IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview

[Mithras]

I wander about the whole sovereign death thing; my rather fuzzy memory suggests that the game had a dynastic focus, especially in regards to diplomacy. So the simple solution would be to make full use of that and require that you have an heir to keep playing if your sovereign dies. This could lead to a more interesting diplomatic system, what if you married your only heir to a competing royal family, what are the consequences of having an underage heir and so on.

Just seems as though the developers aren't thinking everything through from what I can see.

[LDiCesare]

The dynasty thing is a rather late idea. The core idea has always been to play an almost divine individual. Dynasties are for vassals.
Now I don't say that it's consistent, but we will see whether vassal dynasties diplomacy has any meaning if it all revvolves about killing enemy sovereigns.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Mithras

I wander about the whole sovereign death thing; my rather fuzzy memory suggests that the game had a dynastic focus, especially in regards to diplomacy. So the simple solution would be to make full use of that and require that you have an heir to keep playing if your sovereign dies. This could lead to a more interesting diplomatic system, what if you married your only heir to a competing royal family, what are the consequences of having an underage heir and so on.

Just seems as though the developers aren't thinking everything through from what I can see.

Thats the general idea ala Total War series. Where it strays from it is the idea is that you are the sovereign, not his/her heirs. So you can have kids, grandkids etc but when you die, your out of the game. This may have already changed or probably will change as the community molds the clay to look more like other TBSs but as of the last time I read it, that is the way it worked.

[Foodstamp]

lol @ my lack of apostrophes and commas.

[theenemy]

Been a while now and still no EW:M.... Starting to feel slightly depressed

Here's a picture of a cat just to prove the authenticy of this post

[Balakirev]

The kitten rules.

In other matters, the one thing thus far that I don't like in what's been shown of E:WoM is the inability to limit world rulers (okay, I want to say pretenders, so I will!) to specific spell groups by type. What I mean is something along the lines of what Master of Magic and Dominions 3 do: you take X many books/levels of Nature, and you get Y many Nature spells. Other pretenders without Nature chosen at the start can't get those spells. Tends to make for more customized and distinct pretenders, in my opinion.

Otherwise, I'm very interested in the way E:WoM is going. And Stardock has a history of turning out games with excellent AI, so I don't think we'll see a repeat of the problems along those lines that dogged MoM.

[sector24]

I used 4 death gems to animate this necromantic thread...

How is beta 1B so far? Likes? Dislikes?

[happygeek]

I've found the beta to be, so far, tiresome. It is much less of a beta as it is an alpha. Stardock pushed back the release date from spring to fall of next year so as to extend the "beta" phase, and so it feels as if we goons are there for free sandbox testing for them. So far, the game does not feel inspired; it feels like a bare-bones CivIV without religion. Of course, the product will turn out to be vastly different, but you asked how the beta was going so far, and basically, it is still in its diaper phase; haven't learned to walk yet, much less talk.

[Foodstamp]

My experience has been the same as happygeek so far. One of the newly implemented features I do like is how you can customize your soldier's description card, including pose and quotes. It's the little things that I think will set the game apart. I doubt I will actually enjoy the beta until you can actually fight stuff. Right now fighting looks like Leylines combat system.

[Centuryslayer]

sounds cool, I remember seeing the first previews and I was kinda impressed. it certainly looks and sounds better now, which is good :3