I reckon the comparisons people make to Total War are probably a bit misleading, because TW is a realistic simulation of battle wheras I think that Elemental is meant to be a much more arcadey affair. Elemental looks much more like the sort of game where the battles are represented symbolically, say ten men make up a regiment where in Total War the unit would contain hundreds, so I don't think you'll ever see anything that looks like the scenes from The Lord of The Rings. To be honest, I'd really be suprised if the battles end up looking very different at all from MOM's, but with all the modern flair.

I was a bit sceptical about the real time, but someone mentioned playing UFO and they're totally right, that was amazingly implemented, and it made me resent being wrenched out of the moment by having to "End Turn" when I went back to playing proper turn based games. It reminds me of good rpg games too like Baldurs' Gate, I remember how the whole pause-play-pause-play mechanic became really second nature, and made the game feel that much more fluid and less stagnant, so I think it could work really fantastically for Elemental, and I'd probably get bored of it if it was fully turn based. 

I'm in the "it should be turn-based" department.  Though you should be able to chat with people outside the battle screen.   O.o

I actually wouldn't mind just the MoM system with a few mechanical and graphical upgrades.  (just to add my 2 cents)   In fact, I desire it!   and would probebly be upset if it strayed too far from the classic MoM (or HoMM, because it is very similar) system

That alpha grab looks distinctly zoomed-in to me. Brad's ambitious--maybe they're going for something like the icon-level vs. 3D level on the GC2 map, only instead of popping a sub-process window when you move units in to engage, you just zoom in to the very finest levels of the grid.

On the RTS-angst front, it does seem that Gamespot still tags the project that way. But some of the talk about how multiplayer will work makes me think that the 'hardcore' TBS folks don't need to worry much, if at all. I think part of the plan is to build something that is single-player and turn-based at heart but has a flexible enough interface and option set to draw in players from all across the TBS-RTS 'axis.'

Thanks for posting that screenshot. I had not seen it before, and it helps a lot to understand where they are going with it.

Perhaps some mechanic could be given to the player that allows various conditions, when met, auto pauses the battle so those conditions, after being met could be resolved int he following Phases/Turns.

Example:

When Battle Group A encounters enemy Battle Group B, if/when Battle Group A's total manpower strenght drops below 15% AUTO-PAUSE.

If your Channeler gets into a conflict and his "mana" drops below 30%, AUTO-PAUSE. etc etc.

That would/could allow for winning fights to carry forward and losing ones to be paused for re-thought before total destruction of certain units could be suffered.

If a strong mix of possible "conditions", even ones that auto executed other conditions, would allow for great flexibilty and freedom while also providing a stop gap for the infamous BIO break.

One of my concerns.

Some units will be overpowered in TC but not regular combat- leading to a difference in play between TC and QC games strategically.  AOW really suffered from this- units like Nymphs and Druids were a lot stronger in TC.

Honestly...the combat looks awful...a tiny little map and sprite looking figures?

I played MOM back in the day and enjoyed the game for what it was...but that doesn't mean that I want to play it again with slightly updated graphics.  If I wanted that, I would download DOSBox and go play MOM.

Speaking as someone who played MOM...the tactical battles were limited and would be considered 'crappy' by gamers used to tactical battles of today.  Look at that map...the graphics look almost the same as MOM 10+ years ago and the same problems will occur, such as getting stuck on the side of the map when you're trying to maneuver. 

It looks like a giant step backwards.  I can't see how Brad is talking about LOTR-esque fight scenes when they are representing entire battalions with 3 guys.

Do it right and make the game real time with pause.

The devs have mentioned multiple times that they never intended to release the screenshot of the tactical battle (the one with the lightning hitting the dragon, with the square grid), because that aspect of the game is in such early alpha that it's misleading. So hopefully, they are working on something much better. Also, Frogboy has mentioned that the plan is to be able to have thousands, even tens of thousands, of individual units on screen at once - which gives me comfort that they at least have big eyes when it comes to the battles!

Also, you are downright crazy when you say the graphics look like MoM from over a decade ago. Seriously, go find screenshots of MoM and compare the two... The ONLY similarity is that neither game is striving for realism. The units in MoM are 2D and so pixelated that it's practically impossible to guess what a unit might be from its sprite unless you're familiar with the game. The horses look like beagles. In addition, we're still 1.5 years away from the projected release date, and the devs have said that the graphics are faar from finished - they haven't even put in the lighting/shadows yet. Once those are in, a lot of the units (like heroes on the map) and objects that look flat now will probably gain some depth.

I just realised something, how in gods name can we play a continuous turn based game in multiplayer?

You can't just pause your game in a multiplayer game, it would allow for way to much grieving =/

I have all the hope in the world that they can pull this out...honestly I would love a commercial fantasy strategy game with tactical battles...thats why I'm willing to touch base in these forums and give some input.

Seems like they have a long ways to go though.

personally i probably won't be interested in this game if it focuses on combat too much. luckily, frogboy mentioned that he, like i, will most likely autoresolve all battles. i'm more interested in the 4x stuff, especially trading and building your economy, hopefully those aspects don't get neglected.

