Fallen Enchantress

[ydejin]

Damn, I found an ass kicking axe yesterday and and Lord Relias was doing some serious ass kicking with it and all the (weak) monsters got their ass kicked.
Then I entered a shop at a bandit camp and the axe was suddenly gone. I guess Lord Relias got distracted by a bandit women or booze and someone stole it :(

Wait, you can buy stuff at bandit camps!?!

[marxeil]

Wait, you can buy stuff at bandit camps!?!

Hmm, I saw a 'SHOP' button and assumed it was made available because I was in the camp. Perhaps its always there and I didn't notice?
I'm a terrible beta tester.

[YourConscience]

I think the cities are not unique enough. I mean those traits they get when leveling up are a good step into the right direction. But they should come with distinctly stronger bonuses and perhaps even weaknesses. Currently in a game with 5 cities, all grown to around 500 population - even though I chose different upgrades for each city for each level, they still somehow are all pretty much the same.

The one brings in a bit more money, the other can produce a little faster, but that's about the extent of it. More differentiation should not only come from more distinct bonuses, but also from more unique features.

Only *this* one city can produce those cool enchanted extra blades because it|s got that one special mage living in there. Or that city over there is sitting atop of a plateau mountain and has griffins defending it in case of attack!

Also the randomly generated names in the entire game are just terrible. I am a natural language processing guy, I could write a better random name generator easily in a few hours that produces much better sounding names, even names specific to a given faction such that you immediately recognize that this must be a guy/city from that faction. But better than that, just let a writer produce a long list of names for each faction that have meanings. A good way to do that is to assign a real-world language to each faction and produce names from morphemes from that language that express something and use another morpheme faction specific. Like Angstular (you fear this guy) or Geldotar (filthy merchant). Here I took Angst (fear) and Geld (money) from German and used -otar as a faction specific expression of "person" which happens to sound like it is a title. Thus when you have 6 heroes or 10 cities, it won't be a total mess of random strings that you're looking at and you can even include an association between the meanings of the morphemes with the traits of the heroes.

Edit: incidentally, for example Mordor has the morpheme "Mord" from Germanic languages which means murder. Which is why this name was so catchy. All of the names in Tolkiens creations were created like this. It's actually fun to decrypt all of the original means in those not so clear-cut cases.

[Alstein]

I think what you're describing would be best if done through an event system, which is something this game is lacking.

[Armando Penblade]

Actually, yeah, the randomized names have been driving me nuts. Especially since I almost exclusively play in factions I've created, and "Ulgoriabobblia" just doesn't sound like something my super educated space wizards would think up to me :(

[Razgon]

Are you a super educated space wizard? If not, how do you know? ;-)

Nah, I understand - I just always make up my own names instead, gives it a personal touch as well.

The random generator isn't really worth much in my opinion.

[Jason Lutes]

Also the randomly generated names in the entire game are just terrible. I am a natural language processing guy, I could write a better random name generator easily in a few hours that produces much better sounding names, even names specific to a given faction such that you immediately recognize that this must be a guy/city from that faction. But better than that, just let a writer produce a long list of names for each faction that have meanings. A good way to do that is to assign a real-world language to each faction and produce names from morphemes from that language that express something and use another morpheme faction specific. Like Angstular (you fear this guy) or Geldotar (filthy merchant). Here I took Angst (fear) and Geld (money) from German and used -otar as a faction specific expression of "person" which happens to sound like it is a title. Thus when you have 6 heroes or 10 cities, it won't be a total mess of random strings that you're looking at and you can even include an association between the meanings of the morphemes with the traits of the heroes.

Edit: incidentally, for example Mordor has the morpheme "Mord" from Germanic languages which means murder. Which is why this name was so catchy. All of the names in Tolkiens creations were created like this. It's actually fun to decrypt all of the original means in those not so clear-cut cases.
Good lord, man, what are you doing with your life? 95% of the fantasy games out there need your skills desperately! (I'm serious)

[Jason Lutes]

Hmm, I saw a 'SHOP' button and assumed it was made available because I was in the camp. Perhaps its always there and I didn't notice?
I'm a terrible beta tester.
You can shop anywhere within your faction's territory, I know that much. Not sure about bandit camps outside of your territory.

[marxeil]

You can shop anywhere within your faction's territory, I know that much. Not sure about bandit camps outside of your territory.

I suppose I noticed the button by coincidence just as I was entering the bandit camp tile.
In any case, I'm still pissed about loosing that axe.

[Disconnected]

Good lord, man, what are you doing with your life? 95% of the fantasy games out there need your skills desperately! (I'm serious)

You know what's a little bit depressing about your post? Not that it's wrong or I disagree or anything like that. No, it's that it's just one of an ocean of concrete examples of stuff TTRPGs have been teaching people over the last 30+ years.

In this particular case, I believe AD&D1e was the first to include it in the world building 101 stuff, back in 1979. And pretty much every major RPG since have done the same.

Take BioWare and Bethesda, for example. In both cases it's pretty clear the leads played the hell out of a limited selection of the first or second edition AD&D material, and then never again looked at anything TTRPG related. Lots of their stuff is straight out of the world building 101 material from those games. And a hell of a lot of the world building deficiencies in their games, have been addressed in ten different ways by other or newer systems. Much more importantly, so have a lot of the dialogue/role playing deficiencies.

This is why I frequently say CRPGs are 30 years behind TTRPGs, but as you point out it's not just CRPGs and a lot of them aren't even stuck 30 years ago. They're re-inventing the genre, with predictably primitive results.

[Armando Penblade]

My fiancee is a linguist. I have often begged her to work as a consultant to the game industry on matters like this. From coaching voice actors on how to take on accents or modify their voices via vowel shifts and air pressure on consonants, to crafting believable, consistent place-names and character name origins, to ensuring that the representation of real-world cultures is realistic (i.e., don't write sentences backwards in Asian or Islamic countries shown in-game).

The film industry makes occasional use of linguistic consultants; there's little reason that a AAA, $200 million game couldn't do the same and significantly improve its worldbuilding and sense of immersion.

Alternatively, just steal some names from Lucasarts ;)

(<3 to Kael, fo-real)

[TurinTur]

Damn, I found an ass kicking axe yesterday and and Lord Relias was doing some serious ass kicking with it and all the (weak) monsters got their ass kicked.
Then I entered a shop at a bandit camp and the axe was suddenly gone. I guess Lord Relias got distracted by a bandit women or booze and someone stole it :(

I had some strange bugs. You missed an axe, i missed money from rewards after a combat.

[darkurthe]

Good lord, man, what are you doing with your life? 95% of the fantasy games out there need your skills desperately! (I'm serious)

Seconded!

My gig is dealing with language processing as well... and most games are horrible for generating random names.

[darkurthe]

Take BioWare and Bethesda, for example. In both cases it's pretty clear the leads played the hell out of a limited selection of the first or second edition AD&D material, and then never again looked at anything TTRPG related. Lots of their stuff is straight out of the world building 101 material from those games. And a hell of a lot of the world building deficiencies in their games, have been addressed in ten different ways by other or newer systems. Much more importantly, so have a lot of the dialogue/role playing deficiencies.

I get this feeling too, that many designers don't have a dearth of RPG experience. Not that there is anything wrong with any version of D&D as a baseline as for most of us that is where we started, but for grizzled RPG veterans it is not where we ended.

My hope would be that CRPG designers had a good RPG library to look at, research and get inspired by. Two books in my RPG library (which is large to the point of being unwieldy...) which I think would be a great place to start for any world building exercise is:

Aria Worlds (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=2184)

Aria Roleplaying (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=2000)

Both books are great from an academic perspective for world building and character building. In my opinion they are two must haves for any RPG or fantasy game designer and are miles better than anything from AD&D came up with for DIY.

[slikster]

I think the cities are not unique enough. I mean those traits they get when leveling up are a good step into the right direction. But they should come with distinctly stronger bonuses and perhaps even weaknesses. Currently in a game with 5 cities, all grown to around 500 population - even though I chose different upgrades for each city for each level, they still somehow are all pretty much the same.


I think this is mostly a by-product of heroes being so powerful. In that city resourses can go exclusively, pretty much, into constructing buildings. Let's see how things look when unit production is a little more necessary, to survive. Maybe there are a few more buildings in the works as well.

[YourConscience]

Good lord, man, what are you doing with your life? 95% of the fantasy games out there need your skills desperately! (I'm serious)

Thanks for the flowers. :) Actually, I wouldn't mind doing that for FE, if I were asked. But that's simply because there is such a terrible dearth in 4X games in general, and anything that could make them more successful would be nice.

It's funny actually how games in general started out being pioneers in the field of natural language processing back in those days and absolutely abandoned that path after a few experiments went wrong.

For example, structurally the Monkey Island type of games represent a nice example of the so-called lambda calculus which among others things describes how you can connect surface form of language to actual meaning in a simulated world. You remember how you were supposed to choose one of several possible actions (take, give, etc.) and then select one or more objects to fill the possible slots of that action? (drop - what, give - what to whom, etc.). That's linguistics pure!

Where it went wrong is when game developers thought it would be a great idea to have the player enter entire sentences to express what they want to do in the world. Why was that wrong? Because they didn't make it work properly. You had to outguess which key words were allowed versus which the engine doesn't understand.

- player: "Go to that box over there"
- game: huh?
- player: "Move to the thing on the left side of the screen"
- game: huh?
- player: "Walk to bench"
- game: ah! *walks the player to the bench*

Also using that just to make the player move is awkward. Just point the mouse and click. It should be used in cases where natural language really brings a benefit, namely for expressing complex things.

The point is that back then the entire Natural Language Processing field was in its infancy and wouldn't be able to tell how to make that work as intended. The fun part is that nowadays this is possible, but most games got dumbed down so terribly, that you really don't need to do any more than just to literally point and click.

Just imagine writing "By default, build two units of woodsman in each city for defense" instead of searching for the option in some menu to do that. Nowadays this actually could be done - and such that even a totally different expression like "two woodsman is my state-of-the art against attackers" would be understood as carrying the same meaning in the context of the game.

[Mysterio]

Status update from Brad yesterday:


So here's a quick update on the coding parts:

1. We've made great strides on improving the memory foot print. This won't mean anything for 80% of you but for people running Windows XP, it's a big deal.

2. The strategic AI is significantly better in our internal build now. It will surrender now if its situation is hopeless.

3. The tactical AI is starting to get some love. I'm awaiting an API that will let the AI look at upcoming spells (like fireballs) that are in the queue so it can counter spell it.

4. There's been a lot of gameplay changes that I won't go into but I think people will be pleased with.

5. The stability should be substantially better. Keep crash reports coming in. It's amazing how different systems will expose different flaws in the code.

6. Performance, especially late game, is massssiiiiivvveeelly better. Night and day. One badly written function that gets called a lot can do real harm.

7. The next beta, Beta 1B (so still beta 1 series) is expected to be out a week from tomorrow. But we may delay it if necessary depending on how the team is feeling about stability, visuals, and balance.

8. The FE specific art is now being integrated (the terrain was still from WOM in Beta 1, beta 1B will have a somewhat different look).

9. I am hoping that beta 1B will reach release level quality in terms of stability, performance, and memory usage. It'll be a big deal (and something that absolutely should be reported) if it crashes on anyone.

10. Game within a game is still a pain in the rear.

11. Sound system got a lot of coding love this week.

12. While multiplayer won't be in FE 1.0, we've been making the internals much more effective for handling it in a possible future update (i.e. more event driven stuff). MP support is high on our list of things we want after release.

13. Garbage collection has been moved into its own thread so that it doesn't interfere with the smoothness of the game.

14. Modding will likely be officially sanctions starting with beta 2.

15. Lots of music and sound stuff going in.

[Telefrog]

10. Game within a game is still a pain in the rear.

Any clarification on this?

[Razgon]

Probably means starting a new game while playing one already .

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Probably means starting a new game while playing one already .


Yup. Loading and starting games within a game was causing crashes.

I am anxious to see what they throw in for the next beta patch.

[Armando Penblade]

Ditto. I got discouraged with near-constant crashing and stopped playing as much, but I was having a bit of fun there for awhile :)

[Jack Black]

awesomesauce

You should send Brad a quote! Contract Linguist on the case.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

You should send Brad a quote! Contract Linguist on the case.

Or a cunning linguist?!?!? Ahhhh, thank you Saturday Night Live... I think I have waited my whole life to use that. :)

[YourConscience]

Or a cunning linguist?!?!? Ahhhh, thank you Saturday Night Live... I think I have waited my whole life to use that. :)

I think that would be kind of wasted in a company that has so few woman (do they have any?) :)

[Armando Penblade]

There's CariElf!

I spent too much time in the Stardock IRC when GalCiv2 came out -.-

[Razgon]

There's CariElf!

I spent too much time in the Stardock IRC when GalCiv2 came out -.-

heh, yeah - me too! Every damn day talking with the people and devs there.

Fun times though!

[Jon Shafer]

The % of women here at Stardock is actually a fair bit higher than most game studios.

- Jon

[YourConscience]

The % of women here at Stardock is actually a fair bit higher than most game studios.

- Jon

I take that as a clear invite then. Very unfortunate my travels are going to take me into the opposite direction for the next month. :)

[Brad Wardell]

That reminds me, we need to get our IRC going more again. We've kind of migrated to Skype internally.

[YourConscience]

That reminds me, we need to get our IRC going more again. We've kind of migrated to Skype internally.

... I always found it cool that your company had an IRC running where it would be more often than not be possible to talk to one of the devs. Just like that, not hidden behind several PR walls. That is a kind of "we aren't afraid" attitude which I think is worth it even if something negative some day would happen from that.

[slikster]

Some substantial things in the works. There has been mention of Thursday for 0.78, but I guess we'll find out.

From link. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/417437)


First off, thanks to everyone who has played the beta and provided feedback. You are probably wondering what we are going to do next.

From a high level there are several types of gamers, different experience levels, different amounts of hours that they will spend with FE. Someone playing their first game will appreciate and need different things than someone playing their 10th. We need to appeal to both groups. Because of that we will spend resources improving things that don't matter much to the sorts of hard core players that do things like read this post.

For example we are cleaning up the choose sovereign screen and making the sovereigns more archetypical. Procipinee is clearly designated as a summoner, her summons start at higher level and she gets a free spell that puts that ability to use. The sovereign backstory isn’t on the screen anymore to make room for more art and a general open clean feel instead of the prior lists of stats.

Imbuement has been removed from the game. I loved the flavor of it, but players didnt realize they could be casting spells with their champions. And it makes the champions less unique if the thing that distinguishes them most (their access to spells) is missed. It was a bit of complexity that could be dropped without losing any good gameplay. Most notably since all the champions can cast from the start when you find enemy champions in the wilds they start lobbing spells at you. For those of us that are accustomed to attacking lone champions in the wild, seeing them starting combat by throwing fireballs at us is a bit of a shock.

So one of our focuses right now is in making the game more approachable.

But we have some asset and balance work to do too. Not game changers, we aren’t throwing out any systems. We have a good system in place, we need to focus on the sections that are weak and take advantage of the sections that are working well.

For example, I like the ability to recruit monsters. But it’s too hard to get and not rewarding enough when you do. So the Bonding Ceremony and Mercenaries techs are gone. Instead the ability to create those improvements comes on other techs that were already worth getting (higher level improvements that allow you to recruit things like dragons and ogres are still special techs). Most importantly when you train a monster like a Drake or Troll in your cities they will start at the normal level for that monster type, not level 1. So your drake will start as a level 6 drake and capable of doing some damage.

