Kalin

Reply to Needed Gameplay Changes, Part 1: The Weakest Link in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="b0rsuk" reply="20" id="2761320"]Could you please explain the bit about capturing a nearby town and then assassinating the sovereign ? Is influence linked to controlled towns ? You can instantly switch influence of regions ?[/quote] Yeah, it's a bit different from dominion in Dom3. In elemental, influence comes from cities, or rather, it comes from the population of cities. It doesn't have the province effects (Order, Production, etc), and mainly controls off

Reply to Needed Gameplay Changes, Part 1: The Weakest Link in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I don't think you understand, I had 3 catapult (plus default no equip sovereign and Janusk) the entire game, just about any standing army is going to find itself "very very overpowered" in comparison. Even if the AI was smart enough to hide it's sovereign, the only thing that would change is I would have to walk around hunting him instead of sitting there waiting with the end turn button. Admittedly, I'd have to actually build up some defense against its real army, but that's not all that har

Reply to The Future of the Game's Mechanics in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I have to admit, as someone who likes to tweak the game quite a bit, the thought of drastic changes coming makes it difficult to get in the mood to do a serious mod. It's the reason why most mods are done on a stable code base. Still, changes aren't necessarily bad, and some parts of Elemental DO needs it (like say... damage rolls?). I'm a bit worried about the coming changes to the magic system as well, but it's hard to say how bad or good it will be until we get more detail on it. <p

Reply to Was Empire Tech Tree thought out? Have Devs commented on this? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Actually, the two times I played Empire so far I always go for great scimitar troops (tech after lord hammer I believe?), they are absolutely dirt cheap in comparison and you can field an endless army of them if you have enough metal. I just pump them out with no other equips, they are almost as cheap as peasants with 10x the ATK, then proceed to mow down everything in their path. While the concept of randomize tech chances is nice and refreshing, I think the techtree itself is a bit broken,

Reply to Needed Gameplay Changes, Part 1: The Weakest Link in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Yep, that's certainly a fix that Elemental could borrow from. If the lore absolutely demands this kind of behavior from the game for some reason (the only possible reason I can think of), then at least add a game option to disable faction destruction upon sovereign death for the sandbox game. You just won't be able to use magic again unless you have an imbued champion or child, or w/e. Just think of it like the disable tech trading option from GC2, no matter how well in

Reply to How to Increase Mana and Health Regeneration in WOM Mods Elemental Forums

What I did was modded in 3 items to restore essence (MP potions essentially), called Essence Runes (copied the existing Rune). Comes in 3 variety, Minor, Normal, and Major, restoring 5, 10, 15 essence each respectively. These costs Gildar to buy (100, 200, 300), and can be bought from level 2, 3, and 4 cities (and up). It's not exactly "MP regen" but it works well enough. The gold cost makes it not very good in the early game when the turns are fast and MP regen isn't as big of a problem, and

Needed Gameplay Changes, Part 1: The Weakest Link in War of Magic Elemental Forums

So I've finally had time to seriously play Elemental thanks to the weekend, and I thought I should post my thoughts since it seems encouraged. First off, let me say that I'm one of those 64bit Win7, ATI setup, and I've noticed a lot of improvements with 1.07 (although 1.05 was playable for me). I'm also glad to see certain exploits have been fixed in this version (double build improvement, and unlimited rings/amulets, etc). The pace at which these problems along with th

Reply to Thoughts from an ex-game developer in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I thought this too when I saw how SD did their "beta" process. It seemed a lot like an alpha version when you were still deciding game mechanics, but considering that they have always been open to ideas from other gamers, I didn't think that was such a huge problem. On the other hand, the lack of beta stability/balance testing seems like the major culprit. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and from what Brad has been posting, it seems like he and others at SD have figured it out as well.

Reply to any word on a Dark Avatar patch in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Is there any chance that we'll see additional modding support in the next (few) patches? I know you guys were too busy on Dark Avatar to get to all the modding requests, but now that it's out of the way... I was kinda hoping some of the modding suggestions would manage to squeeze in there.

Reply to Dear smart people... (not GalCiv2 related) in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Since I'm pretty sure you're trying to figure out the bell curve distribution for a roll of three dices, I'll ignore the implication of unique rolls and all that good stuff to focus on the numbers you're looking for... Basically, rolling 3 6-sided dices gives you 6^3 = 216 combinations... Then, to figure out the number of combinations, you need to figure out how many combination of 3 numbers add up to that number. Normally there are formulas for this, but I'm afraid people tend

Reply to Space Empires V in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

Hmmm, so I finally got some time to burn and broke this game out of its plastic wrapping and tested it out (version 1.08)... and it was pretty much what I had expected. After a few dozen turns, it crashed. Gave it another go, same thing a few turns later... if it's not one thing, it's another. Guess I'll just have to wait for the next patch that's supposedly coming out on the 6th, maybe I'll finally get somewhere in order to judge the game then. As for the 2D/3D map thing, I don't think

