Slashing/piercing type physical weapon damage types are the thing they're against. We likely won't have those. I won't miss them.

Magical damage types are in, in some form or another.

Physical dmg types are good to have, but I don't mind if they won't implement those. [Even tho I hope that we will be able to mod them in.] As for magical dmg types [ice/fire/shadow/etc] & resistances/immunities....they must be implemented or the combat system will be dumbed down/primitive....

I'd be very surprised if they're not moddable in.

Boggie is on record as saying we have magic damage types. No worries there.

You, and most other people arguing for lots of damage types, do remember that there is quite a lot of game outside of combat, right (And that there's the rest of combat ot consider)?  Certainly, the economics is looking to have a bit of complication from all the different resources being produces (Moreso than most game's 2-3 resources of so), and there's a bunch of other systems to consider, so the entire game could still be complex enough without having to jazz up the individual parts too much.

I also do NOT agree with the ideas that stuff has to be included because "all other such games have this", that just restricts possible options to make the game fun, and might introduce new balance headaches.

As for magic damage types, I don't really care much whether they are added.  I do have a slight preference for only having a generic "magic" damage (Since many types could easily add needless complication to a small part of the game if done wrong), but that preference will depend on when we see what the system actually does.

No, they aren't a must. The combat system can be perfectly complex just with only a generic "magic damage" (or even without it).

I agree with you.  There really isn't  a reason to do anything other than create a bunch of useful effects that spells and other elemental attacks can cause and apply them to spells and weapons.

Ok, care to explain? Complex combat system without any magical dmg types/resistances and immunities in a fantasy TBS? You gotta be kidding.

You should be the one explaining why without them the game is dumbed down. You could add morale, fatigue, model injuries, chain of command/orders (pre-battle orders, music, flags, messengers,...) and a million extra things that would make the game really complex (probably too complex) and all of that without a single magic effect.

Or are you telling me that there aren't any complex ancient/medieval wargames out there??? (Command and Colors comes to my mind for example).

We gonna have a morale system? We don't know anything about this. The same is true about fatigue. [Hopefully those will get implemented of course...]

This is a fantasy TBS game. Spells, monsters etc. you know. So it would be a big mistake to leave out the magical dmg types and resistances + immunities. 1. It makes the combat system much more interesting 2. It makes the spell system much more interesting. [The other Sovereign is specialized in fire magic? Fine, let's create fire resistance items and equip our army with those! You got the picture?] 3. The player is forced to think &  learn to use the counter tactics.

REally? I think resistances and damage types have the opposite effect.  Players aren't made to think, and in fact it makes every element the same.  If people can resist fire damage with their units then you have to make  each element have equally powerful damage spells as fire for example.

I agree %100. You simply can't have a game like this and Not include them. IMO it would be tantamount to suicide for a game that relies heavily on Magic for combat.

I know this is a fantasy game, with spells. But spells != several magical damage types. You can have a ton of magic without damage types. I think a generic "magic" damage is nice, but having an array of magical damage types and resistances is the mistake to me. I prefer much better spells with after or side effects than damage types.

I'd rather have types that add to the strategic depth of combat. Like using a Healing spell to do Damage to Undead enemies, or using a Fire spell to do extra damage to a Ice Elemental, or a Ice spell to do extra damage to a Fire Elemental. I do also see the need for magical spells in combat that don't do any damage at all. Like if you cast "Levitate" on a troop of foot soldiers. They won't actually be able to fly, but, a Earthquake spell wouldn't affect them either because they'd be floating above the ground (you could do this in MoM). All those examples except for the floating one involve Magical Damage Types. Without them you won't have options with depth like that.

Exactly. This is why we need to have these magical dmg types. This way you won't be forced to use magic all the time. Soldiers wielding swords of fire will be very useful vs. ice elementals and creatures like those. Hell, what if you mod in a race, which has decent fire resistance, but they are vulnerable to ice based attacks? You got the picture, right? Either way, like Raven has said:

"You simply can't have a game like this and Not include them." -> Very true.

    Plus one to you brother.

The are better ways of adding depth and complexity than damage types. You like them more, great for you, but not having them won't mean that Elemental is a simple game (at least it seems you people aren't saying that anymore).

There is no better way to address the cases he mentioned then with damage types. How else would an Ice Elemental take extra damage from enchanted flaming spears unless there's a way to tell that it's fire damage?