The magic tree had some exciting things hidden in it but it needed some work to bring it out. So we created a few new craftable items like magical staves, enchanted robes, etc. Along with this came 30 new unit’s designs, 3 for each faction. These include trainable Mages (units with magical staves that shoot fire or ice), mid-level warriors with magical weapons and end game units that have the best enchanted weapons, armor, traits and mounts the game has to offer. If you see these marching over from the AI player you may be in trouble.

Champions aren't being nerfed as much as things are being balanced around them. The most significant direct change to champions is that injuries matter more. If you have a champion with 6-7 injuries on him he will be severely handicapped, it may be time to hand his equipment over to a promising newcomer without the battle scars. XP is divided by the members of group to make it less rewarding to steamroll the map with your stack of super heroes.

But the big changes are in dramatically decreasing the tech costs. There were always good units to make, but if your champions were level 7-8 by the time you got to them then it didn't matter. Now your trained units are better, come earlier and mean more.

Quests are another area that need some attention. Specifically we want more interesting rewards on them. If you give the potion of restoration to the butcherman he will join you. If you take the noblemans daughter back to his estate you will get a choice of rewards to pick from. And of course any quests with bugs need to be fixed.

Add that in with a bundle of stability and performance improvements, bug fixes, new art and sounds and you have our hit list for the next patch. I will release more details as it gets closer, we have lots to do and I'm excited to see what you guys think when you have a chance to play it.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Cool. Can't wait to try it out. Not sure how I feel about them removing imbuement. Glad to see they are addressing the fact that my regular troops did absolutely nothing. They just sat in cities fiddling their thumbs because my hero stack was bip bopping around doing all the dirty work.

Actually, now that I think about it, I guess it won't matter if they remove imbuing because that was the first thing I did (if I had mana) was imbue the hero.

[Razgon]

Well, I kinda liked Imbuement when it was a strategic choice since it cost your sovereign some essence as I believe it was called.

Other than that - looking great so far!

[TurinTur]

Imbuement gone? ohh I liked the mechanic. They could have put the imbuement spell in a fixed, well placed position so new players would see it.
Still, the important thing is if the changes will be balanced enough, and without destroying the variety. I don't wanna have all the heroes as sorcerers, there should be melee focused heroes, leadership focused heroes, and magic focused heroes.

The "injuries matter more" can be a dangerous thing, as people can be tempted to reload to save the hero, making the injury system null. Of course, they also could do the same thing if they were killed directly, in the end you have to trust the player.

[Disconnected]

Well, I kinda liked Imbuement when it was a strategic choice since it cost your sovereign some essence as I believe it was called.

I have to disagree. Calling it a strategic choice implies that imbuing champs as much and as fast as possible isn't always the right decision. But in Elemental, that's exactly what it is. The penalty is basically just adding insult to make-work.

So... I think it sounds like a promising change.

[TurinTur]

How do you offset the -1 mana/turn you get by each Imbuement?

[marxeil]

How do you offset the -1 mana/turn you get by each Imbuement?

Mostly by not knowing about it. What you don't know can't hurt you - right?

[Disconnected]

How do you offset the -1 mana/turn you get by each Imbuement?

Shards and city spam, pretty much. Production loss won't hurt you when you're hero-Stack of Doom'ing. Lack of casters, however, will slow you down. Hero doomstacks don't just need to level fast, they need to be able to cripple the opposition on the first round. Not that you'll have to very often, but they need to have the capability if they're going to be able to steamroll AI empires, and when you accidentally screw up the Monster Tug and have to fight something really bad that you meant to feed the AI to.

Kind of apropos, I'd really like some expanded mechanics info. It would be nice if the Hiergamemnon or whatever it's called, could read the actual game mechanics and present them in a legible format somewhere. Not that I'm having any trouble stomping the AI into the ground, but my lack of understanding of exactly how the game works makes me disinclined to try out different things, and mostly unable to say anything more useful about balance stuff than "this feels wrong".

I mean, when I feel like playing GalCiv2 it's typically because I want to try something like, say, playing the Yor and taking out the Drengin using only deathstars and ships I've trades from other races. I wouldn't try something like that without knowing exactly how the game works, because then - assuming I even knew it was an option - I'd never be able to tell if I won/lost because it was a superior/inferior strategy, if I was just playing on a too low difficulty/fucked up the execution.

- Yes, I do realise I'm starting to sound like a broken record.


Mostly by not knowing about it. What you don't know can't hurt you - right?

If this game ever gets MP, consider yourself challenged :D

[TurinTur]

I thought the spell list of the game was more or less *done*, but the Stardock crew (well, more exactly, only Brad :P) are commenting here and there in their forum signals that indicates more spells.

In one post he commented some new ideas for spells that he had while writing AI being in the pipeline.
In today post, he wrote about a new spell, Destiny's Gift, to buff champion's stats.
In other post from today, he wrote there are 175 spells potentially, not counting strategic spells.

[Fenris99]

I still find the diplomacy wonky. Why is it so difficult to make nonaggression treaties? Someone clue me in.

[TurinTur]

I wonder why the regression from GalCiv 2 in several areas (from diplomacy to rally points to lots of more stuff).

[Razgon]

Its a totally new engine, which is part of why development was so interesting for SD back when the project started. The idea is to use the engine to make their future games, which I guess is also why they went with 3D.

[TurinTur]

I understand that, but they seem to have left lots of useful features in the step from a 4x game to a new 4x game built in a new engine. Features more related with the game code, than the new 3d engine code.

[Fenris99]

I understand that, but they seem to have left lots of useful features in the step from a 4x game to a new 4x game built in a new engine. Features more related with the game code, than the new 3d engine code.Yeah.

"You and I are equally strong, and we share values. If you want an non aggression treaty, that will be 100 gold".

And that's on "easy".

Huh?

[TurinTur]

Well, that seems more an AI issue?

[Fenris99]

Well, that seems more an AI issue?
Yeah, I think it is. And coming after the very excellent and subtle AI in GalCiv2, I don't understand it.

[TurinTur]

It's also the way of showing the information of the diplomacy and race relations in the game, I suppose. I say that because i was playing Civ 5 this weekend and the lack of information/the way it's shown in the game is underwhelming, comparing it with my memories of GalCiv 2, where you had more information of the "international" relationships and the whys and hows.

[TurinTur]

Hey Brad, remember to use at least two colors in the new path indicator system. The first color to indicate what squares will be walked in the current turn, depending of the unit moves/terrain type, and the other color to indicate the rest of the path.

[DeepT]

I would further this idea by changing path color for each turn it will take for said unit to get to it's destination. It also wouldn't hurt for the final destination to have a number on it indicating the total number of turns for said unit to arrive.

[Disconnected]

I'm guessing this is why it's hard listening to testers...

My preference is for a line, just like the movement path lines in GalCiv, but with a slight knot at every move/turn point. When a stack isn't selected, gray out the line and make it semi-transparent so it isn't obnoxious. When a stack is selected, make the line glow so it is impossible to miss. Finally, make sure the number of turns is always indicated in actual numbers at the end point of the line.

Other than that, please, please avoid colours. Counting the "knots on a string" is easier than counting the colours, if for no other reason than the knots not making me want to avert my eyes from the fugly. And of course, neither is in any way a substitute for displaying the total number of turns at the endpoint, as an actual number.

[TurinTur]

While Coe3 is holding my attention more and more, Fallen Enchantress counterattacks with a preview of the next beta (http://forums.elementalgame.com/417915).

Goodbye caravans!

[Alstein]

If I was to suggest an approach- I think AOW:SM handled this best, and I'd like to see that system copied.

[WarrenD]

While Coe3 is holding my attention more and more, Fallen Enchantress counterattacks with a preview of the next beta (http://forums.elementalgame.com/417915).

Goodbye caravans!

Now that was a very impressive update from Brad, FE is jumping back into my most anticipated game position again.

[KiloOhm]

Update looks great so far. I'm glad they are improving it so much between Beta builds and are not afraid to throw out stuff that didn't work.

[Alstein]

I can now see why the beta has been delayed 2 weeks- bunch of big changes. I'm not sure on everything yet, but I like a lot of what I see.

I just wish I had more time with this game, after this comes out I have to go into big preparations for Final Round, so I won't have the time I want.

[TurinTur]

I am remembering now... one of the human factions, Capitar, was focused on trade, it had extra caravans and better trade benefits, if I am not mistaken. I wonder what's their focus now.

[Disconnected]

Now that was a very impressive update from Brad, FE is jumping back into my most anticipated game position again.

I wish I was more impressed. Don't get me wrong, it all sounds like improvements.

My problem is that the perfectly good starting point of a tactical combat system, has never progressed more than half an inch.

The battlefields need to be wider. They need to be at least semi-randomly generated. And terrain needs to affect unit properties.

Units need a greater range of movement speed. They need zones of control. Each and every one needs at least one resistance and one weakness, and each and every one needs to bend or break the core ruleset in at least one way.

Those are the absolute minimum changes that need to happen if there's to be any hope that it can become more interesting than a game of Chess played exclusively with Rooks. Sure, strategy is certainly involved. But the only trace of fun is its faint screams of panicked flight carried on the harsh winds of boredom from somewhere beyond the horizon.

Killing tactical combat entirely would almost be a mercy at this point. And man... There was so much promise there at the start. It's not fundamentally wrong, it just needs some fairly extensive changes.

[Alstein]

TC isn't the focus of the game, I don't think they'll give you that.

Edit: actually you may get something after all. http://forums.elementalgame.com/417939

[TurinTur]

I think they are improving the tactical combat a bit, with terrain affecting the stats of the units, and more importance in unit positioning. What you won't have is bigger battlefields, I believe (except maybe in special boss battles?). The TC isn't the focus of the game, as Alstein says, they are designed to be 10-60 seconds affairs.

[TurinTur]

I think they are improving the tactical combat a bit, with terrain affecting the stats of the units, and more importance in unit positioning. What you won't have is bigger battlefields, I believe (except maybe in special boss battles?). The TC isn't the focus of the game, as Alstein says, they are designed to be 10-60 seconds affairs.

Maybe I was wrong, this is twice as big as before?
http://www.draginol.com/images/AI-Writing-writing-writing_F064/image_3.png

[Telefrog]

The size of the TC area didn't bother me in the last game. It was the fact that TC was utterly boring and lame.

[TurinTur]

The size of the TC area didn't bother me in the last game. It was the fact that TC was utterly boring and lame.

Well, I hope for a similar experience to MoM. It should be fast and simple, but with enough "meat" so it matters what composition of troops you use (archers, cavalry, pikemen, warlocks, heroes?) the extra stuff like equipment and spells, and what tactics to use in the few turns the battle is being fought.

[TurinTur]

Beta 2 later today.


http://forums.elementalgame.com/416958

Fallen Enchantress 0.85 patch (unreleased)


Features:

+ Imbuing removed from the game. Champions start with the ability to cast

+ Improved performance

+ Added tactical versions of the Burning Blade and Stoneskin spells

+ Reprisal is an ability high level defenders can use to protect a unit, giving it a counterattack and increasing its defense by 1 each time it is attacked

+ Added the Tower of the Witch-Queen, it provides +1 Air and Water power and is required to build the Forge of the Overlord

+ Added the Tower of the sword, it provides +1 Earth and Water power and is required to build the Forge of the Overlord

+ Added the Tower of the Paders, it provides +1 Air and Fire power and is required to build the Forge of the Overlord

+ Added the Forge of the Overlord, it provides +1 Earth and Fire power and is require to cast the Spell of Making

+ Added Waerloga the Dragonlord, though he remains trapped in the Pit of Lost Voices (watch for future updates on this)

+ New Choose Sovereign Screen

+ New Kingdom report screen (displays victory condition information)

+ Tile the player is mousing over is highlighted on the world map

+ Your units path is now displayed

+ The game now ends at 1000 turns (modified by the game pace). Players have the option to continue playing but their score wont be recorded after this point.

+ Caravans as units are removed (they can be auto-created when you form a Trade treaty with another player).

+ Roads are automatically created between your cities when the appropriate techs are know. The roads don't give economic benefits (the techs do though)

+ Techs can unlock automatic roads to your outposts

+ Tactical battle progression doesnt wait for the ending spell particle to play before switching to the next unit (you switch while it is playing)

+ Lots of new sound effects and music

+ Sounds fades out between screen changes

+ Added the Mite unit, pesky little goblin like creatures that come in hordes and provide a good excuse to test out those early weapons

+ Units with bows also have quivers

+ Added the trigger Fear ability (monsters with it hit enemies with fear before combat)

+ Added the trigger Titan’s Breath ability (monsters with it hit enemies with fear before combat)

+ Added Precision II and Precision III abilities (to support future bow changes)

+ Added the Darkling Archer lair

+ Added the Darkling Warlock lair

+ Added the Banished Ogre lair

+ Added the Wilding Archer lair

+ Added the Wilding Hermit lair

+ Added a trade buttong to the equipment window

+ Removed the Amulet of the Eagle

+ Added the Amulet of Flames (craftable, +3 fire attack)

+ Added the Amulet of Frost (craftable, +3 cold attack)

+ Added the Scar Stone (+1 fire damage, craftable, Quendar only)

+ Added the Summoner sovereign background, summoned units start at a higher level and that sovereign gets access to the Summon Shadow Warg spell (Ceresa and Procipinee are summoners)

+ Added the Incineration Staff, Ice Staff, Hailstoen Staff and Hellfire Staff, they have ranged fire and cold attacks and are craftable

+ Added the Warlock sovereign background (+50% spell damage, Magnar is a warlock)

+ Added the Boar Spear as a mid game weapon between the spear and the pike

Bugs:

+ Blizzard, Blight and Escape scrolls no longer consume mana

+ Fixed a crash when saving games

+ Double clicking an improvement in the build list will auto place

+ Fixed issues keeping some sound effects form being played

+ Fixed bug that caused list box selections to not deselect

+ Fixed the Experienced and Veteran abilities to correctly give the free level

+ Fixed all quests that give out champions (so they are correctly champions)

+ Fixed a bug that destroyed cities when sovereigns were killed in battle

+ Fixed an issue that caused cities to dissapear

+ Fixed an issue allowing the Air Elemental Scroll to be used multiple times

+ Letters are no longer consumable

+ Monster recruits wont show up in the design window anymore

+ Fixed an issue keeping scrolls from working on the strategic map

+ Fixed an item keeping strategic spells form using the random modifier ability (for Destiny's gift)

+ All the tiles in your ZoC are now visible

+ Fixed an issue causing the Touch of Entropy spell to trigger twice

+ Pressing D with a unit selected wont bring up the old unit lorebook anymore

+ City defenders arent multiplied when they defend a city

+ Added the ability for spells to permanently kill champions (for steal spirit and infernal contract)

+ Fixed an issue that allowed tactical summons to sometimes survive after the battle

+ Fixed crashes

+ Fixed a significant memory leak in the sound system

+ Fixed an issue with combat rating (where the leader had the groups combat rating instead of his own)

+ Unit won through quests can now have their level specified (so they arent all level 1)

+ Fixed an issue causing multi-tile creatures to be hit multiple times by spells with a radius

+ Fixed bug where if you only have one item in your inventory, and it’s equipped, that selling it didn’t clear the selection area, which let you re-equip the item, and then resell it.

