IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

For years we have seen games drift from being hard to being very easy. It's refreshing when a game comes around that offers challenges such as the sovereign death = game over.

And thus there's no reason why the sovereigns death cannot be an optional setting. Personally anyone who feels a game should only serve their purpose is being selfish.

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

I think Dwarf Fortress is a great example of how a game can be fun and very difficult. It shouldn't be a matter of naming current TBSs that use the mechanic, and the reason why is because I don't want to play a game that has to have rules that have been done before in a TBS. I don't mind if this game strays away from the ordinary. And it sounds like losing your Sovereign isn't going to be a thing that just happens on a dice roll. It sounds like it is going to be very difficult to lose a sovereign.

Stardock has a solid history of being able to provide very difficult games. As I mentioned earlier having the Sovereign's death tied to losing a game means the player will use him less and less likely during middle and late game. If you need to better visualize the effect than picture what would happen if the next Dominions_3 patch meant instant game over upon a pretenders death. The first result would be no pretenders with low hitpoints(10 or less) and the second result would be no pretenders being used as SC's during middle and late game.

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

It creates another win/lose condition to the game. Enough people are clamoring for it to be gone that it doesn't matter anyway. They will remove the feature or they will make it where you can toggle it on and off.

And with a toggle on/off option the game still has the instant lose condition... simply it doesn't force everyone to play the same way. Personally all this instant lose condition will do is have players hide their sovereigns since even being unlucky while traveling can kill you. I'm all about providing very difficult games where the AI opponents have a strong advantage and sovereigns death being game over would be more useful for the human player than any AI opponent.

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

I certainly never thought Total Annihilation was a bad game because Commander death = game over.

Total Annihilation was an RTS, big difference from TBS.