Can't wait for this game...

That makes two of us!

Considerably more than two, I should think...

I think there is a line to join this club.  

 

AoW was slower in gameplay.  I blame the interface.   Elemental was very "flashy" for its time.  Most of the colors were bright, and the animations were clear and plentiful.  AoW was much more subtle.

The biggest difference, I find, between AOW and MOM was the prebuilt map versus the random map.  MOM started like CIV, which I really liked, making every game a new experience.  AOW had prebuilt maps, which you could play a few times, and then you learned the map.

MoM was one of my all time FAV games, still have it on 3.5" floppies!

Too true about Aow. Try AoW Shadow Magic has anice random map builder and editor. Also there is a tonne of excellent player maps for both AoW and AoWSM. May tide ya over until Elemental is out. 

Waiting for Elemental, I took AoW II (Wizard's Throne) from my shelf and am playing it again (last time was...2004?). It's much fun.

  From your forum post to Frogboys ears... I hope you are right.   I'm a little worried about how training plays way too major of a role determining hitpoints, how players can only play human races, and what appears to be a land only realm(No Myrror, Underwater, etc.,). 

 

   AoW II (Shadow_Magic) is a major improvement over AoW II (Wizard's Thorne)... especially after installing the  1.4 patch.   AoW II (Shadow_Magic) also includes a random map generator!     

I'm not seeing what's wrong with Elemental only having two races (and six civs/factions per race).

Nor what's wrong with initial training being a part of a unit's stats. That seems like an evolution of unit design as seen in some 4x games.

Also not sure why land-only (although I'd be surprised if there were no room for navies) is a bad thing. I don't think that a game requires multiple races or environments to have real depth of play.

This has already been discussed deeply on the forum, but I'll provide you a quick summary.  The difference is because unique races will have NATURAL traits, attacks, abilities, resistances(even 100% immunities), etc., etc.,  where as with all humans the variation is very limited.  So try and imagine the list of difference between a race of only humans as compared with a race of humans, undead, dwarves, and lizardmen.   

This has also already been discussed, but here's another summary.  Currently according to the developer journal an untrained soldier has one hitpoint where a trained soldier has five hitpoints... that's a 500% increase.  Now while training should provide a small increase in hitpoints it should not be so extreme because an untrained paralyzed soldier would die almost exactly as easily as a trained paralyzed soldier.  Another example would be if both soldiers were struck with lightning damage... there's no reason why the same lightning damage would easily kill one group of soldiers and the same damage only scratch another group of trained soldiers.

  For one it's another fantasy variable being removed from the game.   Heck the game could still have real depth of play... even by removing all magic spells, but this is another example of a fantasy variable being removed from the game.  It's like removing two or three colors from a rainbow... the overall result can still be impressive, but it's just not as colorful.  The second is multiple realms allows greater strategic options since some realms such as underwater, clouds, underground, etc.,  may provide benefits/disadvantages for each type of unit or for each type of spell.   For example a fire elemental can travel anywhere on a land_only game yet if the game included an underwater realm this summoned creature would be unable to enter the underwater realm.   The list is huge.

If modding new races is easy, only humans at release won't be so bad (if you consider it bad, that is). Also, it's not like Stardock won't release their own non-human races later as well as more props and the like...

About hit points, maybe some attacks should somehow bypass them (partially) depending of the situation. So if a mountain falls over a 1HP guy and a 100000HP guy, both die.

About the rainbow, why should have Altaria the same colours as in the Earth? Maybe it has an eight like the Diskworld... Some originality in the fantasy setting is more than welcome. Not that I don't like options but I would prefer to have Stardock focusing in the landbased game first, and then have them work an expansion pack based on sea battles, cities, dungeons and more. Example of that? Dark Avatar and, specially, Twilight of the Arnor for Galactic Civilizations II. In Stardock I trust.

NTJedi,

I've read those discussions. I perhaps should have been more explicit in saying that I do not believe those are really problems. Civilization has done just fine with having one race - and games like Civ and Alpha Centauri create variations in civ traits through explanations other than "multitude of races."

I don't think you're talking about multiple environments adding multiple options. I think you're talking about multiple environments adding more overhead and complexity. Overhead and complexity that's probably not necessary.

And I don't think hit points are strictly meant to be "how much damage it takes to kill." I think it works fine as an abstraction.

Anyway, I should've been more clear about disagreement rather than introducing it as a question.

Really looking forward to the early Beta (almost alpha really) and see the game grow from there. Going to be a great experience I'm sure!

I'm also a big MoM fan and played almost all turnbased fantasy 4x games that came out, still going to judge Elemantal on its own merits and not going to try and compare it to other titles. Its always ging to miss things that the other games did have and offer features that weren't in the old game.

Still from looking at what we know now its going to be a very intresting game for sure. Even if it doesn't totally suit you it looks like you can mod it to come close to any game you want

Hope this game will spawn just as great a modding community as Civ 3 and Civ 4 have going. Means the game will never die!

  I never said they were problems... who said they were problems??     These are concerns because two are fantasy elements which are not being included and one is a game statistic with conflicts.

Civilization is not a fantasy game... so land only with only human races is NORMAL.    Fantasy games without fantasy races is still possible and may be great fun, but it's not normal.   As I wrote earlier  CIV Traits with only human races is seriously more limited as compared with CIV  Traits with multiple fantasy races.

   Multiple environments adding complexity???   AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic included 3 realms and there was no overhead/complexity problems.  And even the original MoM included the Myrror realm.   New fantasy dimensions have never been overhead or complex... it's all about how they are included within a game not the variable itself.

   Every 4X game has units/players with either a life_points or hitpoints which determine when it dies. (unless immortal which determines respawn).

Edit: I'll post a response later. This one was all kinds of fail.

you should post something awesome to show how excited you are.