+ Fixed an issues causing the speak to button to be disabled on the foreign relations window

+ Fixed an issue keeping path of governor abilities from showing up

+ Bows correctly make bow noises

+ Fixed quests that give champions

+ King of the Wastes tech now correctly upgrades future monsters

Balance:

+ Late game tech costs reduced dramatically

+ Experienced earned from battle is split among the winning units

+ All craftable magical accessories now have a crystal cost

+ More injuries added (Afraid of Dying, Broken Leg, Hallucinations, Cracked Skull, Concussion and Rotting Wound)

+ Missing Ear injury now gives -10% to dodge

+ Gangrene Hand injury now gives -15% to strength

+ Flesh Wound injury now gives -10% to hit points

+ Chipped Tooth injury now gives a penalty to poison resistance

+ Broken Nose injury now gives -10% to Constitution

[TurinTur]

12345



+ Blind in One Eye injury now gives -25% to Accuracy

+ Amnesia now gives -25% to earned xp (thanks to Heavenfall for feedback on this and many of the above)

+ Units cant walk on Mountainside

+ More (low level) monsters around starting locations

+ Reduced the cost of upgrading trained units to have better equipment.

+ Health regenerated reduced by 75% when the unit is immobilized

+ Caravan respawn time increased from 3 to 5

+ When a champion dies in battle and he recieves an injury his hit points are healed back to 25% full (to keep cascading deaths from happening)

+ Mid to late game improvement cost increased

+ You need the Path of the Mage to be able to cast Counterspell

+ Chaos and Pandemonium have no positive effects, just different negative effects of different types

+ Reduced the cost of pioneers

+ Fireball damage reduced from 6 (+3 per fire shard) to 4 (+4 per fire shard) and it takes and additonal action to cast

+ Contagion damage increased from 3 (+1 per death shard) to 3 (+3 per death shard) and it takes an additional action to cast

+ Dirge of Ceresa mana cost increased form 24 to 36, it is resistable and the duration damage increased form 3 (+1 per death shard) to 3 (+3 per death shard)

+ Legacy of Serrane faction ability gives +3 diplo each time a caravan reaches its destination

+ Legacy of Serrane faction ability unlocks the Aura of Commerce spell

+ Ignys are weakened but can now breath fire

+ Quests give much better stuff

+ You can upgrade the armor and weapons on most of the trained units

+ Catapults gain 30 Pierce defense and are larger in tactical

+ Base init is doubled (so we can be more granular with bonuses and penalties)

+ Weapons rebalanced at the new init levels

+ Alliance treaties have a 99 season duration

+ Non-aggression treaty duration increased from 33 to 50

+ Chaos and Pandemonium dont have positive effects anymore

+ Impulsive ability requires level 3

+ High level lairs reduced form 10 to 8 levels away from starting points (they werent able to be placed on some maps)

+ Wolf lairs cant be placed on deserts

+ Spider Venom saces are now accessories that you can equip to add poison damage to your attacks

+ A unit can only have 4 accessories equipped at one time

+ Movement increased on a bunch of monster (most go to a base of 3, anything with 4 legs generally has 4)

+ XP is divided by the amount of champions in your army. If you get 500 xp with an army with 1 champion all untis in that army get 500 xp. If you had 2 champions in that army all the units in that army get 250 xp).

+ Bandit Archer camps can spawn bandits

+ Bear lairs have loot

+ Butcherman lairs can spawn butchermen

+ Crag Spawn lairs can spawn crag spawn

+ Darkling Rider lairs can spawn darklings

+ Death Demon lairs can spawn assassin demons

+ Great Wolf lairs can spawn wolves

+ Ravenous Harridan lairs can spawn black widows

+ Rock Spider lairs can produce rock spiderlings

+ Stalker lairs can spawn stalkers

+ Wilding Rider lairs can spawn wildings

+ Capturing a city halves the population (instead of reducing it to 0)

+ Razing a city makes its zoc barren so a new city cant be founded there

+ You cant trade champions anymore

+ Champions choose their path at 4th level (not 2nd)

+ Reduced the metal cost of higher level weapons

+ Traits and items that increase movement are more rare

+ Amulet of Warding train time and defensive bonus reduced

+ Cloak of Shadows no longer gives a defensive bonus

+ Cloak of the Night no longer gives a defensive bonus

+ Darkling Cloak no longer gives a defensive bonus

+ Longstrider boots aren’t craftable anymore

+ Poison Vial is cheaper

+ Ring of Embers now correctly gives fire resistance

+ Ring of Storms now correctly gives cold resistance

+ Reduced Affinity to -10% the mana cost for tactical spells (from -25%)

+ Gamblers strike now has a 50% chance of doing double damage and a 50% chance to miss

+ Reduced the mana cost reduction from the archmage robes, mage robes and adept robes

+ Mantle of Oceans reduces tactical spell cost by 40% instead of 50%

+ Fireball does 4 (+4 per fire shard damage) instead of 6 + 3

+ Fireballs casting time increased from 2 to 3

+ Added a particle effect to growth and giant form

+ Monster player has plenty of mana to work with, be afraid

+ Removed the Bonding Ceremony tech (darkling and wilding camps require adminstration)

+ Removed the Mercenaties tech (mercenary camps require cooperation)

+ Path of the Assassin gives +3 dex, +3 to crits, and +50% to crit damage instead of +6 to dex and +2 strength

+ Path of the Defender gives +3 strength and +3 constitution instead of +6 strength and +2 constitution

+ Path of the Mage gives +3 int instead of +6 int

+ Path of the Warrior gives +3 str and +3 dex instead of +6 str and +2 dex

+ Diplomat gives +30% to trade value instead of +20%

+ Shards give 3 mana instead of 2

+ Min city level placed on most improvements

+ Dragon hide cloak is craftable

+ Ice Warg cloak is craftable

+ Wing of Embers and Ring of the Glacier moved from enchantments to channeling

+ Lightning Hammer is now craftable

+ Burning Axe is now craftable

+ Ice Spear is now craftable

+ Chain chest and greaves give -1 init

+ Plate boots, helm, greaves, chest and gauntlets give -1 init

+ Reduced the defense on leathur cirass from 3 to 2

+ Reduced the defense on leather greaves from 2 to 1

+ Reduced the cost of armor you can buy in stores

+ Tech costs dramatically reduced

+ Reduced the powerful empire ability to +2 str and +2 con (instead of +3 for both)

+ Reduced Rage to +3 str and dex when under 50% hit points (instead of +5)

+ Reduced the Strength ability to +2 str instead of +3





Cosmetic:

+ Quest location icons turn silver if the quest has been started (indicating there is nothing left to do at that spot)

+ Added notes to the tooltip for improvements (for things like being world or faction limited)

+ Fixed so many typos

+ When the monster is killed remaining lair switch to the treasure icon to show that they can be claimed

+ Tooltip for limited units shows how many the player has available

+ Monster dropped loot (pelts, webs, teeth, etc) no longer have a popup

+ We only show 3 units in a group if they are in an army on the main map (so you dont get those stuffed tiles that look like a wandering mosh pit)



AI:

+ Monsters slightly less aggressive

+ Monster wander radius increased when in player territory

+ AI will now surrender late game rather than dragging things out

+ AI armies more aggressive

+ Fixed AI bug where armies with pioneers would not attack no matter what sometimes

+ AI more willing to attack and lose to wear player down if they have sufficient military might

+ Fixed AI bug where sovereign would get stuck on a quest

+ Increased odds of the AI talking smack talk to player about destroying stuff

+ Fixed bug where AI would go into defend mode rather than attack in tactical

+ AI Empires take umbridge if you attack an empire (-3 to relations)

+ Kingdoms get upset if you attack someone early game (-3 to relations)

+ Kingdoms take offense if you attack a kingdom (-3 to relations)

+ Kingdoms get really made if you are a kingdom and attack another kingdom (-3 to relations)

+ AI will improve relations if you have trade routes with it

+ AI manages its tax rate more effectively via an internal credit score system

+ AI trash talks player slightly more

+ AI places a lower priority on shopping for equipment based on how much money it has

+ Fixed AI bug where units would stick around at a rally point too long

+ Fixed AI bug where sovereigns and champions would head back to rally points even if they were powerful

+ Fixed AI bug that prevented the AI from going on quests as often as it should have

+ Fixed AI bug where champions wouldn't attack unless they had overwhelming superiority

+ AI more aggressive about founding new cities further away

+ AI more aggressive about constructing outposts

+ AI uses AI traits to determine what units it will train

+ AI evaluates area threats based on distance and how fast threats can move

+ AI is biased to train units over building improvements during war time depending on what traits it has

+ Fixed AI bug where cities wouldn't train pioneers if they were at war if they didn't have the right AI trait

+ Fixed AI bug where it didn't value magical weaponry correctly (thus only mundane units)

+ Fixed AI bug where it was not valuing combat speed correctly

+ AI less concerned about relative military power in diplomacy until later in the game

+ AI makes more use of AI traits when determining diplomatic relations

+ AI will now cast more offensive strategic spells

+ AI can use Curse City type spells

+ AI can and will cast the Spell of Making if it can

+ AI will try to inform players when it has cast a curse on the player OR cast a very powerful spell

+ AI will interact with players more generally

+ Fixed AI bug where it would ignore cities it knows about simply because they're far away

+ AI is less likely to surrender

+ Unstable, Isolationists and War Monger AI personalities will tend to raze cities they didn't found when conquered

+ Fixed tactical AI bug where it would appear to move and then attack a player which is illegal

+ Fixed tactical AI bug where if units were low on mana they would sometimes skip their move even if they had a mundane attack

+ Increased tactical AI evaluation of ranged offensive spells

+ Increased the target value of ranged units (made AI more likely to go after them)

+ Units that aren't particularly powerful are more likely to stand back and let others fight for them first in tactical battles

+ AI better handles dealing with units with particular types of magic resistances.

+ Changed tactical map choosing algorithm to now look at the number of units going into the map (bigger maps for bigger battles)

[Kelan]

Excellent! Was waiting on this next big patch to give it another whirl.

[Telefrog]

+ Quest location icons turn silver if the quest has been started (indicating there is nothing left to do at that spot)


Love it! The lack of visual difference between quest starting locations and goals was driving me nuts.

[Fenris99]

I'm most interested in the diplomacy changes, believe it or not.

[marxeil]

This is all very nice, but what about the promised new tile art?

[TurinTur]

I'm most interested in the diplomacy changes, believe it or not.

i saw a post from Brad saying that in fact (apart from the changes you can read above) Diplomacy is the area most left untouched from Beta 1, but it's his next thing to improve.

[Fenris99]

i saw a post from Brad saying that in fact (apart from the changes you can read above) Diplomacy is the area most left untouched from Beta 1, but it's his next thing to improve.
I'm hoping he applies some of his magic from GalCiv2. I liked how you could actually have a long-standing peace agreement with an AI and how it was actually possible to win a diplomatic victory. WOM and FE seem to have oddly over-agressive AIs who won't even sign non-agression pacts or whatever.

[TurinTur]

Yes, it's one of the things i liked on GalCiv2. Particularly, I remember having a brilliant game around Dark Avatar release, where I played a "Machiavello" game, very focused on having the maximum diplomatic skill and opening and closing wars between my allies and enemies with it. It was great.

[Armando Penblade]

Looks like the game's gotten massively harder for champion-centric play. Split XP doesn't just affect the champs, but also the armies traveling with them (based purely on the champs, not the number of army units, but it does mean that each stack should only have one champ in it). Powerful traits boosting damage are severely nerfed. Traits reducing spell costs are also massively nerfed. Finally, a couple of the best damage dealers in the game are also nerfed.

AKA, it's army time, kiddos!

[TurinTur]

They also buffed slightly the armies with the equipment for them being cheaper and less cost to upgrading them later.
But remember that now champions can cast spells.
And in the end, champions (fixed cost at hiring them, usually not a lot, without maintenance, without waiting times) are cheaper than armies, which is perhaps the most important differentiating factor.

[Island Dog]

A 0.85 gameplay example was also posted. :)

http://forums.elementalgame.com/418092

[TurinTur]

Release the beta already, it's 19.00h here and i want to try it today!

[Island Dog]

Usually it's around 3pm EST-ish.

[BleedTheFreak]

A 0.85 gameplay example was also posted. :)

http://forums.elementalgame.com/418092

Are the images broken or is it just me?

[TurinTur]

Are the images broken or is it just me?

Their servers is a bit slow but it loads up fine for me.


Usually it's around 3pm EST-ish.

Damn you, how many hours left is that? Is with daylight time savings or not? /confused with time zones

fake edit: ok, a bit of wikipedia to see where is Stardock helped, I should have time to play tonight.

[BleedTheFreak]

Are the images broken or is it just me?

No, still broken. Why did they use png instead of jpg? Seems like an odd choice.

Oops! EDIT. Not broken, my filter was marking the images as SPAM. Fixed.

[TurinTur]

Usually it's around 3pm EST-ish.

You lied to me! *cries*

/... go to watch some tv.

[Mysterio]

Patch is now available.

[TurinTur]

Thank you for the news, they still didn't put the news in the official site.

[RepoMan]

A 0.85 gameplay example was also posted. :)

http://forums.elementalgame.com/418092

Brad, FWIW, outposts aren't new -- they were in Kohan II, where they were called "forts". (http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/kohan-ii-kings-of/4505-9696_7-31151769-2.html)

[TurinTur]

Jesus, it seems more buggy now :P

-Rat quest pits me against a rock spider. bug or is intended?
-the reward trigger appears 3 times, instead of one. I won 900 gildar :D edit: lol, it's totally bugged, the quest won't erase itself after completion, so each turn i win a new reward.
-the auto explore button doesn't work, and it worked fine in the previous beta
-the initial magical staff (the one which gives +3 mana for each kill) doesn't work, I don't win the extra mana, and it worked fine in the previous beta

Faction perks are still mostly weak (a good number of them are just a starting tech for free, or a simple bonus like +10% to research). Equipment for your sorcerer was a good idea but they din't expand the items you can choose, they are exactly the same.

[Alstein]

First one is WAD

magical staff I think requires a melee attack.

Outposts were in the Original Kohan as well.

[KevinC]

Bugs probably should be expected after each major beta phase release. That's a massive changelog.

[Tyjenks]

I am seriously torn between trying the Beta I have already installed and waiting until it is in the late Beta stages.

[Lorini]

My game crashed after 5 minutes, I'll wait for the hotfix.

[Disconnected]

Brad & company, if it's not much, much too late you should seriously consider ripping off TTRPG/Alpha Centauri's style of presentation.

There's nothing wrong with a wall of text or the lack of it, but players will be much more inclined to read and care about it, or feel they understand what it's about, if one of the game's characters leads into it with a brief comment. Same goes for pretty much everything, from wandering monsters to technologies, to buildings, to.. well.. everything, just about.

It doesn't have to be comments on the actual thing either. The entire reason I bring this up, is because I'm sort of reading a TTRPG supplement on crime and punishment, where the last couple of sections have been headed by the comments of various NPCs during a famous trial. An extremely condensed little court drama running in the background while the actual material examines the legal world of the setting, and hugely effective at conveying the tone and style.

And hey, it's the same thing everyone remembers SMAC for.

[TurinTur]

My game crashed after 5 minutes, I'll wait for the hotfix.

They said there will be a hotfix tomorrow (today, now). I hope they fix the quests.

