Mitya
3021
I haven’t had a lot of time lately, so I haven’t been able to get out of the first 50 turns or so, but one thing that would be great would be an option for cloth view in tactical mode. The game runs fine on my desktop, but I would like to be able to play it at a decent clip on my laptop. Tactical’s all that chugs.
olaf
3022
Semantics aside, this game is not what I would call finished.
The manual/documentation is lacking, severely. For a TBS game, this is a cardinal sin.
The performance is terrible. The graphics are very dated, and its a TBS. I expect rock solid 30-60 FPS. Not getting that except if I am zoomed to cloth map.
The UI lags (does not seem to be FPS/performance related, as it happens to me on the main menu sometimes) and randomly fails to register mouse clicks. Some KB shortcuts do not work for me, namely space bar in tactical combat!
The ‘Day 0’ patch was almost Day 1 and it needed a hotfix.
I am sure it sucks to have to sit and read seemingly overwhelming criticism of your labor of love, but there is no way this game can be considered in a finished-product/ready to ship state as it was delivered, or even after the Day 0 patch+hotfix. The reviews are going to be scathing, I think.
All that said, I want to love it and hope that it gets turned into a great game ASAP. I had been anticipating it since I read here, years back?, that Brad/Stardock were pursuing the rights to MoM.
Oh, i didn’t know that. Is that a bit… arbitrary? Aren’t summoning supposed to occupy just a slot? I think i prefered the MoM/AoW system where different spells had different mana upkeep.
Also, lol i am dumb. I didn’t noticed the problem pointed by JM. Now that he explained, it’s clear.
I’m a little concerned about this as well. I’m well above the recommended specs and while Elemental looks good, I’m not seeing anything rendered that would obviously cause performance to drop into the teens like it does. It’s a bit disheartening.
Tried the 1.05 patch, had a CTD almost immediately, so I can’t say if it fixes the other issues I was having (modal spell-research dialogs coming up multiple times, modal spell-research dialogs coming up while my Sovereign was being attacked during an AI turn, sound and animation dropouts, mouse cursor being off from where it was displayed by multiple tiles in the tactical map). (*)
Still annoyed that by virtue of having paid Stardock well before the game was shipping, I cannot return it.
(*) Limiting myself to demonstrable bugs here, and not design/balance issues.
KevinC
3026
You can only have one of each summon type, which is why it pays to learn the different summoning spells. I had to figure this out due to trial and error, of course, the game certainly didn’t go out of it’s way to educate me :)
This is at least the third or forth time someone’s said the performance was an issues for them. The only performance issue I’ve seen is that it takes about 30+ seconds to load into the actual game. This is slightly annoying, but obviously not much of a problem given that it happens once per multi hour play session.
Is there some common characteristics between the systems of the people have performance and/or CTD issues?
I’m on Windows 7 64bit with a GeForce GTX 260 with the 258.96 drivers.
KevinC
3028
Regarding the crash, I had a crash immediately after patching 1.05 (my first one yet). I haven’t had another crash since, though, and I played about 200 turns.
Let’s celebrate the 100+ pages with screenshots of the game!
:P
JM1
3031
They attacked me. No defensive bonus - in fact they’re next to a square that would give them a bonus. I am defending a city.
It’s repeatable - another ‘stack’ has arrived (and by stack I mean a single group of basic troops) and they’re stopping 2 squares from my line and staying there.
Edit: Wait, I solved it! The problem is the AI’s chosen a target it can’t get to. So instead of attacking something else, it just sits there. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Ha! No kidding. Where did that game go?
Pssh! This is page 76 for me.
Let me preface this by saying I’ve purchased GalCiv, GalCiv II, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Demigod. Many people like those games, but I didn’t care for them at all. At all. Yesterday I put more time in with Elemental (Version 1.01) than I did with all of those other titles combined. So, I’ll be the first to agree with Brad’s statement that Elemental is the best game they’ve made.
I knew going in that it might be a little rough (based comments from this thread) but I decided to pick it up anyway. I mean, the internet is the internet, right? Things get blown a little out of proportion. So, I figured I’d take a look for myself.
Turns out it’s a little rough.
First things first, there are bugs. I haven’t experienced any crashes. I haven’t seen anything game-breaking/world-ending/nerdrage-inducing, but there are bugs and you will notice them. After about my first half hour of play, all sound cut out except some ambient bird chirping. No music, no combat sounds, just chirping birds. (I fixed this by setting the game’s audio option to “Stereo Sound” instead of the should-be “5.1”) I’ve been unable to scroll the map. I’ve had quirky zooming. I sometimes have to click the screen on places other than what I’m trying to click to do what I need to do (select a unit, close a window, increase stats on level-up). In tactical battles I’ve had units appear as moved even though they haven’t. I’ve had message boxes pop up on the world map for no reason, and have had events fire for one unit when I’m moving another on the other side of the map. That there are bugs will be obvious to anyone within an hour of play. It’s frustrating, but you adjust pretty quick and play the game.
Second, the interface could be better. The Hergamamdmamdmdodnd (Civilopedia-thing) is severely lacking, and I have the feeling it got back-burnered. Think of it as more of a Civilo-pamphlet, and you’ll have a good idea what to expect. I think this is the worst offence…that the game simply doesn’t give you enough info to go on. Other stuff is just kludgy. (Check out how fun and intuitive trading an item from one hero to another is.) It’s clear that the interface is a casualty of the release date when you notice things like two “View Equipment” buttons within half an inch of each other on the toolbar. (One big one right next to the portrait. One tiny one at the bottom of the portrait.) You’ll learn how to do stuff after some trial and error. Again, you adjust pretty quick and play the game.
Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad game. It’s not. I like playing it. I like playing it a lot. It’s just rough going.
IMO, if the tactical battles aren’t at least as engaging as those in the HoMM series, then the tactical battle portion of the game has failed. I really hope they design away from the “my units move, then your units move” mechanic in favor of one based on unit initiative (could base it on a unit’s Combat Speed instead of initiative).
If I want to play a compelling if buggy and somewhat unbalanced fantasy 4X, it’s called Master of Magic, and I’ve owned it for well over a decade now.
I don’t feel that comparison is entirely fair, to my mind the tactical battles are the meat of Heroes of Might and Magic and Kings Bounty. In Elemental the strategy map is the meat and the battles are the gravy.
That said, they do need to be improved a lot. Am I the only one who wishes they would add an option to auto resolved with pre-set unit orders like Dominions? :P
Funny you should mention that, as I thought about mentioning that in my reply above, but I figured there’s no way that would happen. :-)
Dejin
3039
Hmm, I wonder if you capture a city or your influence expands far enough to cover a pre-existing stable if you’ll be able to gather horses as a resource. That might explain having them in the unit designer. The ! seems like a clear mistake.
I’ve filed a request with Stardock Customer support for a refund (despite the fact that I pre-ordered (*)), based on the game not being complete at release (and referenced their Gamer’s Bill of Rights).
We’ll see how that goes.
(*) The fact that paying someone a year early for a product gives you fewer options than if you wait until ship is annoying. I can see not giving refunds during the beta process, but once it ships, I don’t understand why people who were giving you the benefit of the doubt are treated worse than people who were not.
