IGN: Elemental: War Of Magic - Preview

[romis]

Originally Posted by atul

The thing that worries me in that game is that they seem really intent on modelling the most basic stuff in the game, right down to the material of the equipment. It's just not that conductive to the story, micromanaging everything. But, they might make it work. We'll see next year.

And some people will probably love that aspect of the game.

if done properly it shouldn't add any significant micromanagement at all, but does add a nice bit of strategy and more importantly adaptatability to the game.

while each unit can be unique in theory, its not going to happen, the reality is likely going to be each player with a handful of units types that take advantage of their resources and situation, effeciently, which they then produce in mass. you make one unit schematic and then recruit hundreds of units from that schematic. you won't often change these once you have something that works for you unless your situation drasticly changes. And if they are smart, they will let you keep prototypes from game to game.

it allows you to better adapt to the resources you have available, and your current needs, advisaries. In Civ4 if your unique unit is horses and you have none, you are gonna suffer. if you start with fishing and are land locked, you're hurt. in dominions if you lack certain types of gems needed for your nation, or if your nation needs money and is surrounded by poor provinces, resources and you territories are stripped. you are kinda boned.

you see it as lacking a story. more to the point, it lets you build the story. you establish the kingdom, you establish their elite corp, their focus. It works best when a unit type can, through use, become something more than a simple soldier. a hoplite was a hoplite till they became spartans, if you follow. but this takes extreme care to prevent it becoming an overwhelming advantage, rewarding someone already in the lead and things like that.

unless i completely misunderstood you.

[LDiCesare]

I understand Sombre's concerns. I have preordered and will participate in the beta, though, because I think Stardock can make good games. I loved Galciv1. I think Galciv 2 only added micromanagement and fancy graphics and was rather worthless.
Elemental's storyline also lookds underwhelming to me. There are the good guys and the bad guys. Stardock says there will be more factions, but nothing is said about them. Compared to MoM or FfH2 where there are races which are different without necessarily being morally different, it sucks.

However, the game should not just be moddable. It should be moddable during the beta, and influenced by the beta testers. Galciv's starbases were introduced by players during the beta. So, hopefully we can shape the game during the beta in order for it to become something pleasant.