alexwilber

Reply to Tactical Combat discussion continuation in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Ooh, I had another thought: [quote] Controlling the length of a tactical battle. We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be. Should a tactical battle finish in less than a minute or should they last 2 hours? How do we make it so that players can control this?[/quote] How about having an option to vary the level to which armies are abstracted to single units? For example, for quick battles each ma

Reply to Tactical Combat discussion continuation in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote]Combat Speed . Your combat speed determines how many “moves” / attacks you get during a particular turn. In the begging of Lord of the Rings, what makes Sauron such a bad ass is that he can attack so many units at once. He has, in game turns, an incredible combat speed.[/quote] I was about to post to comment on this, but found that Tridus and Nathikal have expressed themselves better than I was likely to. Essentially I strongly agree that a

Reply to Elemental: Quest Discussion Part 2 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

It would also be good if participating in the majority of quests was genuinely optional. What I mean by that is that the player who doesn't like quests and mostly ignores them isn't at a significant disadvantage. Rather, focussing on quests is one of a number of possible strategic avenues. For example, player 1 might be busy paying exorbitant fees for heroes and expending a lot of magical power on equipping them, but in return get very powerful magical artifacts and allies from the qu

Reply to Elemental: Quest Discussion Part 2 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote] Complete it as in the OP, recruit the mom. Tell the mom where the egg is instead of getting it yourself. Might not get to recruit the mom, but get to see an opponent torn apart by a dragon. Vieuxchat's suggestion; you get it but the egg breaks, now mom is pissed at you. Keep the egg for yourself The egg hatches, and you get a better dragon for yourself The egg hatches, and it's a weakling The egg doesn't hatch,

Reply to Random Elemental journal: December 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Denryu" reply="159" id="2476465"]Good news, thanks for the clarification. So since I am assuming that a "army resistance to ice spell" would indeed lower doamage from ice spells but would not afford any protection to a fire spell, there will indeed be damage types and resistance but just not at the unit design phase. Is that correct?[/quote] Sounds like it, which would be great news. I think that's all that most posters were hoping for.

Reply to Random Elemental journal: December 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="79" id="2473188"] A damage TYPE means (code-wise) means that there is a corresponding counter to it. No strategy game that I'm aware of does this.[/quote] Well dominions does. I'm a bit perplexed that you say it doesn't.

Reply to Random Elemental journal: December 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Frogboy: Having to carefully give frost resistance to all your units does indeed sound infuriating. However, how about still having multiple damage types but: - Magic resistance kits for units give resistance to all magical damage types, without exception (so no hassle) - There is still room for particular magical creatures (or units under spell effects) to have resistances or vulnerabilities, e.g. undead immune to cold, troops under Barkskin vulnerable to fire <p

Reply to Random Elemental journal: December 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Actually, this also reminded me of something I wanted to write before about Channeler design. I hope you won't mind me including it here, since I think those threads are kind of dormant now. I think the modified plans for channeler creation following the discussion here sound much better, which is great. However, all the options are essentially still bonuses to various stats, with attached thematic labels. I think there is room for some more thematic goodness, to really add to the exc

Reply to Random Elemental journal: December 2009 in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I also very much agree that it would be far preferable in my mind to have different kinds of damage. Having multiple distinct classes of things (damage types, units etc) leads to many more strategic possibilities and interest. I think having a wide variety of possibilities does not create confusing complexity, so long as it is all intuitive. For example, it would be intuitive that perhaps nature magic (if there is such a thing) might allow me to cast Barkskin on my troops to make them

Reply to Some quick battle notes in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Looks fantastic to me, good work. I wonder if it might be worth including poison as another damage type. Also, I wonder if it might be worth having armour protect against the different types differently (as in Dominions). Hence: Armour has full effect against Cold (though could be half to my mind) Armour has half effect against Fire Armour has no effect against Lightning I think this ad

Reply to Don’t be afraid of the sausage factory in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Dominions 3 is a really fantastic game. I really hope that Brad takes some of the elements from it which I think are very well done (e.g. the damage system would be a good solution to the current debate). Also I think a lot of the people who are interested in Elemental would be likely to enjoy dom3 so I recommend looking into it. The forum at Shrapnel Games is very helpful (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138).

Reply to Any Europa Universalis players recommend the game? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

For a really rich board-game feeling game, I very highly recommend Dominions 3. The graphics is not great, but the gameplay... well, I've played a great many strategy games over the years, but for the last year and a half I've basically only played Dom3, it really is excellent. The community is very good too.

Reply to do you all start out as an evil race, or is it just me? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Darquies - it's because you're playing as an evil race. Different races have different starting positions on the alignment bar.

Reply to Looking for a good fantasy strategy game in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

Thirding Dominions 3, since it is, IMHO, the best game ever.

Reply to Dominions 3 the awakening vs. Master of Magic vs. Age of wonders in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I haven't played MoM or AoW, but I can't recommend Dominions 3 highly enough - I think it is my favourite game ever (even beating GalCivII), which is really saying a lot (I have played a _lot_ of games in my time). I've been playing it non-stop for a year now, and the multiplayer is brilliant. Play-by-email is a great way to play - in general people have one turn per day, which means you can play whenever suits you, and then really look forward to receiving the next turn. Vinraith: Appa

Reply to Brad - Can we can get an update on not-MoM? in Games in Development GalCiv2 Forums

Dominions 3 apparently vastly improved the interface over Dom2. It does sound like that was fairly awful. Dominions 3 is actually my favourite game ever, I can say quite honestly (and I have played a _lot_ of games). I am sure a lot of people who are fans of GalCiv would enjoy it too - although the game is not so shiny. I highly recommend people try it out. The multiplayer (played one turn a day over the course of several weeks or even months, although people also play "blitz" games on

Reply to Request: Please remove off-topic categories from recent posts list in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Another "agree strongly" vote. I've largely given up on reading these forums these days, they just annoy me too much. They've become completely ridiculous.

Reply to What game or genre would you like to be reborn? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

There's quite a recent remake of mule available. It's called Space Horse www.shrapnelgames.com .

Reply to Curious about TBS Fantasy in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Just on the subject of fantasy TBS games - the one I have been addicted to for about 6 months now is called Dominions 3 (I originally found it, actually, when Brad/Frogboy recommended it in a post here). It's _incredibly_ good, if you have the patience for a bit of depth that is. I've turned into quite a fanboy so I should probably try to stop myself there, but it's certainly really worthwhile looking into if you're interested in fantasy TBS.

Reply to another question about patches in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, you're correct!

Reply to AAR: Thalian Hive in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Cool, I enjoyed that a lot.

Reply to Howard Smith Saves the Galaxy in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

I like it a lot. A bit 1984-ish.

Reply to So...what TBS or RTS games are your current favourites? in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

On the TBS front, I've been playing nothing but Dominions 3 (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/1.htm) since I discovered it a few months ago. It's incredibly good if you're a fan of gameplay over graphics. The graphics isn't the best though... Edit: Now I think about it, I actually discovered it from one of Frogboy's posts. Go Frogboy!

Reply to Influence/defection working correctly? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Or it could be a minor race maybe? They can't be flipped. AI doesn't cheat though, not in that kind of way - above Tough it gets bonuses, but that would just give it more influence points, not change the rules.

Reply to A (Redundant) Question About AI Difficulty Settings in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Those numbers that Moosetek gave don't particularly reflect anything by the way, they're just arbitrary. At tough the AI has all algorithms enabled, and no economy bonuses or penalties. At painful (gifted) the AI has I think just a 5% economy advantage, which Brad thought made it the "fairest" level being as the computer is handicapped by at least 5% by just being a computer.