[DKDArtagnan]

I just learned FE won't have multiplayer... Didn't realise that. Means I have zero interest now - oh well :(

[Kael]

They said there will be a hotfix tomorrow (today, now). I hope they fix the quests.

Running changelog is here:

http://forums.elementalgame.com/418253

[lordkosc]

I just learned FE won't have multiplayer... Didn't realise that. Means I have zero interest now - oh well :(

IMO its for the best, no point it tossing in tons of resources and time for a portion of the game that <5% of the player base wants. (statistic totally pulled from by butt).

[WarrenD]

IMO its for the best, no point it tossing in tons of resources and time for a portion of the game that <5% of the player base wants. (statistic totally pulled from by butt).

I agree, I find TBS multiplayer games mostly just painful.

[DKDArtagnan]

Well, to each his own. I thought it was one of the earliest promised features of WoM. Certainly, it was one of the primary reasons I bought it in the first place.

I've been dreaming about a proper updated MoM with multiplayer since 1995.

Still, I understand the reasons - and I agree if so few people are really interested, maybe it makes sense.

It's just that after having played so many great TB strategy games with friends, I just can't go back to making do with an AI. It's just not very interesting to me, and it's always a matter of discovering whatever weakness in strategy (usually not very hard with an AI) - and it will always be the same.

I usually play hotseat - though a good simultaneous MP implementation can work well - like it did in Warlords 3 DLR.

The thing about MP in these games is not so much that I will be playing it very much, but that it will be a horizon making the singleplayer gameplay meaningful. I can appreciate playing against the AI as "practice" - and that makes good sense to me.

But when defeating the AI is the ultimate goal, I just get bored - because every single strategy game in the world that's complex enough, will have some kind of silly approach to victory and the AI never - ever - adapts. So, it becomes almost like solving a puzzle - rather than formulating a dynamic strategy. Also, you can't gloat :(

Makes sense?

[CustodianV131]

I agree, I find TBS multiplayer games mostly just painful.

Yup, in the same boat. I like my TBS'es singleplayer, while I'm a quite active multiplayer with other games MMO's (of course) / FPS'es ect.

Also feel that not having multiplayer can be a great benefit for TBS and for instance RPG's since you don't have to be worried about meticulously balancing the factions, but can focus on making the gameplay fun and interesting. IE you can make it unfair for the player as long as it makes the gameplay more fun / better.

[ydejin]

IMO its for the best, no point it tossing in tons of resources and time for a portion of the game that <5% of the player base wants. (statistic totally pulled from by butt).

I agree too.


Also feel that not having multiplayer can be a great benefit for TBS and for instance RPG's since you don't have to be worried about meticulously balancing the factions, but can focus on making the gameplay fun and interesting. IE you can make it unfair for the player as long as it makes the gameplay more fun / better.

Excellent point.

[KevinC]

I just learned FE won't have multiplayer... Didn't realise that. Means I have zero interest now - oh well :(

Between this and the Diablo 3 thread, I think you and I need to start our own support group. I haven't even downloaded the beta for the same reason, SP only games just don't hold much of a draw for me.

[KevinC]

Yup, in the same boat. I like my TBS'es singleplayer, while I'm a quite active multiplayer with other games MMO's (of course) / FPS'es ect.

Also feel that not having multiplayer can be a great benefit for TBS and for instance RPG's since you don't have to be worried about meticulously balancing the factions, but can focus on making the gameplay fun and interesting. IE you can make it unfair for the player as long as it makes the gameplay more fun / better.

This point seems to get lost a lot in multiplayer discussion: MP! = Competitive play, necessarily. TBS games and RPGs make fantastic coop experiences and you don't have to market it as meticulously balanced. Starcraft this is not.

[ydejin]

This point seems to get lost a lot in multiplayer discussion: MP! = Competitive play, necessarily. TBS games and RPGs make fantastic coop experiences and you don't have to market it as meticulously balanced. Starcraft this is not.

I dunno if it's strictly coop that's supported than I agree. But if it supports both coop and competitive the competitive players will bitch about it and trash your game on the Internet, even if that's not the game focus.

I can't imagine a TBS 4X game like FE or Civ that supported only coop multiplayer and not competitive multiplayer. So it will need to be meticulously balanced or risk getting trashed by user reviews.

[TurinTur]

Running changelog is here:

http://forums.elementalgame.com/418253

I am remembering now I had another, I did a tactical combat against ... 4 mites? I think, and they wouldn't move or react, they were stuck in their initial positions. So there is some bug also in the ai decision system in TC, or something like that.

[Razgon]

Well, FE actually might have MP some time after release, but its not something to base the purchase on.

[TurinTur]

A question. Why the economy is so out of wack? I hate how cities barely win any money, they can't even sustain a pair of buildings and a spearman as garrison.And in the other hand what it should be an auxiliary source of income (quest rewards, random loot found) gets you too much gold.

Raise the gold gained trough taxes, lower the gold gained through other means.

[Armando Penblade]

I have to agree. Unless a city is mining several gold and food resources, it just can't stay profitable and level up properly. And if it's doing that, it really won't have the production needed to build stuff, yet even building mostly pop/prestige/money-centric buildings in it will have it teetering on unprofitability, barely able to support a manufacturing-centric town, much less a large standing army.

And given the general paucity of "buildable" space on the world map, you can't even build up several of these marginal gold-profit centers without conquering a foe or three (hard to do if you can't afford a military) or risking everything by building a super-spread out empire in the tiny pockets of fertile land across the map.

Frustrating :/

[KevinC]

I can't imagine a TBS 4X game like FE or Civ that supported only coop multiplayer and not competitive multiplayer. So it will need to be meticulously balanced or risk getting trashed by user reviews.

It's not a matter of disabling competitive play, just not marketing or designing it as such. TBS games already have to be balanced to a certain degree otherwise you have one faction rolling over the game or others who can't survive past 50 turns.

Personally I really despise the over-emphasis on balance in some games so I know where you're coming from, I just don't think including MP means it has to be that way (unless you want to be more esport or pvp focused like Starcraft or LoL).

I have tons of fun in Crusader Kings 2 but my poor Earl of Tyrone has no chance against William the Bastard and that's just fine.

[TurinTur]

+ Fixed an error in the rats in the Ruins 2 quest that can cause you to get infinite rewards

+ Slightly more money from taxes (0/2/4/6/8/10% gildar from population instead of 0/1/3/5/7/10%)

A bit better. Let's see if we can try it this weekend.

edit: looking at my current game and doing some basic maths, yeah, i think that change in taxes will be enough to fix the current situation.

[Jason Lutes]

I've been dreaming about a proper updated MoM with multiplayer since 1995.
Well, FE may not have multiplayer, but in no imaginable way does it constitute "a proper updated MoM," so rest easy.

[KiloOhm]

Well, FE may not have multiplayer, but in no imaginable way does it constitute "a proper updated MoM," so rest easy.

Yeah I have to say this more resembles Age of Wonders than MOM - and I think Age of Wonders was better (so far). But I do like this game.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I wish they would improve/change army group/unit selection. I just got my champ killed twice because I forgot to make extra sure all units were selected before moving, which really sucks because if you are checking a unit's stats or equiping stuff for them, it singles out a unit out of that army group. So, instead, you have to go back and select all units before moving again. Just seems clunky to me. Is there some sort of trick I am missing? Is there a hotkey to hit to make sure all units are selected?

Anyway, version .86 looks better and feels smoother.

[thither]

You can hit "a" to select all units on the current tile (except other heroes), and hit "?" to show other shortcuts in the transfer units screen. I've got to the point where the first thing I do in a new game is generally to assign units to my various commanders, though I still forget from time to time as well.

Edit: did version .86 get updated to Desura?

[Mysterio]

You can hit "a" to select all units on the current tile (except other heroes), and hit "?" to show other shortcuts in the transfer units screen. I've got to the point where the first thing I do in a new game is generally to assign units to my various commanders, though I still forget from time to time as well.

Edit: did version .86 get updated to Desura?

You're confusing Conquest of Elysium 3 with this game (Fallen Enchantress).

[KevinC]

It's a good year when you have multiple TBS fantasy games out and can get the threads confused.

[Kelan]

Ran into a very early quest that was a nice surprise. The quest gave me three choices that were all perfectly valid ways to gain the reward, and involved going about it in 3 distinct ways. Very cool!

[thither]

Oh, duh, sorry. I'll probably be picking this up when it comes out of beta, I'm a huge fan of Kael's work on Fall From Heaven.

[TurinTur]

I still don't understand all the mechanics of the game. I have difficulty in the early expansion of my empire with all the strong monsters around it. The problem being, I can't predict what will happen, sometimes a monster or camp will go hostile on me, other times it seems totally ignore the cities or armies that are very close.
This evening I had a game where i avoided expanding to the West because there was a narrow land passage dominated by two strong groups that no one should be able to defeat (it was early in the game) but a few turns later I saw a new enemy city in that position. How they did it :/. And myself? I lost my capital city because a group of rock spiders went aggro to my simple milita doing a patrol around the border of the city.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I still don't understand all the mechanics of the game. I have difficulty in the early expansion of my empire with all the strong monsters around it. The problem being, I can't predict what will happen, sometimes a monster or camp will go hostile on me, other times it seems totally ignore the cities or armies that are very close.
This evening I had a game where i avoided expanding to the West because there was a narrow land passage dominated by two strong groups that no one should be able to defeat (it was early in the game) but a few turns later I saw a new enemy city in that position. How they did it :/. And myself? I lost my capital city because a group of rock spiders went aggro to my simple milita doing a patrol around the border of the city.

Heh, yeah, although sometimes I actually think that's kind'a cool. Gives you a puckered lips factor. I am in a situation right now where I got a ton of baddies off to my east, but they are in one of those wilderness areas. I am gonna have to deal with them pretty soon whether I want to explore into there or not because if my kingdom expands any further it'll plop out into them or too near them.

I think I am actually starting to enjoy this game. I hope they keep tweaking the art/game/lore assets. Oh, and man I thought it was cool when I convinced an ally to go to war with a common enemy, and at the same time I managed to beat up on Yithril, who, instead of declaring war on me actually earned their respect for showing my strength.

[TurinTur]

Oh, it's kinda cool, I agree on that. But as I was saying, once I start playing the game more seriously, instead of just "checking it out", I need a bit more of feedback, of predictability, to develop strategies in the game.

[YourConscience]

In my current game Gildar insists on peppering a city of mine with tons of cheap troops. By tons I mean like 6 or 7 full stacks of about 5 to 6 units of Peons with a view archers mixed in attack that city every single turn. My three units of SuperSpears2 with regeneration cast on them are easily holding them off turn after turn, but it is highly annoying to have to do these battles every single turn. They started out on level 1 with 22 hitpoints and are on level 5 with 108 hitpoints. But Gildar just keeps throwing his cannon fodder at that city...

Once he shocked me: The sourvereign came himself, but instead of using one of hist many stacks to support him, he attacked all by himself. All the nice defence didn't really help him against those spears.

One more thing: the Life mage line is extremely powerful...

Other than that, it is getting there now. It's actually fun to play now and the amount of unpleasant design decisions is visibly decreasing. One annoyance is with the ability to settle: as the cities grow, they push the settleable land farther away. So if you want to get the maximum you want to create many small cities quickly and let them grow after that.

[quantum_mechani]

Well, to each his own. I thought it was one of the earliest promised features of WoM. Certainly, it was one of the primary reasons I bought it in the first place.


This is actually the part of the whole elemental debacle that bother me the most. I (and I assume many others) preorder elemental on the basis of being complex MP TBS, a niche of which there have been quite few. Then the game is released, and admitted by the publisher to be unworthy and not really what was advertised, but we are promised the real deal for free down the road. This is all well and good and I applaud Stardock for it's contrition and recognition of the issue. The problem is with Fallen Enchantress cutting MP, many people are still left having bought a game which is not at all what they were advertised. It's as if at a restaurant you find a hair in your dessert but instead of replacing it with a new one they bring you a hot bowl of complementary soup.

[KevinC]

Not only that but there was a FE dev diary (quite some time ago) that talked about the MP love that FE was going to get. Given the sad state of MP in WOM it was the only reason I followed development for the next year. It really irks me how they handled the whole situation.

[RepoMan]

I played this for four hours last night and was definitely gamelocked. To get the hang of the thing I was playing a tiny map with only one opponent, and default options across the board.

Wound up on an odd island with a northern section (where I started) connected by a narrow isthmus on the eastern side to a larger, southern section. The northern section had only one grassy area in the middle, with barren land to the east and west. So I was able to get only one city built, since you can't start cities on non-arable land. I also didn't explore as effectively as I should have -- NOTE TO SELF: GET TWO SCOUTS OUT FIRST! Also, spam pioneers fast -- the more outposts you have, the better.

I was playing Procipinee just to see how abusive I could get with the magic. Answer: quite abusive. By the time I had settled the entire northern section I had like 400+ mana, collecting ten per turn. I finally leveled up enough to collect some level seven heroes, one of whom was a total combat monster once I cast Evade and Courage on him -- I had enough mana to keep a few continuous enchantments up.

Then finally Relias got bored and decided to come after me, right as I did some kind of epic quest initiation. All of a sudden there were like five mobs of steel golems in my territory, in addition to Relias's armies! I was able to hold my own for a while via judicious use of Blizzard -- there was one tactical battle in particular where my wizard kept casting summon spells, the enemy wizard kept counterspelling, and then one of my lv7 heroes kept firebolting her from across the map. Once she went down I finally got a blizzard out, and buh-bye enemy army.

(I have no idea what was up with all the golems. Did the quest magically summon them somehow? If so, quests are even more dangerous than I thought! I already save before I touch any specific quest, since more often than not they out-level me significantly, as with the time I took my little band of two level-four, attack-4 heroes and two summoned creatures against a fucking 110+ health dragon....)

Unfortunately since I had only one city, I think I was doomed economically -- the enemy armies (and the steel golems from out of nowhere) devastated my eastern outposts, which hurt my magic income a lot. Then my game crashed, which I took as a sign that it was time for sleep. I think I will probably let that game drop as I was low on mana and Relias probably wasn't going to give me a chance to regroup given his econ advantage (he'd built the Great Mill, FFS).

I encountered a couple of plain bugs:

- Blizzard won't fire if there are no enemies, or any friends, in the spell area. At one point I triggered it at the wrong time, when there was just a tight mob of battle in the middle. There was nowhere I could put the spell effect, and there was no way to cancel out of having selected it! The only thing I could do was to hit auto-resolve and then reload, after my party wipe.

- There have been a few instances where the tactical map won't scroll at the edges, which has meant I've been unable to see or target an enemy who's off the map. This seems to happen when the camera angle is such that the camera has to reposition to view the currently selected member of my army.

And, of course, the crash, but one crash in four hours with a beta is quite livable (especially given the copious autosave).

I definitely did a lot better than in my previous games (or rather, experiments -- I quit early as I was obviously fucking up). I agree that the initial expansion is pretty much the game-breaker -- explorational efficiency is absolutely incredibly critical, given the lack of good city start spots, and given the difficulty of founding cities later when territories are larger. I also still don't know the best way to optimize an economy -- I feel like even the normal AI continually out-booms me -- but I am sure this is going to get tweaked so much that it's not really worth learning optimal build orders yet. (Plus I don't tend to get quite that wonky with my strat games....)