This is like saying:

"You can't have a combat system without units retreating" (morale)

"You can't have a combat system without wounds festering and things like that" (injures modeling)

"You can't have a combat system without units not following your orders perfectly and automatically (because you aren't onmipresent and onmipotent)"

And you know what? The truth is that you can have a great combat system without those things (and magic damage types) because you aren't trying to model reality perfectly, but something that is fun for the players.

As far as I know, Elemental is a game where things like ice elementals and so on are going to be strange, so just adding damage types when they are going to be used in strange situations doesn't make much sense. There are even fantasy combat games (like Warhammer Fantasy) where there's not even a magic damage type (or it used to be like that, long time since I last played it).

I actually agree with this. Having a system for 'Fire Damage, Ice Damage' is not particularly clever or interesting. In fact, let's not beat around the bush here. What it is is traditional. It's been done in lots of previous fantasy games, so people just accept it as a given and expect it

But yes. Having this sort of gameplay stifles player choice. Am I going to specialize in Fire Magic if I know that my opponent can just start chunking out troops with Amulets of Fire Resistance? No. I'm going to spread my research out so that I'm not focused in one area that can easily be defended against. End result? Everybody uses all the elements more or less equally. Boring.

For practical purposes? Most units probably won't have elemental damage or elemental resistances anyway. To a random soldier, Ice Damage and Fire Damage are equally deadly, they may as well be the same thing. It doesn't matter whether the enemy soverign summons a huge glacier or a volcano.

I'm not really against elemental damage, but I am against elemental rock-paper-scissors as a major component of gameplay. All in all, it strikes me as somewhat disingenuous to argue in favor of an utterly generic elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system that's been done over and over in hundreds of games but try and claim it would be 'dumbed down' if you didn't have it, as if this were some new and excitingly complex idea.

Anyway. Here's a fun question: there are 6 Elements in the game, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Life, and Death. Out of those 6 elements, which damage types are supposed to beat which, and why?

I wholeheartily agree, that creating half a dozen of magical attack/resistance types is not a must. It implies that most of spells will be very similar and only differ in its particular type of attack. This is imho quite boring. hovering over enemy soldiers, trying to find which particular resistance they dont have and then sellecting  fireball/ice shards/rolling stones/spirit of life/curse of death/nature's vengence  (pick one) is just dumb. Yes, each one will have its own graphics and yes, each one will have slightly different values of attack/mana/whatever BUT they are just same and while adding complexity and, cough, realism, they dont add much to gameplay. Dont forget that REALISM < GAMEPLAY. I mean, even Civs went from att/def/mov just to str/mov and personally I consider this good change.

What I consider as a diversity is completly different type of spell effects. Eg. fire will be pure attack and offensive spells, earth will increase defense or perhaps repair structures. Nature equals summoning and watter/ice should be those intriguing annoyances (slow down/mind control). etc.

Thus you wont really need dozen of attack types as only damage school is fire one. (ofc, each school should have its own attack spells, but really basic ones, mostly to balance early game so channelers of all schools have a chance)

Rock, paper, scissors is must, but it should be more elaborate than attack types A. B. C, and defense types A, B, C... in the end, it makes everything just very similar.

RavenX: I know that you just made an example, but using heal to kill undead creatures is just plain stupid (for a GAME, that is). How are you gonna to explain to regular players? I know that is nice and smart twist which demonstrates that complicated system offers interesting sollutions, but I dont want to study University of magic to be able to PLAY elemental (ehm, well, ofc I want to study that Uni...). Problem is that you will end with 6 heal spells which heal their own and kill the rest. That is what i call unnecessary. There should be just one heal (Life magic) and you either study that school or dont. If you dont, you probably has something else (eg fireball of doom, teleport, animate death etc). That is what I image when someone says complexity and uniqueness.

This explains that why are you against elemental dmg types and resistances. The combat system [what system? :P] in the Civ games are very primitive, but we've talked about this already.

Aha, and what is fun for the players? Care to explain? Having a decent & well detailed combat system = FUN in my book. The combat system won't be decent enough without these magical dmg types, resistances and immunities. This is my opinion, but again...I always disliked the Civ games because of their primitive & pathetic combat system.

Not really... Sure, split up your magic research so that you can dabble in all the elements, but if you do that no one will have to start churning out "amulets of fire resistance" to beat you. No one will be afraid of your magic because you'll only be able to achieve minor feats in any of the elements. Whereas if you focus on or two elements, you might be capable of accomplishing devastating effects. So the enemy troops are wearing pansy little amulets that protect them from 6% of your fire damage... It's not like your volcano, or even your fireball, all of a sudden isn't gonna work. Not to mention that there are different types of mana for each element, so spreading yourself too thin across all the elements even when you don't have a good source of some of the mana types would probably not be so smart.

