practices and the SDLC and stop releasing these daily patches which probably should be internal development stuff and give their int

Reply to 1.09w very frustrating in War of Magic Elemental Forums

In all fairness have any of the "release" versions been stable. I think alot of the people who have been saying their beta testing the game mean every version not just the ones marked as beta. People are frustrated and instead of jumping to the old "don't complain you clicked the beta box" is alot more complicated here than it usually is in other cases. With Elemental the game was released in what alot of people might not even consider a beta state. Within the actual beta alot of people were

Reply to [1.09t] has anyone had any crashes at all? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I still get CTD's on end turn or particular events very randomly. Is there a specific way to report these bugs because I cant find it on the forums. Where is the dump file etc. Plus with the frequency of releases in the past few weeks it seems almost pointless since the next release might fix an individuals' problem. I hope very sincerly you plan on getting to a very stable beta build of 1.9 and leaving it in the communities hands for 2 weeks minimum without further patches

Reply to OK, so some peasants fight some guys who are 5x better... what do you think their chances should be? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

If your talking in terms of a man in full plate well trained and exercised in its use as well as his weapons then your basically looking at an engine of death going against unarmored "peasants". Plate mail is NOT some heavy, cumbersome, mundane factor and relic of the past. It is an articulated, fairly light, (especially compared to chain mail), suit of near impenatrability which would cost a man the equivalent of a 100 foot yacht in todays money. It was the protection of the absolute upper c

Reply to OK, so some peasants fight some guys who are 5x better... what do you think their chances should be? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Almost any non-trained personnel on a battlefield is going to run. If that person has any motivation to kill the opposing forces it will still be weighed against the value of their own life and 99% of the time their going to run. A person needs to be trained or brainwashed to respond correctly on the battlefield. It is a very rare occurance that normal "peasants" form themselves into viable paramilitary units and then its typically guerilla hit and run type forces. Peasants in the context of

Reply to [1.09n] Equipment - Creation costs in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="WhiteElk" reply="1" id="2827372"]Sometimes when I create a farstriding warrior sovereign, I use creation points to pick up a weapon. Not often, but sometimes. You get a better staff at creation than you do at the store (you'd have to research tech before getting that strong a staff). But mostly I do it because I don't want to hang around the city until turn 2 so I can buy a weapon. When I've got a move of 4-5, and have a sovereign set for solo com