Anyway, one thing is for sure: I no longer feel like my Elemental pre-order money was wasted :-) I was having enough fun just doing quests and clearing out every monster on the northern continent that I almost wished there was a mode with no enemy AIs! Of course that'd get old after just a playthrough or two. Fortunately for me I give no shits about multiplayer, or I'd probably still feel ripped off.

What are your boom tips for the beta?

[RepoMan]

HEY, IS THIS THING ON? <tap tap> CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?

So goddammit this game grabbed me again until Too Damn Late last night. Started over, same deal (tiny two-player), focused every neuron on expanding quickly with Procipinee again. Managed to get three cities out. I have to say I'm extremely hooked by the tension in the turn-to-turn choices. Do I go after that quest? Do I clear out that monster who's going to get all pissed off in twenty turns when my city grows? Do I tech up magic so I can recruit that awesome level 7 dude who can use the flame sword I just found, or do I tech up weapons so I can defend my cities? Do I split up my champions or keep them together to max out the monsters I can clear?

I did one expansion push and then realized that I had had a serious exploration failure -- there was a whole little region to the south that had such a narrow pathway connecting it that I'd totally missed it (one-square diagonal!). Did a hateable savebaby reload and headed down that way with some pioneers, and dropped an outpost in the middle of the pathway. Then some GODDAMNED pioneers from Lord Relias came over and decided they Really Wanted to Go Down That Pathway. In fact they just sat there. This meant I couldn't get any MORE pioneers down that way to colonize the city site just SITTING there. It was like they were nonviolently protesting my expansionist ways, or something.

So I killed them. What else could I do? This let me get another pioneer down there and start a fourth city. Unfortunately this precipitated a war with Relias. I had a little army of Procipinee, one other hero, and a summoned courageous evasive shadow warg. The fucking dog could eat entire armies for breakfast (especially with Obscuring Fog, my go-to air spell), but since I hadn't teched up weapons at all -- I was racing to unlock level 7 heroes, there were two waiting for me -- Relias was able to spam bunches of cheap units and I couldn't be everywhere at once.

So I'm going to once again hateably reload and this time have my champion personally block that pathway until I can get enough pioneers down it, and then start teching up weapons and building some militia so my entire empire can't get rolled over again. Also need to start buttering Relias up a bit to keep him off my dick until I can boom him out of existence. Once I unlock those level 7 heroes I'll be able to field two serious armies, and then the world is MINE.

Basically, I think this game fucking rocks at this point, even already. It feels like HoMM with more character development, and magic abuse is utterly feasible and entertaining -- the spell/counterspell thing brings tactics to spellcasting. I'm very happy that they're still relatively early in beta, because the fun is already in.

[Telefrog]

I keep getting game crashes about 75-100 turns in.

[Mr. Zero]

Those are two very encouraging posts, RepoMan.

[drish311]

Dumb question: How do I patch my Fallen Enchantress beta to the latest version. I think I have .76(.77?) installed.

[Telefrog]

Dumb question: How do I patch my Fallen Enchantress beta to the latest version. I think I have .76(.77?) installed.

https://store.stardock.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/myaccount

Go to "My Downloads" and look for the beta update.

[Brad Wardell]

I keep getting game crashes about 75-100 turns in.

Yea, that's not surprising. The crashes will continue throughout the beta due to the multithreaded nature of FE. With beta 2, we added auto reporting so we get the crash logs uploaded to us which has made a huge difference.

I wrote a little blog on it tonight actually:
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/418798/Notes_from_the_field_Fixing_fixing_fixing

The goal is that by beta 3 (end of March) to have these pretty nailed down. Then I'll be able to spin off threads to do all kinds of crazy AI work without it blowing up the game.

[Telefrog]

Yea, that's not surprising. The crashes will continue throughout the beta due to the multithreaded nature of FE. With beta 2, we added auto reporting so we get the crash logs uploaded to us which has made a huge difference.

I wrote a little blog on it tonight actually:
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/418798/Notes_from_the_field_Fixing_fixing_fixing

The goal is that by beta 3 (end of March) to have these pretty nailed down. Then I'll be able to spin off threads to do all kinds of crazy AI work without it blowing up the game.

Oh, it's okay. I know when you say "beta" you really mean it. The crashes haven't stopped me from firing it up and playing as much as I can.

[Huzurdaddi]

There has to be some kind of lock validation library for user space on windows. I can't google one up, but there has to be one, right (something like witness)?!

I mean widows has some of the best debugging tools out there (I have heard that they put IDNA into the latest visual studio, I am so envious), there *has* to a lock prover.

[Kelan]

Played quite a bit last night on my latest 0.86 game. I have been fortunate? that I have not had any crashes in any of the FE betas yet and am up to turn 250 or so on my latest game.

I am still trying to figure out how best to lay out my cities and stuff, but am enjoying the game. I finally found out that I can place outposts to gather up other special resources in areas where you cannot place cities. I really should take some time to read up a bit more in the online guide ;). I really like the way the roads auto-build between cities now. This helps a great deal once you settle on the other side of a forest, for example.

The game balance seems to be improving. Heroes take a bit longer to level up once you get through the first few levels. Some of the special abilites of monsters take a bit to devise a strategy other than to charge head-long into them. I summoned some chaff to throw at a demon and that didn't work so well as he healed himself a great deal (by stealing their essence?) each time he killed one. So, throwing only tougher units at him was a better strategy.

The economy also seems just about right. I always seemed to have just enough cash flow to be able to hire the amount of units I felt I needed at any given time. Some level 5 and 7 heroes seemed to cost an exorbitant amount, though. I think I had one that took about 1200 gold to hire, but I hit that amount in my treasury about the same time I hit the tech to hire one. It would have taken all of my gold, though. A strategy that seemed to work well was to set the tax rate to zero for the first few techs and builds to get the cities and research jump-started. It is a nice touch to have the tax rate selection right on the main screen and as you mouse-over the arrows to change it, it shows you how much your total kingdom output would change for gold, production, and research. The tax rate affects the unrest in your cities which can hinder the research output and production.

I am just starting to get into my first war so will see how that goes. I am liking the improvements each time I get a new build, though. Keep up the good work!

[Piemax2]

The game still needs some tweaking and bug-fixing, and I still get the occasional crash or late-game performance problems. But this (.86) is the first build where I've been able to play a game to completion, and what's more I'm actually enjoying it. It still doesn't grab me as much as Fall from Heaven did, but I can see spending many hours on this when it gets done.

[RepoMan]

Phew, another binge last night. Got most of the map locked down, the AI Relias stuck in one corner, but somehow he's still out-booming me -- his cities are ENORMOUS compared to mine! What the hell kind of techs is he running??? Wish there was some way to see that, or some after-game report, or something. Either the AI is cheating (on normal!), or I suck at booming, or he went deep into the econ tech tree early while I was boosting weapons and magic.

Still, I've now got two hero stacks -- finally got to unlock the level seven heroes -- and I just took one of his largest cities, and I should be able to keep cranking out upgraded troops if I can get all my cities aligned. Fielding the army is getting expensive, and gold is scarce right now, especially given the upgrade cost as I worked my way up to armorsmith. But my soldiers have much better weapons than Relias's peons, so I'm not having much trouble with the spam-stacks.

I just did another quest that released shitloads of monsters -- spiders fucking EVERYWHERE! -- but I should be able to mop them up this time, and get that sweet, sweet XP. Plus it's right at the edge of our territories, so hopefully the spiders will eat more of his guys than they do mine....

This game is already great. Good to hear others are having a similar experience.

Kelan, thanks for the tip about tax rate zero at start of game -- that's exactly the kind of suggestion I need. What are the best early techs for getting a city off on the right foot? I'm a boomer by nature.

Also, one amusing part of my current game is I have so many shrines locked down that I now have like 1700+ magic!!! My biggest problem now is finding enough to spend it on... in fact I should probably focus on magic research for a while, unlock some seriously bad-ass spells and magical weapons, why not? VERY satisfying to be pounding the essentially non-magic-using AI with all kinds of horrible mystical beatdowns -- Pandemonium and Obscuring Fog are indispensable because they both affect everyone (well, all enemies or all allies, respectively). Last night a lucky Pandemonium spell one-shot killed a fire serpent!

[Armando Penblade]

Phew, another binge last night. Got most of the map locked down, the AI Relias stuck in one corner, but somehow he's still out-booming me -- his cities are ENORMOUS compared to mine! What the hell kind of techs is he running??? Wish there was some way to see that, or some after-game report, or something. Either the AI is cheating (on normal!), or I suck at booming, or he went deep into the econ tech tree early while I was boosting weapons and magic.

Your guess is super-likely. There are important food- and prestige-boosting techs (both those that give a flat bonus and those that provide for structures that improve it further) throughout the first 2/3rds of the Econ line, and then there's the generic 10% food bonus tech you can repeat at the end of the tree.

Food is super weird to me. You settle and get a grain for every piece of arable land of near enough to the city. . . and each grain can generate X food. Techs increase it more and more as time goes on (10 extra food per grain, 5 extra, 10% more, etc.), and buildings do the same, with some like the Great Mill (I think) offering a huge %-age bonus.

If you back that up with prestige-boosters (Extra pop growth every turn) and a relatively small number of cities (it appears that global Prestige is split amongst your cities evenly), you can achieve huge growth for a long, long time.

If you don't get those techs, you stall out at like, 20-30 food per grain, which only nets you, say, 150 people from an otherwise very grain-rich city. If you can get it to more like 40-60 food-per-grain, with enough prestige to boost up to 4-6 people per turn, you can hit those massive level 4 and 5 cities that unlock more and even more powerful %-boost structures as random rewards.

I focus almost exclusively on this tree after recruiting a few heroes and getting good enough weapons to kill whatever monsters are actively threatening my city in the early game.

[RepoMan]

AHA! PRESTIGE BOOSTS GROWTH! Duh. I mean, like, triple duh. OK, awesome, I'm good to go now. WATCH OUT, RELIAS!

I think the moral here is that the game already supports some serious strategy diversity, which is of course wonderful.

[TurinTur]

A new journal.
http://forums.elementalgame.com/418975

Nothing juicy, except some (vague) promises of further differentiation of factions and champions.

[TurinTur]

Vote in the poll
http://www.elementalgame.com/journals

"What area of FE would you like us to work on the most?"

I am happy that Facion differentiation is winning, and clearly. Still, vote it more so they understand well that's the part they have to improve.

[BigWeather]

Really looking forward to playing FE. For whatever reason I didn't end up getting WoM (probably was on a console binge at the time) but FE seems like it is really getting great. Kudos to Stardock for sticking with it!

[TurinTur]

http://forums.elementalgame.com/419478


Q: No, seriously, I hate when people say that. Do you have any sort of time line?

A: This Spring we plan to release a BETA 3, in Summer we expect to release BETA 4. During Beta 4 we’ll evaluate where things stand. But we still view the game as being in a good place but still months away from release.

Q: How much will the final game be different from the current game?

A: Probably quite a bit. We get into a lot of debates on this subject with beta testers because there is often a disconnect between what is part of Fallen Enchantress’s design principles versus what a user thinks “needs” to be in the game.

Q: What areas should we expect to see the game expand on?

A: Our recent poll confirmed that our beta group seems to be on the same page as us. Making each faction be very different matters a lot to us. Secondly, the city management is an area with a great deal of work ahead for it. Not on the poll but diplomacy is an area we want to expand on.

Ohh, I thought the game would be out in two months or so. If they plan to be still in Beta during the Summer, they still have time to improve it. Good.

[KevinC]

It's odd that every update contains a different reason they don't have MP. Last time it was "we would have to rewrite tactical battles" and now it's "It's 90% done, we just don't want to split resources testing it".

Not including it is their call, obviously, it's just odd that it changes every post.

[Giaddon]

Those aren't necessarily different. The remaining 10% could be the work on tactical battles.

[TurinTur]

The "remaining 10%" of something in software development is usually the hardest 10% part. So take the expression with a grain of salt.

[RepoMan]

Back at v0.86 last night. Thanks to tips here and elsewhere I started focusing on econ tech, and that along with a massive pioneer rush got me a whole lot of territory.

Only problem is the FUCKING computer still beat me to the Great Mill, and I have no idea how it did it. I was trying every trick I knew (good starting placement, low taxes for as long as possible, building a farm the instant I had agriculture, etc.), and still none of my cities had even reached level 3 yet. How the AI got a city to level 3, and then got all the way to the Great Mill, that quickly, is something I would really fucking love to know. Probably will start stirring shit on the FE forums about this.

[RepoMan]

...Aha, or I could just read the game mechanics FAQ (http://forums.elementalgame.com/419432) which is more helpful than anything I've seen yet.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Repo, you getting any crashes?


I've decided to just wait till they put out another beta patch before playing anymore because I seem to get them all too often. I hadn't gotten a single crash till this latest build, and even then I played a game or two with no problems.

[RepoMan]

I got one crash last night just after saving, but it managed to flush my game to disk before dying, so I lost no playtime whatsoever. Then I played for two straight hours crash-free. On my oldish Core 2 Quad Q9300 dual-8800GT system with 4GB RAM, it's totally sufficiently playable for me to get gamelocked.

[WarrenD]

Stardock has released a video featuring the intro of Elemental: Fallen Enchantress-http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/27/introduction-to-elemental-fallen-enchantress-released-in-video-form/

[Island Dog]

There was also a media tour this past week and some sites have starting publishing their takes on the previews for Fallen Enchantress.

http://www.rtsguru.com/article/2538/Elemental-Fallen-Enchantress-and-Sins-Rebellion-Set-to-Please-Stardock-Fans.html

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/167416/Stardocks_really_dumb_plan_Make_a_sequel_to_a_medi ocre_game.php

[TurinTur]

http://forums.elementalgame.com/421004


In general the differences between weapons and their impact on other armies or monsters didn't mean as much as I wanted. I was being too subtle. So I went through every monster and gave them dramatic strengths and weaknesses. Trolls are all vulnerable to fire, Ice Elementals have no defense against blunt weapons. Naja and Stalkers are immune to counter attacks. Ogres all have bad spell resistance. Nearly every monster has areas where it is weak, and areas where it is strong.

The same thing has been done with armies. Armor has been rebalanced and instead of being 50% more effective against certain damage types it is 100% more effective. Abilities have been added to all weapons. Swords all have counterattack. All axes have backswing. Spears still have armor piercing, but they also make the unit immune to counter attack. Hammer type weapons don't have an ability but tend to be big, slow and do lots of damage to make up for it.

What weapon you use matters. And many of the factions have special versions that drive this even further. Krax has one handed versions of the spears that they can use with shields. Umber has scimitars that have backswing and counterattack. Pariden has a staff that shoots lighting. Yithril has a great axe that has armor piercing (it's devastating).



Another example, races now give a bloodline trait. Ironeer's get +6 to Spell Resistance and an additional Hit Point per level, but their tactical spells cost 50% more than normal. This applies to trained units and any Ironeer champions you recruit (regardless of what race you are playing as). It also applies to any custom sovereign you create that has Ironeer as their race. All Pariden units get a minor boost depending on the amount of shards and the type of shards you control. All Wraiths get -1 hit point per level, but they heal 3 hit points whenever they kill an opponent.


Can Yithril start all the trained units off at 2nd level? (yes, but they won't get access to ranged units). Can Kulan have an ability that allows him to take control of enemy beasts in combat? (yes, but it has a range of 1 and a 2 turn casting time, you better be able to survive 2 turns of cave bear attacks if you want to capture one).