The tactical combat in MoM (Master of Magic) was quite a bit of fun and from what little I've seen of Elemental, it looks like it's going the same way.  If you want a somewhat more contemporary preview, take a look at Age of Wonders.  This was a great game in the mold of MoM, just as Elemental appears to be.  Unfortunately, it also suffered from the same fatal flaw as MoM; brain dead, hero suiciding, mind numbingly bad AI.  You pretty much had to control every move of every unit or the AI would find a way to set you back when running your troops.  Fighting against the AI in tactical battles was almost criminally simple on even the highest difficulty settings.  Hopefully Elemental will try to correct this problem from the get go and over the course of beta.  It really detracts from multi-player when you have to use automated combat and get results only very loosely related to force strength and composition.  In single player, it meant you had to run every move of every battle, even when the battle was lopsided and should have been a forgone conclusion.

I agree. In mom I tried numerous times to fight the same battle and then let the AI fight the battle for me. The results were very disappointing. Generally the AI lost troops when I would not. Which is very particular. So you always had to fight the battles yourself. However one thing I have noticed playing galciv is that the AI that frogboy puts in his games are way out there. Sure they will be some twinking to be done but I would not worry the AI will be top of the line by the time the games is released.

I hope something is done to eliminate the tediousness of the endgame combat of MoM-likes.

I'm not at all worried that the AI moves in tactical will be as weak as they were in MoM, although I'm hoping that the higher-level decisions about troop buildups and movement will be better than they are in GalCiv2.

The "continuous turn" talk does still worry me a tad, though, especially because it seems to encourage a few folks to talk about Elemental as if it will be an RTS (or have an RTS minigame as the tactical layer). I *really* don't want to have to pause anything other than my music player while I'm playing Elemental.

tediousness?   how do you mean?     I always thought that was where it really started being fun since it wasn't like "I have archers... they shoot you... you die... battle over"   or in the case of MoM specifically, "summon creature... let it do the fighting (while probebly shooting with archers)... you die... battle over"

Like, only then are the battles really worth fighting.  (but somehow the computer AI always lost them so you had to fight the early ones too which were to short to be worth it.  That I found to be the tedious combat because it was so dull and always the same)

I would prefer a TBS battle option as well, but a  RTS battle system could work if it's designed the same as what was provided within the original Stronghold game which included a game speed slider.  This game speed slider would slow the battles to such a degree anyone could control the individual actions of 100+ units during an important battle!  On the same note... when needed the battle could be speeded allowing it to finish more quickly.

Hmm interesting from what I’ve read and seen I assumed that tactical battles were going to be semi-real time battles. I’m of course not sure how it works but I imagined something like each player has 10 actions (moves whatever) that could be performed in real-time and then after each player used all their actions the turn would end and the process would repeat. 

Well, yes the beginning had the other half of the tedious battles. I mean both battles that you have already won without a question (in the endgame) - that consist of the enemy running away for ages until you finally wipe him out. And the beginning, where there's battles that the enemy has already won - consisting of the player running away for ages (because it's the most effective move).

I'm not particulary worried. I just hope that simultaneous turns will be implemented (never played classic (regular) turns in any Age of Wonders game). The solution for multiplayer is that as long as you can't attack your enemy, simultaneous turns will be in effect. But once you meet and can attack and steal mines from eachother (like in Age of Wonders) it will revert to turnbased.

About the Tactical Combat vs AutoCombat. That is possibly impossilble to balance. I'll say focus on the tactical combat. I want something like Age of Wonders where I got good control and can kite stuff

Other related Battlefield Combat Concerns:

1) What's planned for the battlefield turn limit?   Hence how long can a battle last?

2) What happens to the defenders and attackers which cannot retreat from the battlefield after reaching the above unknown turn limit?

These two questions concern me because in Dominions_3 it's setup to force a retreat on the attacking group after X amount of turns which isn't that bad, but the ugly part is how it will AUTO_KILL any units/leaders which cannot retreat after X+Y  turns.  Ideally the gamer should be able to adjust the battle turn limit as a setting before the game begins. Please developers don't  introduce some  auto_kill feature after so many turns... instead use an  auto_retreat if it's needed.

I'm hoping there is no turn or time limit to battles - or at least so that I can set there to be no limits. Ideally I'd like there to be a fatigue system, which would result in a sort of dynamic limit to the length of battles based on the endurance of the forces and the strain of their actions.

Well there might be sort of turn-based. What is the phrase they use? Continuous turn combat? From what I gather it's some sort of turn-based system that occurs in real time. Or something.

Don't confuse this with simulated real-time, though. Simulated real-time would definately make sense.

Edit: Just to clarify in the term jungle. Continuous Turns is when you do your moves at the same time as your opponent - but you still have to do every single move. This still means that your opponent and you must all finish their turn before turn change (unless there's a set time limit on turns). Civilization 3 had this system as an option in multiplayer, for reference. I think Civ4 does to, but I haven't played it in multiplayer. Simulated Real-Time is when the game is actually turn-based, but it simulates real-time, often by the computer automating actions instead of waiting for input. The most well-known example of this that I can think of is Baldur's Gate or the Neverwinter Nights series.

Even with the continous turn system my questions still stand because a situation can occur where two champions fight each other in combat only to realize they cannot harm each other.    As I wrote earlier ideally the gamer should be allowed to decide the limits before a game is created... or even better would be adjusting these settings before a saved game is loaded.

1) What's planned for the  time / continous_turn limit?   How long can the battle last?

2) What happens to the defenders and attackers which cannot retreat from the battlefield after reaching the above unknown limit?