Reply to Space Empires V in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

I bought it a week ago, it's still sitting on my desk waiting to be opened. I have to admit, the crazy bug list and their endless work to getting a stable version out is a bit frightening, but I always knew that SEV would be like that in the beginning. It will be months before it will become a truly GREAT game, because its strength lies in its moddability. Normally I would tear the plastic wrap off and start modding myself, but there is just so many features that are not working or malfunctionin

Reply to Lots of Questions in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

1) There are some strategies to win when you are overwhelmed in numbers, but it's mostly for experts of the game to challenge themselves. If you're just starting out and getting into the game, you should concentrate on doing the land grab "right" so that you have a decent foothold. Know that you should buy the first few colony ships outright (and a scout if you don't see planets), so that you can get a quick jump at the onset. 2) There are various tips and tricks for using these, normal

Reply to Planet Types in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The real question is, will we be able to colonize every planet using the new system. Anotherwords, will it replace this wierd numeric habitabitabily rating system where virtually everything is 0, earth-like is 10, and paradise 26. If you could use ice planets (normally at 3-4) with some technologies like earth-planets, it would blow this system right out the window. In such case, I suspect that gas giant colonization would come very late in the colonizing tree, or not at all, but I have

Reply to AI so clever but so THICK! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Actually, it's not a good idea to offer peace in situations like these. If you are ranked higher militarily and they have just pulled off a quick strike, what normally goes through your head would be, I'm going to take it back. Further more, if they had just lost a significant part of their empire and STILL rank higher than you militarily, it could also mean that you also suffered a lot of losses from that strike/war. Offering peace in this instance and giving you time to rest and rebui

Reply to Backup copy of GalCiv II and Dark Avatar in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hmmm, well to be honest, since you can redownload the entire game from SDC at anytime if you have registered, it basically is a backup already... one that you will never have to search around for. Awfully convenient, especially if you have a decent connection, but yeah, the archive system is how you would make a physical backup, should you not feel like downloading something of that size.

Reply to Design Flaw or My Ignorance? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

1. We are talking about end game scenarios with small ships having well over 50 offense. There's no immunity to this unless you plan to spend a few years building a battleship jam packed with defense. Sure, it'll survive, but by the time you build one, the rest of your empire has been taken over. 2. Military bases... have you guys used these, like, at all? They boost attack power of everyship. That means the more ship you have, the more useful they are. Combine these with strong weapons

Reply to Design Flaw or My Ignorance? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Except that would just make your ship cost twice as much. Why would you want to make a huge but expensive ship with not a lot of offense when you can make two small ships that have the same amount of offense, thus doubling your firepower. The small ships are much cheaper, and can be used enmass, and a group of them they will beat that huge ship of defense anyday. Even if all they have are lasers (Military bases are just evil like that). It's understandable when small ships can't hurt yo

Reply to Design Flaw or My Ignorance? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

You're not missing anything, unfortunately. The problem you are seeing is the side effect of the new combat system introduced in version 1.2. Before that ships takes turn firing in combat (the attacker goes first, then the defender go if they survive), so larger ships is the primany means for survival. Now though, they are pretty much useless. Not only is it better to use smaller ships, due to research and costs for the bigger ships, each ship only fires on one target per round. So if y

Reply to Preparing for 1.3 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with Moliska (is that how you spell it?), those influence base thing is annoying. It's understandable if they are on their border to keep thier planets from revolting, but it's annoying when they put it deep inside my territory. The minor races really have nothing else to do but place influence bases around and send frieghters out (there are exceptions which

Reply to Preparing for 1.3 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with Moliska (is that how you spell it?), those influence base thing is annoying. It's understandable if they are on their border to keep thier planets from revolting, but it's annoying when they put it deep inside my territory. The minor races really have nothing else to do but place influence bases around and send frieghters out (there are exceptions which

Reply to Preparing for 1.3 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with Moliska (is that how you spell it?), those influence base thing is annoying. It's understandable if they are on their border to keep thier planets from revolting, but it's annoying when they put it deep inside my territory. The minor races really have nothing else to do but place influence bases around and send frieghters out (there are exceptions which

Reply to GalCiv II: v1.3 Beta 3 Change log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Nah, nerfing these buildings doesn't do anything because it hurts both the player and the AI. IMHO, it hurts the AI even more because there's even less room for little errors now, because every building is a bit more important. All I know is, with my current test game, I'm still destroying the AI economy wise (and that's at 2+ from intelligent - whatever it is called now). The changes haven't done anything to slow me down, but the AI seems a bit weaker than normal... maybe that's just me though.

Reply to Custom Races in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

We don't have any definite plans for adding features to the scenarios and custom maps for Dark Avatar. I would like to add more, but I don't think that we're going to have time. Bummer, I was really hoping for those. Oh wells, guess I'll start praying for it to make it into the feature patch(s) after Dark Avatar then. Of course that probably mea

Reply to GalCiv II: v1.3 Beta 3 Change log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

+ SizeMods now use only the base capacity of the hull, not the max capacity (the capacity after miniturization is applied) Wow... didn't expect that one to be honest... miniturization just got a lot more useful. So much for no major gameplay changes, XD (Hiding it at the bottom is a nice idea, no one will finish reading a change list th