This is great. The scaling houses is, in my mind, a but redundant with the hut/house/villa progression, but replacing the big single houses with smaller patches of housing produces a gorgeous and organic look, and properly conveys the proper size of a city.
Teleport still exists, it's in the Mobility spellbook, which you need to take at Sovereign creation. You can also use boats, which require researching Navy as Empire, or something with a similarly self-explanatory name as Kingdom. And, as people have said, you can alter the shape of the land around you, once you get sufficiently advanced terraforming spells. It'll cost you a lot of mana, though.
[quote who="Werewindlefr" reply="23" id="2861257"]But here's the thing: soon, Elemental will be 5 months old. They managed to do more with it than I though could be done, but it's still so, so far behind games like Age of Wonders 1, 2, Shadow Magic ![/quote]I dunno man, AoW2 was pretty bad. And regarding your other complaints, I agree that it's important to have good core mechanics, but looks like I disagree on every point you've raised about what good mechanics actually entails.[quot
I have this problem also. Setting it windowed and making it the same resolution as my primary display resolves this issue for all functional purposes.
[quote who="DarkSide73" reply="5" id="2860698"]Yeah they seem to be a waste of space - unless the system required you to send a diplomat to another factions city in order to begin and conitnue communications I see them as a waste of space, that could have been taken up by a warrior[/quote]Wait, can you send them into foreign territory without a treaty and not provoke that faction? If so, Xia's guess was right. They're spies. Spies and explorers.
[quote who="InternetNerd" reply="110" id="2860546"] Quoting Ratatosk7, reply 86I think its fun to watch who he hires next. Its like some sort of industry Guess Who. My bet's on Brian Reynolds (Civ 2, SMAC, Farmville, Frontierville).[/quote] Civ II and SMAC were great. If Brian Reynolds can make Elemental more like them, that would be great. There's a good reason people still love and play those games. I didn't play those other two, but I'm told Farmville is very well loved a
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Of course, Welcome Jon! Honestly, I don't really know what Jon Shafer does. I wasn't really satisfied with the last thing he worked on but I liked the things he worked on before that, and I don't really have any idea what his job was in any of that.
The main problem I see with this is that kids age 6-12 don't like to use something that says "kids" on it, or really anything that looks like it's marketed at children. It does seem like a very useful utility, but if kids think it's aimed for their own age or younger, they're liable to scorn it.
[quote who="FatNonFree" reply="15" id="2860345"]I agree if SD uses it the way you just said then it has value.[/quote]It can already be used in that way. It's just that it can be used in other ways too. That means it has more value, not less. It still lacks inherent practical utility, though.
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[quote who="Brainsucker" reply="80" id="2860346"] For civilization 3 and 4, I prefer civilization 3 to 4. Why? Because a lot of early units are useless in 4, as you can get better units before you can even make these units useful in combat. [/quote]I never had that problem. But then, I always played at longer game length settings, so it might not really apply to me.
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[quote who="Brainsucker" reply="76" id="2860335"]Welcome aboard Mr. Jon Shafer.[/quote]Seconded.[quote]Ignore those who oppose you.[/quote]A dad plan in general. Although in this case, it's not the worst idea.[quote]I know that Civ 5 is better than Civilization 4, as honestly, I thought that civilization 4 was the worst civilization series.[/quote]Yo, you're tripping on this one. No matter how you look at it, Civ IV isn't the worst of them. At the very least, it's better than Civ III. Whether
[quote who="MichaelCook" reply="34" id="2860338"] Who the heck signed in as John Shafer? Priceless. If it is the real Shafer, get an avatar dude [/quote] If it was the real Shafer, it would say "Stardock" under his name.