We won't have all the new faction abilities in by the start of Beta 3. But there will be enough that you all can start playing with them and providing feedback. One of the ones we were focusing on last week was Magnar. They can't build any growth improvements, no Inn, no Pub, no Brewery, etc. But when they defeat men or fallen in combat (be they bandits or enemy armies) they add them as population to the nearest Magnar city. And they keep the ability to take population from the cities they raze. People aren't flooding out of the wilderness to join Mangar cities, they need a bit more proding.

Magnar doesn't get any new weapon or armor. But they have a new unit type they can design from. If you go into the Unit Design screen you have Male and Female at the bottom. Some factions have other options they can design on, for Magnar that’s slave units.

Slaves don’t have any training cost and you don't have to pay them wages. You still need to pay for the training time to make whatever weapons and armor you give them, and their stats aren't very impressive. At some point you will want to use real Quendar units if you are already spending the time to craft valuable armor and weapons. But for good cheap archers, warg riders and militia, slaves work great (and you can't beat 0 wages)

We used to have the conscripts trait that was attempting to provide a similar benefit, but it didn't work as well. Now there is a nice visual distinction between the larger Quendar units and the smaller slaves they are marshaling into battle.

Magnar also gets access to unique spells. Death Lash makes a unit dramatically more powerful, but then kills it at the end of battle. Cull the Weak kills one of your own trained units but heals the caster and gives back some mana. For Magnar their cheap slaves are fodder, have fun with them.

[Nephrinn]

Wow, the faction changes sound great!

[BobM]

Talk to dirty to me, baby.

[Dunqan]

Good to hear and the changes sound very interesting for some differentiated gameplay!

Dunqan

[Island Dog]

If you're not in the beta and wanted to see some gameplay, G4TV has a gameplay walkthrough up.

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/58016/elemental-fallen-enchantress-gameplay-walkthrough-video/

[Island Dog]

Heads up - Dev Diary #3 (video) is posted.

http://youtu.be/3ArdQVqLHsI

[Mysterio]

Beta 3 delayed until next week. (http://forums.elementalgame.com/421860)

[Telefrog]

Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Constitution have been removed from the game. These were primary stats that effected other things. Rather than doing that we will adjust the other things directly.

That's a pretty big change.

[bakka bakka bakka]

Wow. These are the kinds of changes i thought would come with the original beta. I'm very excited to try this out.

[Dan_Theman]

Fascinating ... I'm also curious to see how this sorts out.

[TurinTur]

Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Constitution have been removed from the game. These were primary stats that effected other things. Rather than doing that we will adjust the other things directly.


That's a pretty big change.


Yeees... I hate the D&D model, so stupid to have some primary stats that only serve to modify a second set of secondary stats. Just make your secondary stats the main ones and be done with it.

edit:
More faction dif.



-As Magnar has their wageless slave legions and the ability to add population from defeated enemies
-Gilden can create designable Iron Golems if they have enough mana and metal. T
-Tarth ignores terrain penalties (they move normally through forests, swamps, hills and rivers), receive a bonus when in small armies and get all new bows with higher attack and no metal requirements. They also get Masterwork Chainmail armor instead of Plate Mail armor at Heavy armor, which is lighter and quicker to produce and better against cutting attack, but isn't generally as good defensively as Plate Mail.
-Krax gets one handed versions of all the spears in the game, allowing them keep their shields. They also get a Round Shield replacement called the Bronze Shield which gives them an additional bonus versus ranged attacks and they have inherited Tarth's old ability to get +10 defnese when under 50% of their hit points. They retain their +10% per city level bonus to Accuracy, Attack and Defense when defneding cities.
-Finally Karavox gains the Silver Tongue ability, the ability to spend influence in tactical combat to flip trained units to his side.

[DKDArtagnan]

Except the primary stats in D&D affect other things than merely the secondary stats.

[ydejin]

Yeees... I hate the D&D model, so stupid to have some primary stats that only serve to modify a second set of secondary stats. Just make your secondary stats the main ones and be done with it.

Is that really the D&D model? I haven't spent any time with 4th Edition, but in 3rd Edition IIRC each of the primary stats gave direct adds to damage, to hit, or saving throws. I thought it was all very straightforward.

[DKDArtagnan]

The primary stats in D&D 3+ (though I'm not too familiar with 4th Edition) also served as requisites for certain feats and were important in what level of spells you could learn, etc.

They weren't just redundant stats at all.

[foogla]

Except the primary stats in D&D affect other things than merely the secondary stats.

And it created a tier of bonuses, and with that interesting choices. Do you use the +2 DEX bow or the +2 Attack bow, do you use the +10 HP belt or the +3 CON belt etc. It only gets bad when the primary to secondary formulas are broken (Hello I'm a Wizard and put everything ever into INT).

[DKDArtagnan]

And it created a tier of bonuses, and with that interesting choices. Do you use the +2 DEX bow or the +2 Attack bow, do you use the +10 HP belt or the +3 CON belt etc. It only gets bad when the primary to secondary formulas are broken (Hello I'm a Wizard and put everything ever into INT).

True.

I think the worst design oversight was the dominance of STR for melee characters - in that it directly affects BOTH to hit and damage.

[Disconnected]

Is that really the D&D model?

D&D basically had two different resolution mechanics; one for combat, and one for everything else.

The everything else mechanic was the ability scores. You'd roll nd6 or d20 against whatever ability score most closely related to whatever you were trying to do.

The combat mechanic was a single d20 against a GM provided target number, with modifiers derived from related ability scores.

Mind that these mechanics didn't come from nothing, and they haven't remained unchanged. Though they ought to be recognisable to anyone who's actually played some version of D&D on the tabletop.
And that's really the thing, I guess. CRPG systems designers, generally speaking, don't appear to have ever read any TTRPGs. Instead they appear to have this screwed up and ever-snowballing legacy of increasingly limited and broken interpretations of interpretations of a TTRPG that existed over thirty years ago.

I'm totally in favour of cutting ties to that particular steaming pile. If your designers have some lemming-like imperative to only base their work in the failures and not the successes of others, better they base their work on nothing at all.

[Mr. Zero]

The gametrailers walkthrough looked good; it's one thing to see "unit design" as a bullet on a feature list and another to toggle between wargs and horses as you decide on a mount for an ice mage. I like that the AI uses your designs as well -- that was one of the more intriguing parts about Spore.

[bakka bakka bakka]

I really hated the AI using my designs. It wasn't intelligent enough to use them for their purpose and it really broke my immersion to see Tarth using my Sons of Karavox.

[ydejin]

I really hated the AI using my designs. It wasn't intelligent enough to use them for their purpose and it really broke my immersion to see Tarth using my Sons of Karavox.

Me too. Definitely not a fan of this.

[Jarrodhk]

The AI using player designs seems to go against the desire to differentiate the factions.

It reminds me of the way the pirates in Distant Worlds somehow manage to steal/build/maintain cutting edge ship designs.

[Kael]

The AI will only use the designs for the faction you create them for. So if you are playing Tarth and you create some Tarth units then the next time the AI is playing Tarth they may use your units (if it likes them).

We had a bug in early builds where the AI would use the unit designs for the wrong factions, but that has been fixed.

[LeSquide]

The AI will only use the designs for the faction you create them for. So if you are playing Tarth and you create some Tarth units then the next time the AI is playing Tarth they may use your units (if it likes them).

We had a bug in early builds where the AI would use the unit designs for the wrong factions, but that has been fixed.

But I'm bad at unit design!

D:

More seriously, that is pretty boss.

[Jarrodhk]

The AI will only use the designs for the faction you create them for. So if you are playing Tarth and you create some Tarth units then the next time the AI is playing Tarth they may use your units (if it likes them).

We had a bug in early builds where the AI would use the unit designs for the wrong factions, but that has been fixed.

Ah! That sounds much better! I'm pretty sure I played one of those builds, so that is where my impression came from.

Thank you for clearing that up Kael.

[TurinTur]

...People have to remember this is still a beta, not a full, finished game. Of course there will be bugs, and unfinished things, that's why it's dangerous to pass judgment right now.

[Mysterio]

Impressive (http://forums.elementalgame.com/422486).

[BleedTheFreak]

I wish they'd take this a bit more seriously.

[Telefrog]

+ Added the Autodefend ability- whenever a unit doesn't use their attack action (casting a spell, attacking, anything except moving) they are "Defending" and get a bonus to Defense. The amount of this bonus can be modified by traist or equipment (like shields)

I love this. It's always been clunky to me that you have to choose to defend in these games rather than automatically doing it.

[dbd1963]

I was sad to see Tarth was forced to hand over their semi colons.

[TurinTur]

I wish they'd take this a bit more seriously.

?

2345

[BleedTheFreak]

LOL I was being sarcastic. :)

[TurinTur]

My OCD is kicking in, I need to order this shit, the middle pat of the new features was really unorganized:



New Items

+ Added the Amulet of Haste item- craftable accessory, +2 initiative

+ Added the Belt of Speed item- craftable accessory, +1 initiative

+ Added the Ring of Life- craftable accessory, +3 Hit points

+ Added the Token of the Wolf- item that summons a wolf to join you

+ Added the Aegis Robe- Magical robe that offers reasonable defense

New Spells

+ Added the Enchanted Hammers spell- +3 prod per material in the target city

+ Added the Silence spell- target unit cant cast spells for 3 turns, unless they resist

+ Added the Bless City spell- Reduces the unrest in the city, it can be cast multiple times but has a very high mana cost

+ Added the Gift of Iron spell (tactical spell that stoneskins your entire army)

+ Added the Tidal Wave spell- do high damage to enemy armies that are near water

+ Added the Counterspell spell- Allows you to cancel a spell in the process of being cast (unless the target resists)

+ Added a Strategic version of the Wellspring spell (heals all units in an army)

+ Added the Dispel Enchantment spell- dispels random curse on target city

+ Added the Flame Wave spell- does fire damage to all enemies

+ Added the Frozen Bones spell- lowers the initiative of all units in target city (curse)

+ Added the Incinerate City spells- does damage to all units in target city (curse)

+ Added the Beastlord sovereign background- Allows the player to use the Tame spell to try to capture anything with a Beast race

+ Added the Call Slag spell- Summons a slag into battle

+ Added the Call Uteran spell- Summons a great cave bear into battle

+ Added the Chain Lightning spell- Does a random amount of lightning damage to all enemies with an area of effect

+ Added the Demonic Ally spell- Summons a demon into battle


New traits

+ Added the Defender levelup traits- bonus to the defensive bonus when autodefending

+ Added the Lethal levelup traits- They increase attackget unit, but that unit is killed t the end of battle

+ Added the Potential 1, 2 and 3 champion levelup traits (increased xp)

+ Added Spell Resistance 2 and 3 champion levelup traits

+ Added the Broken Spirit trait (for surrendered sovereigns)

+ Added the Immune to Counterattack trait

+ Added the Spit Fire ability- Ignys ability to breath fire

+ Added the Hobble ability- Normal attack that slows the victim for 3 turns

+ Added the Frostborn trait- Slows victims that are struck


Faction stuff

+ Added the Urxen blood trait which gives +2 Attack when in armies of 5 or more

+ Added the Assassins Tools faction ability- Gives access to the Poison Vial (additional poison damage on every attack), Scimitar (lognsword with counterattack and backswing) and the Skath Claw (Broadsword with increased attack and initiative)


New buildings

+ Added the Monument improvement (+1 ZoC)

+ Added the Bazaar, an improvement unlocked by the Legacy of Serrane faction ability that gives +10% gold

+ Added the Treasury Vault improvement- World achievement, +1% interest on the treasury every turn

+ Added the Smelter improvement- +50% metal

+ Added the Foundry improvement- +50% crystal

+ Added the Iron Works improvement- World achievement, Increases faction prestige by 1 and research by 2 per material

+ Added the Conclave improvement- Requires 30 influence to build, increases faction prestige by 1 and research by 10%.

+ Added the Alchemist Lab improvement- Converts 1 crystal to 0.5 metal and 0.5 influence per turn.

+ Added the Cleric improvement- Requires 10 crystal, reduces unrest and increases city growth.

+ Added the Festival improvement- Increases growth by 2 when city is idle, requires 20 diplomatic capital (this should probably be a player achievement)

+ Added the Sage improvement- faction achievement, provides 1 research plus a 10% research for city

+ Added the Scholar's Guild improvement- faction achievement, Increases city research by 25% when city is idle. Requires diplomatic capital.


New tech

+ Added the Alchemy tech

+ Added the Book of Flames, Book of Stones and Book of Frost techs- they have a 33% chance of appearing each game and they unlock spells of their type


New Lairs/map stuff

+ Added the Order of Asok Lair- Occasionally spawns troublesome knights, players that capture and build camps here can recruit knights

+ Added the Dark Wizard lair and an upgraded version

+ Added the Secluded Pool goodie hut- heals units that visit

+ Players can also recruit Hunters from mercenary camps



There is more, read the full changelog.

[TurinTur]

LOL I was being sarcastic. :)

Oh.

Sarcasm, Internet... you know how hard it's sometimes to notice.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Holy crap! That is one huge list of changes.

[RepoMan]

+ Removed the Enlightenment tech (Derek- Knowledge techs at the end of the tree don’t make sense, I don’t know what I was thinking)

Gotta love the candor :-D

Also the irony: he achieved enlightenment and realized enlightenment shouldn't exist.

[TurinTur]

Heh

+ Iron golems can't ride mounts (peta complained)
+ Champions don’t have staves anymore, who wants to recruit a guy with a stick
+ What does a pastry filled with fruit or meat and 3.14159 have in common?
+ Path of the Mage no longer gives +3 spell mastery
+ They are both pie


Faster research?

+ Libraries give +20% research instead of +10%
+ Schools give +20% research instead of +10%

Several buffs, lots of stuff have been made 50-100% more powerful, and some of it even three or four times more powerful like

+ Deflect Missiles gives +20 Dodge vs ranged attacks instead of +5
+ Prodigy gives +5/10/15 to spell mastery instead of +3/4/5
+ Increased Stoneskin from +2 (+3 per earth shard) to defense to +10 (+5 per earth shard)

Lots of traits to make Champions more interesting.

Important changes buried in the balance part like these ones



+ Constructing on remote resources now costs 10 gold
+ Most improvements no longer have any maint. costs
+ Default max army size reduced from 5 to 4
+ Max accessories reduced from 4 to 3
+ ZOC increases now only occur by city level or in explicit improvements.
+ Merchants provide 1 gildar per material
+ Palaces, Tower of Dominion and Theaters no longer increase the ZoC
+ Gold Deposits are less common
+ Reduced the frequency of crystal from 2 per player to 1.5 per player
+ Increased distances between resources slightly
+ Increased the init penalty on bows by 2
+ Rebalanced weapon damage increasing the amount between tiers, blubs do less, tier 1 does slightly less, tier 2 does slightly more, tier 3 does significantly more


Champions that can build roads

+ Champion Endis Steelhand can now build roads
+ Champion Gaylyn the Gray can now build roads

edit:

Also:


Derek Paxton

April 19, 2012 4:48:01 PM from Elemental Forums Elemental Forums

That list is nowhere near inclusive. Even as I play Im seeing things I forgot in the changelog or I trimmed to quickly. The internal changelog was 270 pages with the technical details, I cut it down to the above 20 pages (without pictures).

