Elemental Forums
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The world is heavy in types of magic creatures. But your civilization's ability to make use of those magical creatures depends on the skill of the player.
The world has dire wolves, dragons, drakes, trolls, etc. But the ability to get these things into your army requires a great deal of skill.
It's not like you get to conquer a city and start cranking out trolls or something.
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Let me explain this because it's worth discussing because I think a lot of you feel the same way as I do:
There are sentient and non-sentient creatures in the world. If it's sentient, you have to negotiate them fighting on your side. If they are non-sentient, then you ultimately have to have a sentient creature controlling it.
So let's say there were unicorns in the world. Are unicorns sentient? I'd say no. So maybe there's a herd of unicorns that exists on the map. You would see a Unicorn icon on the map. You would need to build a city near it and then build a Unicorn type building on it (insert cool name here). That city would then start producing unicorns trained for battle. You could then design a unit that makes use of a unicorn but the Unicorns don't just ride on their own any more than horses do.
On the other hand, let's say there is a village of trolls somewhere. If you conquer the city, the trolls will disperse (no, the trolls aren't going to be hanging out at the pub or working in the armory, they're trolls!). If you negotiate with the trolls, you might be able to get them to send you a few trolls on occasion to integrate into your army. Trolls are sentient.
The variety of magical creatures in Elemental is probably as much or more than what's been seen before. It's just that in terms of your wars, you're choosing men or fallen and they're going to be the vast majority of your forces.
That said, players will be able to create their own creatures (sentient or otherwise). So for instance, we will NOT have vampires in the game. The term "canon" Elemental will become significant as the beta matures because the integration of player created content will alter the world dramatically over time. Players might create a race of vampires. Maybe you'll be able to play as the vampires or maybe they'll set them up so that they're like the troll example I gave above.
My thought is that I just don't want to see magical creatures cheapened. Magic should be a pretty big deal and so if you see an army with a troll in it, it should be a big deal. If your army encountered another army with a dragon in it and you're not incredibly powerful at this point, the player should get the feeling like they did in Civilization when their musketmen suddenly encounter the mongols with tanks.
Awesome, thanks for explaining That's basically the impression I got about how it was going to work (well, other than being able to use non-sentient creatures in that manner). And you're right, I think most folks will like this approach. Pretty much everyone in this thread has been saying they don't want to see magical creatures cheapened
In the movies, he wasn't even mentioned.
In the books, he was mentioned as being the messenger from Saruman to Gandalf.
Given that you've also mentioned the way other user's content can be integrated 'automatically', I'm wondering how you plan to maintain balance -- what keeps someone from creating the UBERELFRACE!!!!oneoneoen1111!!!! and then having that race show up in my game and stomping me, other than leaving that option unticked?
They already said that you'll have control over what shows up and what doesn't 
It's like saying that the difference between Ulgos and Mimbrates are somehow negligable, just because one of them isn't short, stout and alcoholic, and the other ain't winged people that shoot lighting out of their arse.
A fantasy setting doesn't need crutches such as elves, filling pot holes with the nearest dwarf, and resort to "a wizard did it" Deus Ex Machina.
But what level of control, and how will it work? Will I have to manually sift through hundreds of items to find the nuggets in the rough, or will the game have some kind of balancing mechanism?
Thank you, now it's much clearer what the game could look like and that it indeed will have a number of different creatures in it. This seems very promising ... 
I do not see why words such as "jaded" and "sensational" have to come up here. It all depends on how you do a piece of work: a game or book or film with various fantasy creatures can be "sensational crap" or Oscar quality. But there is no lesser quality in the fantastic than in the realistic per se. That it would be "unimaginative" to like monsters I prefer not to comment.
The point I was trying to make was only that you would expect fantastical elements in a fantasy game and that personally I would lke to see both magic and monsters as part of these, especially since there are no good such strategy games around. And it seems it will be the case ... 
And with the modding and content control I think we will all have possibilities to be happy with the content!
I think you are taking one opinion and down-grading it based on that opinion being different from your own. When it comes to magical worlds, there is nothing wrong with deciding on the intial degree of magic in that world being heavy. You can create a world where magic is common place and an everyday occurrence, or you can create a world where magic is unusual and it's mere presence is special. There are TONS of books written in worlds that shift in varying degrees between these two ideas. Lots of magic and a world that revolves around these powers or very little, which makes it a bit of a mystery. To say that one approach cheapens the magical creatures over another is simply a matter of opinion, not a rule.
I take a different approach. I have read about dragons in armies to a significant degree, and I have read books where unicorns are sentient. I've also had the opportunity to read about worlds where the opposite is true. Stardock can take whatever approach they want to with their game. It's their game.
I do think that critcizing people who would question their current choice, and voice their reservations over that choice cheapens this forum and the feeback process in general. If all Stardock wants is a pat on the back and a bunch of fans telling them to charge forward as is, then there wasn't a point in posting information about the game to people like myself, who have heard about the game and maybe have one Stardock title in their gaming library.
I am interested in this type of game. That's why I am here. I play with and know several other people who are also interested in these kinds of game but never give Stardock a second look for a variety of reasons. And as I said before, I am not liking this approach, initially. I am still open to what this idea might play like once the idea is fully realized.
I think you're reading way too much into it. 
Step back, take a deep breath, and realize that I wasn't critisizing or downgrading anything, only pointing out that from the discussion in this thread most people were getting the same idea.
Ultimately, we won't know exactly how it plays until we get the beta - and even then, it'll be open to tweakage.
Sauron is a Necromancer. He deals with spirits, not spells and is thus not a wizard. He was also the Chief Lieutenant of Morgoth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron
Saruman IS however a wizard.
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