6181

Seriously? I’m not sure when I got one of those.

6182

You know, if we put it in the context of eating at a restaurant it might be a little easier to understand.

You order the blackened salmon that was advertised. You get tilapia. You complain to the manager because after all you are spending money on this and deserve to get what you are paying for. The manager tells you, if you have a problem with it then don’t come back.

See where James is coming from?

6183

Hey, I was trying to keep things light and I’m sorry if it didn’t come across that way. I totally understand why James and others got pissed off. That said, there still seems to be a hell of a lot of venom for something that happened months ago, which was why I said what I did.

6184

i think calling 1.1 beta-state is pretty fair. i’ve been playing it a bit since the update and i still think it’s pretty crap. the difference is now i can see this crap going somewhere worthwhile. i’m still finding myself starved for information and more fatally wondering where the strategy is. maybe i just need to force myself through the first hundred or so turns.

coincidentally we’ve been playing a lot of age of shadows: wonder magic. playing it makes me all the less eager to boot up elemental. a good long hard look at age of shadows: wonder magic should be first on the stardock schedule.

edit: apparently the game is named age of wonders: shadow magic. whatever

6185

AoW:SM AI makes Elemental’s AI look like Deep Blue. It may be the single worst AI I’ve ever played in a TBS game. That game did not age well in my eyes at all.

6186

You’re saying that Elemental’s AI is better than AoW:SM? I guess that depends on how you define “better” in the context of the games they are in. At least the AoW AI can throw enough crap at you to be a threat. (A dumb one, but a threat nonetheless.) Elemental’s AI routinely forgets that there are even other players on the map.

6187

That’s okay, the A.I. sucks so much sometimes I forget there are certain AI players on the map too.

6188

There are many strategy games where the AI fails to use units/spells/abilities/strategies effectively, but even the worst offenders can usually cheat properly and throw a lot of troops at you (e.g. Dominions 3, a game where the AI understands next to nothing about how to use what it has).

GalCiv2 has the distinction of being the only strategy game that I know of where the AI cannot outproduce a good player even when it cheats at the highest difficulty setting. If the Elemental AI can do that, it is not the worst strategy game AI.

6189

AoW: SM AI wasn’t very good, but it was a game 3 or 4 time more complex than Elemental, so it was somehow acceptable. And still was an interesting challenge (even if it was cheating his way with money).

6190

i’ll never be good enough (or in elemental’s case play long enough) to care how good the ai is. the age of wonders ai serves its purpose as something to game as i try to destroy my friends. but as far as two games that want to accomplish a lot of the same things, shadow magic actually succeeds as a game i can stand to play.

6191

For me, Elemental’s problems continue to be how bland the game is. It’s getting better, but I note that it doesn’t matter who winds up next to me at the start of a game, the behavior is going to be pretty much the same.

Contrast this to FfH2, where it makes a big difference who you start next to.

I’d like to see that kind of experience come into Elemental.

6192

Interesting point. With Civ, the differences really aren’t very big but the leaders add personality and seem to play differently to the point that I adjust my strategy. From my tiny bit of playing in the sandbox mode, I haven’t seen that differentiation exhibit itself in Elemental.

6193

That is by far the game’s greatest problem, both in how it’s the first bad thing you notice about the game and the largest problem to fix.

Part of it is races. A Human-only fantasy setting? Uh, it might work for a certain sub-genre of fantasy novels, but a game? No. I personally want to see a variety of species and race-unique units. Stardock was supposed to be spiritually-successor-ing Master of Magic, not taking the alpha code from GalCiv2 and replacing the resources with fantasy ones.

That, I think, was the most confusing thing. They make GalCiv2, a solid but soulless sequel to a solid but soulless game whose success was, as far as I can tell, a total fluke. Then they make two expansions to GalCiv2 addressing what players complain about the most: In the first one, shitty balance and a lack of variety in the map and valid winning stratgies. In the second one, a lack of variety in races, which people had been kvetching about since release.

That’s the confusing thing. They release Twilight of the Arnor and everyone loves them because they made the races unique, but for some strange reason they just forget that people wanted it and were happy when Stardock gave it to them.

What’s frustrating with Stardock, I think, is that they (Brad?) just never seem(s?) to learn anything. Unique content is ignored time and time again for, well, AI. That’s nice and all, but there’s a point where you can’t tell the AI is better than any other one out there. You get your by-design “put up a convincing fight then lose” at Normal, and past that seems like any other average cheating AI. Whether the AI cheats or not ultimately doesn’t matter. I can’t tell the difference between a cheating AI at Hard or a GalCiv AI at Hard outside of extreme circumstances (very small maps with aggressive resource denial). The only way I can tell the AI is super-special is because people tell me it is.

6194

You keep harping on this, but I don’t think it’s as big a deal as you think. (Well, maybe for you, but not for others.) You can have a ton of variety based on the appearance, dialogue, and “personality” of the sides. See Civ and Alpha Centauri for examples.

I do agree that what they have in Elemental is very bland.

6195

I think just visual distinctions go a long way though. If you have some race with horns and red shaded you know immediately how they are going to act (or at least have a good idea). Same with a Dwarf, elf, etc… These are tropes that immediately get the story of your surroundings going without any text.

If you have Human #1 - Human #12 without a good visual distinction between them you have to dig to figure out about them.

Even in Gal Civ 2 - you knew who were the bad guys were for the most part just by their picture. Most of the pics in Elemental I can’t tell.

Another problem with the game - the awful names. Making things that I can’t pronounce out loud without help is bad design.

On top of these, I do like the game - a lot.

Edit: I have the same issue with Guild Wars - the art style and blandness really kept me from likeing the game more.

6196

But… There are leaders/races with distinctly different (albeit humanoid) appearances. Gray skin, magma backgrounds, etc.

That’s missing the point anyway. I agree with the meat of what you’re saying, but the visual differences and lore distinctions between a human, dwarf, and elf would be no better than the difference between generic race #1 and generic race #2 in this game. Suppose there was a full-on dwarven race in Elemental. Do you really think it would feel any different to play them versus the humans with the mechanics as they are? Or play against them?

Check out Alpha Centauri or Civ. All humans, yet they are markedly different in feel. Elemental could’ve done something similar, but instead we’re stuck with “gray guys that seem just like the other guys.”

6197

I agree. However, to me there really isn’t any noticeable differences between the human factions in Elemental. There just isn’t anything there.

6198

Right on.

6199

Alpha Centauri is a great example because the pics are not animated like in Civ. Civ IV (don’t have V…) when you select someone who’s a tyrant their facial expressions show it immediately.

In Alpha Centauri you get their philosophy (IIRC, it’s been a looong time since I’ve played it) and it’s pretty obvious. Plus they do something that Elemental doesn’t - use words that mean something.

Spartan likes war, Gaia’s are earthy crunchy, Hive is industry, University are the techies.

We don’t have nonsense words like in elemental that mean nothing.

I sound like I’m bashing Elemental but I’m not trying to, I just want it to get better - I have confidence that Kael will make it better - that’s what he does best.

6200

Which is why I replied the way I did. When do people not have the right to spend their $$ however they choose? Doesn’t automatically mean they have a chip on their shoulder. So you sounded like a Stardock fanboy. . .thus my banner comment.