[quote who="Ratatosk7" reply="96" id="2860321"] Quoting Cruxador, reply 95 Quoting charon2112, reply 94Guys, that is not Jon Shafer. What? Yes it is. It clearly says "Jon Shafer" right there in the name field. Surely you're not indicating that there might be some sort of subterfuge here? I really don't think someone like Jon Shafer would endeavor to deceive in that manner. I think he just means that someone may have signed up with the name Jon Shafer as
[quote who="wnmnkh" reply="12" id="2860320"]It's 40 bucks. Not 50. Are we on same page? http://impulsedriven.com/galciv2ul P.S : and also the game worth 50$ if you love 4x.... there aren't any better 4x other than Civ4 with expansions. [/quote]Ah, I see the problem. Searching "Galactic Civlizations" doesn't bring that bundle up, because it is labeled as "GalCiv". Buying the main game separately from its expansions comes up to a total of
[quote who="Hanokh1967" reply="25" id="2860294"]I have never once complained about Elemental despite its many problems, but this announcement has to be an April Fools joke. Civ 5 is an unplayable mess. Jon Shafer is primarily responsible for its failure. He and all those involved with Civ 5 have not even had the balls to admit that there might be problems with the game. Then he comes here and his first post is definitely asinine and borderline insulting
[quote who="Wintersong" reply="3" id="2860307"] quoting postif only you had been here to pre-empt the whole squares instead of hexes thing. Stop the crap. Also one unit per tile? Maybe turn the game into "a whole bunch of your favourite game mechanics"?[/quote]Honestly, for a game with no tactical battles, hexes and one unit per tile is really the best way to get actual tactics happening. Elemental has tactical battles, though, so we need not delve into
[quote who="charon2112" reply="10" id="2860301"]If you like turn-based, 4X strategy games, and you like a sci-fi setting...then hell yes, get it. But not for $50. Get it cheaper.[/quote]I'm pretty sure that's how much it costs, for the game and both expansions. You can't get things for cheaper than they're sold for.
[quote who="charon2112" reply="94" id="2860302"]Guys, that is not Jon Shafer. [/quote]What? Yes it is. It clearly says "Jon Shafer" right there in the name field. Surely you're not indicating that there might be some sort of subterfuge here? I really don't think someone like Jon Shafer would endeavor to deceive in that manner.
[quote who="nrich61" reply="7" id="2860250"]Im not a huge fan of demo's.... in my experience they rarely give a proper, realistic, taste of the game[/quote]Stardock demos tend to be pretty good, or so I'm told. Some people like to pirate a game instead of playing a demo, and then buy it if they like it.
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[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="38" id="2860126"]Brad doesn't need to call fans insane, frankly thats unwise and I'm surprised he did as much. Truth is self evident and we have anonymous posters like us for that.[/quote]While this is true, I personally would rather see developers on the forum and talking in an entirely uncensored fashion. This may mean that people, including the CEO, are not always a perfect model of restraint and tact, but that's how normal communication goes. People can get
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[quote who="HerrGamenon" reply="14" id="2860151"]Hey all... Dave Stern here, thanks for the welcome, look forward to participating in the forums, and working on the game (not necessarily in that order!)[/quote]Oh god your username... The pun hurts me. But howdy :)
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[quote who="Fistalis" reply="33" id="2860111"] Quoting Heavenfall, reply 32OP has clearly never glanced at the modding potential in Civ5. It is out of this world. As good as elemental's modding support is at allowing users to add content to the game, Civ5's is 10 times better. To be fair modding support is great but not hugely important to alot of people. Me for instance.. give me some XML and let me go to town.. once i have to SDK or python i'm out of my league so the
[quote who="FatNonFree" reply="10" id="2860071"] Quoting Cruxador, reply 9 Quoting FatNonFree, reply 6It may allow you get stuff from others but it has no real value. Like a million dollar share in a company that you can't cash in until 3042.It has value because it allows you to get stuff from others. It's currency. This is like you saying "these millions of dollars in cash are useless because I can't do anything with them. they are useless until 3042.[/quote]
Both of these ideas are good. Rotating will get a lot of additional mileage out of existing resources. The potential for multiple possible tiles for a given improvement opens up the possibility for this to improve gradually, as new models are added. I know personally, another two Shanty model or two would go a long way to making my cities far more varied. Organic design is different, and can have too real meanings. The first is what Heavenfall's talking about, with tile design. Placin
[quote who="FatNonFree" reply="6" id="2860039"]It may allow you get stuff from others but it has no real value. Like a million dollar share in a company that you can't cash in until 3042.[/quote]It has value because it allows you to get stuff from others. It's currency. This is like you saying "these millions of dollars in cash are useless because I can't do anything with them.
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