[RepoMan]

Ooooh, faster research. My favorite. Must... abuse... research... buffs... heavily....

Edit: As long as we're spooging over the notes, here's the heart of beta 3: the faction differentiation.


+ Altar- Gets access to the Athican Leather Curiass (increased defense and fire resistance), Fending Blade (shortsword that increases Dodge) and the Athican Longsword (longsword that allows 2 counterattacks per turn). All Altar units get +10% experience.

+ Resoln- All wraith units get -1 hit point per level but heal a hit point each time they kill an opponent.

+ Tarth- Tarth units get +2 to Attack an Initiative when in armies of 3 or smaller. Tarth has access to the Heartwood Shortbow (higher attack and initiative than a normal shortbow), Ithuane Longbow (higher attack and initiative than a normal longbow and it doesn’t require metal) and the Ram's Horn Longbow (high attack and initiative than the Yew Longbow, it doesn't require metal and it has 50% armor piercing). All tarth units can move though forests, swamps, hills and rivers at normal movement rates. Tarth crafts Masterwork chainmail instead of Plate Mail at Heavy Armor. Masterwork Chainmail doesn't provide as much defense but is lighter and quicker to produce.

+ Krax- Krax units are +10 Defense when under 50% of their hit points. Krax has access to 1 handed versions of all the craftable spears. Karavox gains the Silver Tongue ability which allows him flip trained units to his side in tactical combat by spending influence. Krax also gets the Bronze Shield, a round shield that gives additional Dodge vs Ranged attacks.

+ Magnar- All Quendar units get 25% Fire Resistance. Magnar can craft Scar Stones which give their units +1 fire attack. They have access to the Cull the Weak (sacrifice a unit in combat to heal the caster and recover some mana), Death Lash (boost a units stst in combat but the unit is killed at the end of combat) and Candlecloak (you army is wreathed in fire, damaging any that attack them) spells. Men or Fallen units defeated by Magnar are added as population to their cities. Magnar can train slave units that are cheap, and weak but don't require wages. Magnar cannot construct growth improvements (inns, festivals, etc)

+ Gilden- All Ironeer units have +1 hit points per level and +30 Spell Resistance. It costs 50% more mana for them to cast tactical spells. Markin improves the defense of all gilden units by 25%. Gilden crafts Light Plate Mail at Armor instead of Chain Mail. Light Plate Mail has a better defense than chain mail but is heavier and harder to produce. Gilden upgrades their units for half the normal cost. Gilden has access to the Golem Shield (an increidably heavy tower shield), War Club (a club with an additional attack bonus vs men and fallen), the Battle Hammer (a warhammer with higher attack) and the Sledge (a one handed Maul). Gilden can construct Iron Golem units that have a very high defense and hit points, but a weak attack (compared to their production cost).

+ Pariden- All Amarian units get a bonus to their stats based on the shards you control. Pariden gets access to the Sindarian Staff (which gives bonus dodge) and the Leht staff (which fires lightning). Pariden has access to the Tome of the Inferno, Tome of the Mountain, Tome of the Waves and Tome of the Wind, which add the Fire Apprentice, Earth Apprentice, etc abilities to the unit that uses them. These tomes are unlocked at the Sorcery tech. (it's worth a trip to Pariden cities if you are on good terms with them and they unlocked Sorcery to buy some tomes for your champions).

+ Yitrhil- All trogs get +20 weight capacity. Yithril trained units start off at 2nd level. Yithril cannot use ranged weapons but they get access to the Trog Battleaxe (a Battleaxe with armor piercing) and the Great Axe (a Great Sword replacement with higher attack and backswing). Verga's Warlord background also gives -50% to unit wages.

Pariden FTW, clearly, given my nerdish magely tendencies in this game.

Also really, why don't they just name them Barbs, Spooks, Elves, Humans, Demons, Dwarves, Mages, and Orcs? I can never get too far behind the made-up names. Kohan had the same issue....

[Island Dog]

There's some new screenshots too. :)

http://forums.elementalgame.com/422495

[KevinC]

Which blood god do I sacrifice to in order to get coop added back in to this?

[Mr. Zero]

Ooooh, faster research. My favorite. Must... abuse... research... buffs... heavily....

Edit: As long as we're spooging over the notes, here's the heart of beta 3: the faction differentiation.



Pariden FTW, clearly, given my nerdish magely tendencies in this game.

Also really, why don't they just name them Barbs, Spooks, Elves, Humans, Demons, Dwarves, Mages, and Orcs? I can never get too far behind the made-up names. Kohan had the same issue....

That could be a project to get your feet wet on modding Elemental.

[Jason Lutes]

Beta 0.90 is go.

[Warren]

I was sad to see Tarth was forced to hand over their semi colons.

also:

+ What does a pastry filled with fruit or meat and 3.14159 have in common?

+ Path of the Mage no longer gives +3 spell mastery

+ They are both pie

[Brian Rubin]

Wow, this is looking amazing. Gotta download it...

[Jarrodhk]

Played an hour or so with the new beta. It feels much better now than before.

Still haven't seen many of the new quests/item/etc, but, what I have seen is very fun. I really like the options for the refugee camp for instance.

Spend some gildar to make them into a pioneer unit. Spend some gildar to add them to the population of your capital. Or you can tax them for some gildar.

I do wish that new units wouldn't pop out of the city that built them upon completion.

[DKDArtagnan]

Arnold Total Recall voice: GIEF THEES BETA AIR!

Air = Multiplayer.

SEA YOO AD DA PARDI RICHTAH!

[Kelan]

Ugh! Already a super busy weekend ahead and now this has a huge impressive update. Guess I won't be getting much sleep this weekend.

Do we need to keep downloading the full install or can I just use the Update version? I am at version 0.86 right now.

[Jarrodhk]

You can just download the update. I think it is around 220 megs.

[Kelan]

You can just download the update. I think it is around 220 megs.

Cool, thanks! Will do.

[lordkosc]

Wait I thought you had to get the 2.4 gig then the 273 mb update.

[Kael]

I do wish that new units wouldn't pop out of the city that built them upon completion.

There is a game option for that.

http://screencast.com/t/2DwRqlgRK

[Jarrodhk]

There is a game option for that.

http://screencast.com/t/2DwRqlgRK

Son of a... huh. Guess I need to look at the options a bit more closely before inserting foot.

[Island Dog]

Wait I thought you had to get the 2.4 gig then the 273 mb update.

If you don't have FE installed, yes. Otherwise you can just download the beta update.

There was also a small update this morning.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/422578

[Mysterio]

If you don't have FE installed, yes. Otherwise you can just download the beta update.

There was also a small update this morning.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/422578

Still shows the 0.90 update in the Stardock store instead of 0.91.

[Island Dog]

Yeah, meant to say it's coming. :)

[Brian Rubin]

Oh wait, so if I don't have it installed, I have to install the base game then the update? Sorry, it looked like they had the same version numbers, so I'm confused.

[Mysterio]

Oh wait, so if I don't have it installed, I have to install the base game then the update? Sorry, it looked like they had the same version numbers, so I'm confused.

If you don't have Fallen Enchantress installed, you want to choose "Beta Download" only.

If you have Fallen Enchantress installed, you want to choose "Beta Update" only.

Stardock updates both with each patch release.

[RepoMan]

http://www.draginol.com/images2012/FE-Beta-3-screenshots_10668/Shadow-World.png

[Brian Rubin]

Thanks Mysterio!

Repo, holy crap!

[Armando Penblade]

From the patch notes:


+New Glowspider creep-type; Large-size mid-game creature. When operating in packs, gains the ability BREAK H-SCROLL.

[Benhur]

I'd like to play the update but I'm having the toughest time. The beta I have won't update so I'm going to reinstall. The problem is, I have no idea how to uninstall the beta. There is no unistaller inclued. Any ideas?

[Mysterio]

I'd like to play the update but I'm having the toughest time. The beta I have won't update so I'm going to reinstall. The problem is, I have no idea how to uninstall the beta. There is no unistaller inclued. Any ideas?

It should be listed as "Elemental: Fallen Enchantress" in the "Uninstall a program" section of the Control Panel.

[Warren]

I'd like to play the update but I'm having the toughest time. The beta I have won't update so I'm going to reinstall. The problem is, I have no idea how to uninstall the beta. There is no unistaller inclued. Any ideas?

I also had trouble with the update installer. In my case it complained about some missing value in the registry.

I bit the bullet and downloaded the full install, and it mercifully uninstalled the prior version on its own.


It should be listed as "Elemental: Fallen Enchantress" in the "Uninstall a program" section of the Control Panel.

That sounds much simpler ... wish I'd have thought to look there. D'oh.

[lordkosc]

If you don't have FE installed, yes. Otherwise you can just download the beta update.

There was also a small update this morning.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/422578

good to know! :)

[ShivaX]

I played it a bit and... it wasn't shit.

It actually had some kinda cool moments.

I'm scared.

[lordkosc]

I am really enjoying the art style, it has a look now worthy of a fantasy game. :)

[Jake Plane]

Can someone post a "look, maybe you heard of elemental war of magic and how much it sucked but this game ain't that and here's why you should give it a shot/buy it/adore it" post?

I want to support Stardock but comments like "eh... it wasn't sh#t" don't exactly fill me with hope.

[Dan_Theman]

look, maybe you heard of elemental war of magic and how much it sucked but this game ain't that and here's why you should give it a shot/buy it/adore it:
This is a nice looking fantasy strategy game, and it's fun to play even in a beta state.

[Calelari]

Plus it seems to do a fine job of kicking my ass. But then I always suspected I suck.

[Disconnected]

Can someone post a "look, maybe you heard of elemental war of magic and how much it sucked but this game ain't that and here's why you should give it a shot/buy it/adore it" post?

In terms of presentation, E:WoM lacked the little touches that makes a game look like it's actually finished and the money didn't run out half-way through asset creation. And while the cloth map ran reasonably well on our machines, the 3D ran about as well as the original Crysis at ultra quality.

E:FE don't lack all those little touches anymore. Assuming you like the very distinctive art direction, it looks great. More importantly, the 3D no longer runs like like a drunk torso-boy. Any reasonably current hardware should give you a lovely 60fps.

As for the actual game bits... They're completely different games. Prestige works pretty much like it always did, there's the global mana pool, unit design is visually similar. A lot of the GUI is similar. But most of the game mechanics are entirely different, and off the top of my head I don't think even a single one of those that also were in E:WoM hasn't been changed in a fairly fundamental way.

So forget E:WoM. E:FE is an entirely different game in every way that could possibly matter to you.

That still doesn't tell you whether you should get E:FE, though, but that's quite deliberate on my part. I haven't had a chance to really get to know the current build of E:FE, but my initial impression is that it is somewhere between a very good 4X and a fantastic one. The problem is that you can't, or at least shoudn't, rely on that opinion. Because every beta so far has made thorough and extremely far-reaching changes to the game, in many and fundamental ways. I don't think anyone (SD included) currently knows with any certainty whether we've seen that last of that, or if it will continue. And if it does continue, the final game may well be almost entirely unlike Beta 3.

So far these far-reaching changes have overall been drastic improvements, so I'm very optimistic about the final game. But right now, I don't think anyone is in a position to give an honest opinion on the final game.

I hope it will be fantastic. It seems like it probably will be. But if you're not in the beta already you should only buy in now if it's because you want to play the beta (assuming it works that way, I haven't checked).

[Jake Plane]

Thank you very kindly Disconnected (and uh... you too Dan). Definitely has me interested and I'm definitely willing to give it a go

[TurinTur]

Can someone post a "look, maybe you heard of elemental war of magic and how much it sucked but this game ain't that and here's why you should give it a shot/buy it/adore it" post?

I want to support Stardock but comments like "eh... it wasn't sh#t" don't exactly fill me with hope.

I think is basically the same game as Elemental.

But... It's better done, and more polished, in all areas. Better executed, with more time dedicated to the design.

Better AI.
Better factions.
Better hero progression
Better city management.
Better random maps.
More polished graphics.
Better UI.
Better in-game help.
More variety in monsters, items, spells, etc.
Better f/x for spells.
More interesting creatures and quests.
Better performance.
Better tech progression.
Better tactical combat.

Etc etc.

And as it's said usually, Execution matters, a lot.

[ydejin]

Can someone post a "look, maybe you heard of elemental war of magic and how much it sucked but this game ain't that and here's why you should give it a shot/buy it/adore it" post?

I want to support Stardock but comments like "eh... it wasn't sh#t" don't exactly fill me with hope.

I played quite a bit of Beta 1 and posted a pretty long summary (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?p=3030647#post3030647) on my impressions. The only reason I'm not playing Beta 3 yet is work has picked up and I'm very reluctant to get sucked into a "one-more-turn" strategy game, when I should be focusing on work.

The short answer is I was very impressed with what Kael had done with the game. It is a much more personal game, with extensive customization options for both heroes and army units. The game seems much more alive than Elemental did, and it does a great job of drawing you in, which Elemental IMO did not. Overall the game systems have all been cleaned up and are now in much better shape than the original game.

Also FE, for me, had that undefinable magic that really drew me in and made me want to keep playing (one turn after another, and then one game after another) that the best turn-based strategy games have.

[Jake Plane]

I played quite a bit of Beta 1 and posted a pretty long summary (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?p=3030647#post3030647) on my impressions. The only reason I'm not playing Beta 3 yet is work has picked up and I'm very reluctant to get sucked into a "one-more-turn" strategy game, when I should be focusing on work.

The short answer is I was very impressed with what Kael had done with the game. It is a much more personal game, with extensive customization options for both heroes and army units. The game seems much more alive than Elemental did, and it does a great job of drawing you in, which Elemental IMO did not. Overall the game systems have all been cleaned up and are now in much better shape than the original game.

Also FE, for me, had that undefinable magic that really drew me in and made me want to keep playing (one turn after another, and then one game after another) that the best turn-based strategy games have.

Oh dear lord. Downloading now. I hate you all.

[dbd1963]

I don't think you can go wrong with a Kael designed game. He seems to have whatever it is you need to have to recognize what makes "fun" happen.

[ydejin]

I don't think you can go wrong with a Kael designed game. He seems to have whatever it is you need to have to recognize what makes "fun" happen.

I agree. I really think that's the key. The new items that have been added to the original Elemental game are all items that make the game more fun. [Although there are a few items in the original game that got cut that I thought were interesting and I wish Kael would take a crack at trying to fix (most notably the dynasty system).] Moreover the things that got added in that are fun, but need more work are all being worked on now. Not only was I impressed by the original FE beta that came out, I think Kael has done a great job at spotting the stuff from Beta1 that was rough and needed to be improved on.

[Jake Plane]

JakePlane = Slow

Didn't realize who Kael was until a google informed me. Had I known, I never would have posted. Simply would have purchased.

[ydejin]

JakePlane = Slow

Didn't realize who Kael was until a google informed me. Had I known, I never would have posted. Simply would have purchased.

:-)

45

[Jason Lutes]

I've put in a fair amount of time with .91 over the past few days. The game has been vastly improved. Though it is still quite buggy (esp. quests and tactical combat), and the AI is pretty bad, it's playable and engaging. I daresay that in the end it will make me feel like less of an idiot for pre-purchasing Elemental what, almost two years ago now?

Kael has worked wonders, and if the arc of transformation set up over the past two beta updates continues, FE will be a good -- if not great -- game when it is done.