The ONLY way this becomes a problem is if it's easy to mass-produce equipment with high magic resistance, but the obvious, intuitive and easy solution to that is to make such equipment rare and expensive.

On the other hand - if there is only one magic type, with only one associated resistance, then what happens if your opponent starts churning out units with magical resistance? Then you're just entirely screwed, and no matter what your magical focus, your magic has just become useless vs. them. That seems like a problem. (Although it also has the solution of making magical resistance equipment be rare and expensive, and only partially effective).

Saying that magical damage types stifles options is completely ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous than saying that tactical combat will be trivially simplified if they don't give us magical damage and resistances types.

But this is Elemental. It's a game that focuses on magic. If there are no damage types, then there is less differentiation between spells of different schools, there is less flavor to the game and there are fewer strategic options when it comes to combat magic. And that just seems like a huge mistake, because a huge (huge) percentage of the people who will buy this game will be expecting magic to have a deep and interesting combat representation.

Just to restate examples others have already given, and to give a few of my own: without magical types and resistances, how do you make it so that fireballs don't affect fire elementals? That dragons take minimal damage from fire? That Ents are particularly vulnerable to fire? That a desert-dwelling human faction has some minor natural resilience to fire due to their acclimation to the desert climate? That troops wearing hot, heavy armor won't be as bothered by a chill wind as the guy in light leather armor next to him? Resistances are not necessarily something that will only affect a rare creature here and there. It is possible to make them that way, and i that were the case I'd say it's still worthwhile - just have resistances not show up unless they're nonzero! 

Anybody else feel bad for Stardock trying to reconcile stuff like this?

Tutorial? Spell infocard? It's a fairly standard mechanic, no other game with it has had a hard time explaining it before.

We seem to have drastically different views of how the magic system works. Why would there be 6 healing spells? The only exclusive elements are Life and Death, which is determined at game start for your sovereign (and theoretically pickable when we get custom factions). There is nothing to suggest that you have to choose which other schools you can cast from later, if you can control the shards you should be able to start to research spells that use those elements.

Besides, why would fire have a healing spell?

I guess this is more about general focus of Elemental. I see it more Civ like than "Total war" like. Of course I look forward tactical battles, but I dont see them as main feature. Afterall I expect that multiplayer will have tactical battles off? That is personally I dont want to spent more than lets say 1/4 to 1/3 of playing time in tactical battles. If I were, I would be now somewhere on "Total war" series forums. Of course, in the end, almost everything revolves around battles. I just think that game should not be tactical simulator. (GalCivs did fine without it) Becuase once you start to go that way, you might as well add dozens of "physical" attack types as well, different armor types etc. But is this really in the scope of this game? There are games out there which revolve only around tactical battles,

Having very complex yet dump system doesnt make fun in my book. It is no rocket science to not use fire spell against fire resistant creature. It is so trivial, why event present it as a choice? Only reason why to implement this system would be to outperform other player specialized in Fire magic on global scale - you would start creating fire magic resistant troopers to beat that fire kingdom. But these would be useless (resourcewise) against Water kingdom. In the end it just ends with all using general armor, or not armor at all. Because spcialization is too risky. Btw. this is something I didnt like much about galciv - just use minimal possible defense values  (those 1/1/1  ships) makes best resourcewise decision. Is it complex? yes, compared to just one defense value. Does it make the system fun? no. It in the end even reduces complexity because, as I said, it makes specialisation too risky. min/maxing has to be risky ofc, but to a certain degree.

Also lets consider what that might do with unit design - once I start adding fire amulet against player X, I might as well like to use Water amulet against player Y instead etc. So I will end with 6 variations of every unit?

  As mentioned earlier, elements should differ in something completly different than just type of attack. This is the most blatant RPC possible. There is no brain involved. I see Fire player, I use fire resistance. I see fire resistant troopers, I use water spell. etc... Where is the fun involved?

Dump system...what? Ever played with Dominions 3.? It has the best combat system [Including the elemental dmg types/resistances & immunities]. Go and try it out, but maybe you won't like it. That game is for hardcore strategy gamers. It's not Civ 4. Either way, if you decide to try it out, your first nation should be Abyssia. Why? It's a fire based nation for example. You will understand that why do need to have a system like that in Elemental, once you've played with that game & nation.