Design-wise there are still some things that bug me:

* The city sprawl mechanic only encourages cheesy building strategies, and diminishes the game's atmosphere by making the world seem smaller. This was one of Brad's cool-sounding ideas for E:WoM, and it has yet to be justified from a gameplay perspective. I wish they would just drop it entirely, or better yet, limit it to a single ring of growth, so that each city can only support 7 buildings (entailing tighter/tougher building choices).

* The lack of a per-turn mana use limit (as in MoM or AoW) just feels wrong. In a tactical battle, if I have 2000 mana stored up, I can use it all over the course of that one battle. MoM and AoW got it right, imo -- mana should "flow," not be "banked." That quality is part of what makes it feel so different from production resources in those games. If mana use was limited by per-turn flow and/or a per-caster use limit, you could add mana banking as a tech or special city building.

* I really want all spells to be unlocked via the magic tech tree, instead of some being gained with level-up perks and others being unlocked via the tech tree. It feels weird that I have to research how to make a spear, but some casters just automatically know how to cast fireball. Better yet: make magic academies a city structure where champions have to go to learn spells after they've been researched (a la HoMM).

* Outpost spam is really annoying and un-thematic. Maybe an outpost should have an upkeep cost based on the number of resources in its proximity. The decision of when and where to build one needs to feel more important; as it is now, you can just churn out pioneers and claim stuff willy-nilly.

* The tactical mechanics with unit groups feels weird, especially with champion attacks vs. group units. It just seems wrong that my champion can kill seven dudes with one shot from her bow.

* I preferred having to use actual caravan units to establish roads and trade routes. Having roads appear instantly between cities, regardless of distance, diminishes the atmosphere which is ostensibly one of the game's strengths.

* I want resource nodes to feel more tied to the terrain in which they are located. Earth shards could be surrounded by forest, water shards at the sources of rivers, fire shards in the desert, ore mines next to mountains, etc. Terrain generation as a whole feels scattershot and poorly integrated (with the exception of the hand-crafted special regions, which are very cool). If resources were more tied to terrain types, the world of Elemental would start to feel more like a world.

* Why does an army get back movement points after engaging in a battle? That seems weird.

[TurinTur]

@Jason Lutes

*Can you write some examples of the cheesy tactics with city sprawling? I liked the idea of Bard, to use the expansion of your own cities as a tool to afffect the tactics on the map. I am not sure of call it "cheesy" as it is intended for the player to use it, and well, cities always can be attacked, from all the sides, so it's not real cheese.

*I agree with your perspective of mana, it doesn't feel "right". It's not only in strategy games, it's also in RPGs where the mana "flows" in a limited amount per segment of time. It feels natural that way because it's like your own body energy, you can use it up to run for two hours, but you can't use that equivalent energy to sprint 10 seconds at the speed of sound. In most games mana is also a energy managed by the wizard body or mind, so it kinds of makes sense it follows rules like that.

*I am not sure I would put all the spells in the tech tree, but I agree that right now it feels "uncontrollable" the advancement of your magic champions. It doesn't feels good.

*The pace of empire expansion still have to be better balanced yeah.

*I am not that bothered by things like champion killing one group, I always took the stance that the combat is an abstraction, when you click on an enemy unit you are not shotting one arrow or doing a slash with your sword, imagine just a combat segment of... don't know, 15 seconds?

*I agree, maybe it's more micro, but i liked the sense of ownership when it's you who builds the caravan, you who establish the trade route, etc.

*Nice idea with the nodes. Not that should affect the magical balance, but if possible, it would be nice to have that thematic.

[Dan_Theman]

I just downloaded the newest update, and now I apparently have video drivers made before 2005 (according to the game, that is). Very peculiar.

[TurinTur]

Brad also weighs in


In no particular order these are some of the ones I’ve put in so you get a flavor of the feedback that poor Kael has to deal with daily. :)

Every champion should have a unique ability – ex: give Baco “Destiny’s Gambler” spell where the player can spend 50 mana and get a random result, mostly good but some bad.
Move random events away from being random and into being “choices”. For instance, an event that currently just random makes everyone go to war instead turns into a council where everyone votes on whether to have a war of finality or an emissary comes and demands you give them 10% of your income, if you fail fortresses appear on the map that begin attacking everyone.
Have Civ techs that cause Outposts to get guards and expand influence so that you don’t need as many late game.
Have weapons and armor that are “better” but cost significantly more resources so that the player with more stuff can fight a war of attrition.
Have quests tend to give players access to more spells so that they’re more compelling. Getting a magic axe is less interesting and gets repetitive. Getting a random magic spell, by contrast, would make the finite # of quests have far greater replay ability.
More terrain types (especially snow at the poles).
Outpost specialization (late game, spend money to upgrade outposts that have an impact on the ZOC they control)

Now coming up in beta 4 is the new city system which will result in smaller looking cities (far fewer tiles on the map) but a lot more city improvements to choose from in total but fewer in a particular city (cities will specialize and that specialization will make available exclusive techs that require that city type). But that won’t be coming for awhile. But just something to remember when making requests on cities.

[Jason Lutes]

@Jason Lutes

*Can you write some examples of the cheesy tactics with city sprawling? I liked the idea of Bard, to use the expansion of your own cities as a tool to afffect the tactics on the map. I am not sure of call it "cheesy" as it is intended for the player to use it, and well, cities always can be attacked, from all the sides, so it's not real cheese.

Maybe it's not cheesy in the traditional sense, but I find the idea of expanding a city to affect map tactics to be about as anti-thematic as you can get. I could maybe see it as a faction-specific ability, but it has no place in or relevance to the theme of fantasy empire building. The most annoying aspect of the city mechanic for me is that, since your units don't expend any movement points to move through a city, you're encouraged to stretch your city out in order to speed up traversing the map. Is this an interesting mechanic? I think it detracts in a big way from the theme/atmosphere of the game.


*I am not sure I would put all the spells in the tech tree, but I agree that right now it feels "uncontrollable" the advancement of your magic champions. It doesn't feels good.

I think I would put them all in a tech tree, but make them accessible to champions only via level-up perks and/or a mage guild type building. I like the idea of recruiting a guy who knows fireball when no one else does, though. I think in AoW they made something like that possible by including individual spells as specific character perks.


*I am not that bothered by things like champion killing one group, I always took the stance that the combat is an abstraction, when you click on an enemy unit you are not shotting one arrow or doing a slash with your sword, imagine just a combat segment of... don't know, 15 seconds?Yeah, you clearly have to think of the battle as abstracted, but I think it would be an interesting offset to champion power if a given attack from a champion could only kill one figure, with perks ("Cleave," "Hail of Arrows," etc.) that allow you to kill more.

[RepoMan]

And look, Jason! Right above you, Brad's quoted as saying they're going to fix city sprawl in beta 4!

These guys really are listening like crazy. Very impressed with how this is going compared to the original Elemental beta debacle. Kael really turned things around, and Brad clearly gave him the support he needed to do it.

[Dan_Theman]

Hmm x2. I've now got the newest general release driver installed, and the game is still telling me I've got an out of date driver. It seems as if it can't read my system files, because in the details the date of the driver is blank (NVidia, btw). This is odd, as I was able to play the earlier beta version without issue.


Your computer manufacturer was reported to be NVIDIA. (?!? - first, I built it myself, and second - wth?)
Your video card manuracturer was reported to be @oem40.inf,%nvidia_a%;NVIDIA. (umm ... yeah, I think something isn't right here)
Reported driver date: (this area is blank)

I then get a buffer overflow exception (BEX error) and it craps out on me. I tried shutting off DEP for it just in case, and that didn't help either. dxdiag (64-bit) works just fine.

[bakka bakka bakka]

I wish I could see what the AI is doing to expand so fast. Even when I spam pioneers I can't get them all around the map quickly enough to grab any meaningful slice of land.

[Brad Wardell]

I did a lengthy debugging the AI game the other day that I videoed. It's pretty long so feel free to skip around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnPKHQIksrA&feature=youtu.be

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I did a lengthy debugging the AI game the other day that I videoed. It's pretty long so feel free to skip around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnPKHQIksrA&feature=youtu.be


Man, can't wait to actually put some time in to play the beta. Looking very nice. What was that tower thing you made with the spell? I think you said it was Pariden specific? That wasn't in the last beta was it?

[YourConscience]

I did a lengthy debugging the AI game the other day that I videoed. It's pretty long so feel free to skip around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnPKHQIksrA&feature=youtu.be

Brad, will there ever be any chance to open the APIs for others to write their completely different AIs? I don't mean just tweaking XML, I mean really writing a complete AI? As the google AI competitions showed, once many people make a competition out of writing the best AI the total quality of the best AIs skyrockets...

[driillSGT]

Brad, will there ever be any chance to open the APIs for others to write their completely different AIs? I don't mean just tweaking XML, I mean really writing a complete AI? As the google AI competitions showed, once many people make a competition out of writing the best AI the total quality of the best AIs skyrockets...

Are you trying to make the Elemental AI self aware?

[TurinTur]

Don't worry, eventually it will be too self aware

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/skynet.png

[YourConscience]

Are you trying to make the Elemental AI self aware?

Making an AI that resembles self-awareness is not so difficult as it seems. The question rather is what it can do with the self-awarenessness. Like the next poster essentially showed, self-awarenessness in and of itself ain't anything terribly useful.

However, writing an AI that starts out with a number of strategies, can develop new strategies out of strategy components and can evaluate the performance of these strategies is something that is viable nowadays, and something highly interesting to play with, if alone for the reason that it will never feel the same anymore.

[Alstein]

I think AI's also need some variance in-game in approach, at least initial approach, so you play the game and not the AI. That's one of the big things I look for in an AI.


Man, can't wait to actually put some time in to play the beta. Looking very nice. What was that tower thing you made with the spell? I think you said it was Pariden specific? That wasn't in the last beta was it?

It's a specific spell that's in for the next beta- makes outposts with magic. Hoping it requires maintenance- I can see it being OP otherwise.

[Brad Wardell]

Man, can't wait to actually put some time in to play the beta. Looking very nice. What was that tower thing you made with the spell? I think you said it was Pariden specific? That wasn't in the last beta was it?

I'm not sure if it's in the public build or not. But basically Pariden can cast a spell that summons an Outpost type structure to control resources.

I'm really looking forward to doing the upgrades to Outposts. Right now, there's an incentive to spam them out since they're so disposable. In GalCiv II, I really liked having the ability to upgrade starbases to have area effects and such.

[Brad Wardell]

I think AI's also need some variance in-game in approach, at least initial approach, so you play the game and not the AI. That's one of the big things I look for in an AI.


It's a little bit of a struggle in FE since so much has been set up for modders which means I can't as easily hard code things in like I did with GalCiv.

I did implement a system this past week that lets the AI have access to a library of dialog that's defined by XML to provide more feedback to players. But that sort of thing has a long long way to go still to get to the level it was in GalCiv.

The other challenge is making it so that each player plays distinctly. I've been slowly adding in new AI tags that I put on each player that the game can make use of to make them play more distinctly than they do in the current beta.

What I really need though are a LOT LOT LOT more spells to work with and a LOT LOT LOT more AI units to choose from.

[Alstein]

In terms of traits for units, I'd like to see much of that gone (not all of it). Traits should be earned through battle/buildings, not creation except for special units (like Clan of Crow/Spikes of Krax/etc)

Maybe some monsters/abilities/spells could put traits on units as well.

Right now the traits for the most part feel like micromanagement. That said, most games I can just overrun things with the sovereign+ a meatshield, I don't bother with other heroes except for passive city modifiers or soul stealing.

What I meant/what I'd like to see (unsure if you got what I meant exactly) is that if I see say, Procinipee in a game, I know she's likely to do X, but every now and then decides to do Y or Z so it doesn't get predictable (and will adjust if needed)

[Brad Wardell]

Yea, the way I put it in is that each race has a list of possible traits they might get. I think the file is aitraits.xml. So as I add those in, and they have a chance of being picked up (and it usually picks 2 to 4 each game) I then look for them when doing the AI.

In GalCiv, each AI player was actually its own sub-projects of .cpp files. So for instance, the Drengin strategic functions were literally different. I think a good case could be made that this was really really inefficient but I had the luxury of having messed with that code for a decade+ before GalCiv II came out to figure out what worked and what didn't.

The XML path is a lot more bang for the buck but is a different way of doing things than I'm used to.

[ydejin]

In terms of traits for units, I'd like to see much of that gone (not all of it). Traits should be earned through battle/buildings, not creation except for special units (like Clan of Crow/Spikes of Krax/etc)

Maybe some monsters/abilities/spells could put traits on units as well.

Right now the traits for the most part feel like micromanagement. That said, most games I can just overrun things with the sovereign+ a meatshield, I don't bother with other heroes except for passive city modifiers or soul stealing.

What I meant/what I'd like to see (unsure if you got what I meant exactly) is that if I see say, Procinipee in a game, I know she's likely to do X, but every now and then decides to do Y or Z so it doesn't get predictable (and will adjust if needed)

I strongly disagree. I love the traits in the unit editor.

[Alstein]

I strongly disagree. I love the traits in the unit editor.

Right now, it doesn't matter much due to other things, and it kinda cheapens the "special" units to me. If they did start to matter, most likely an optimal combo would be found, and 90% of it would be ignored. It just screams for streamlining or diversifying to me. It's a mechanic that I've always thought works much better in a space strategy game like GalCiv over a fantasy game such as Elemental the way it's currently implemented.

I'm not saying kill the traits, but make them earned, not bought.

I can see why folks like the traits though.

[ydejin]

Right now, it doesn't matter much due to other things, and it kinda cheapens the "special" units to me. If they did start to matter, most likely an optimal combo would be found, and 90% of it would be ignored. It just screams for streamlining or diversifying to me. It's a mechanic that I've always thought works much better in a space strategy game like GalCiv over a fantasy game such as Elemental the way it's currently implemented.

I'm not saying kill the traits, but make them earned, not bought.

I can see why folks like the traits though.

I like them because it allows me to create custom units with more flair instead of generic units. I personally don't care if there is some "optimal" combination which is found. It's a single player game, so it doesn't matter if there's a perfect way of playing.

[TurinTur]

I think having all the traits avalaible from the start in the unit editor cheapens the traits and make the units generic, instead of having flair.

Because in the end, you just made the same three types of units, with the same combos always.

[ydejin]

I think having all the traits avalaible from the start in the unit editor cheapens the traits and make the units generic, instead of having flair.

Because in the end, you just made the same three types of units, with the same combos always.

Hmm, that's not the way I play. Just the same way sometimes I play an evil Fire Wizard and other times I play a Healing and Support Wizard, I build my troops differently from playthroughs to playthroughs. The problem isn't the game mechanics, it's just you guys either lack imagination or are just completely focused on winning over fun.

[Jason Lutes]

I think having all the traits avalaible from the start in the unit editor cheapens the traits and make the units generic, instead of having flair.

Because in the end, you just made the same three types of units, with the same combos always.
Some players do, some players don't. As ydejin points out, it's a single-player game, so how you think about and use the traits is largely up to individual taste. Some people feel compelled to min-max, others play for flavor.

That being said, I do think it would be cool if a lot of the traits could be unlocked via tech advances.

[TurinTur]

I think it should be a bit of both.

There should be 4 or 5 general, "basic" traits for everyone, and available at start.
All the other ones, 50% should be restricted to factions, and the other 50% for everyone but tied to tech research.