That's all true, yes. What I mean though is D&D is where I draw my "lore". I do seem to remember in 2.5 though that many holy/healing spells would hurt basic undead such as zombies and skeletons. It is possible of course I'm thinking of one of the other many games that follow that idea. I think Final Fantasy works like that as well. It's been a long time since I played one of them too though.

I single magic damage and resistance annihilates versatility for pretty much no meaningful reduction in complexity. It really is not hard to understand that "hey, my fireball's only going to do half damage against that thing with 50% fire resistances." IMO one only needs to worry about things being too complex when their effects are not obvious upon first inspection. Resistances & such are about as obvious as you can get - even more so to most people who'll be playing Elemental because they'll have seen it before.

... No, it really doesn't. For one, fire resistance isn't going to save you if somebody shoots you with a blast of ice, or lightning (under the assumption that lightning is air magic, but that can be neither here nor there). So sure, you go ahead and give all your units fire resistance. I'll sit over here and focus on my air and water magic, then laugh at you when your fire resistances accomplish nothing.

Your second faulty assumption is that imparting resistances to your regular, mundane troops is going to be a simple matter. It needn't be. Some factions could have minor innate resistances, some types of armor might provide minor resistances, and specialized gear/magic that imparts significant amounts of resistance should be quite expensive.

Your third faulty assumption is that the resistance types would only apply to damage, but they could also apply to secondary effects. A Yeti would be resistant to the damage and effects of an ice blast. If one school is going to have the strongest offensive damage spells, then it would have to suffer in other areas that would be the focuses of the other elements. So sure - resistances to that school would be the most efficient in terms of mitigating damage (assuming you are fighting someone proficient in that element - otherwise it's worthless), but they would be vulnerable as babies to the effects of the spells of other schools.

Did I or anyone else ever say anything at all about them being common? They should be quite rare, except perhaps in minor quantities. I have nothing against having 5-10% resistances here and there among mundane troops due to faction traits or equipment. Significant resistances should be quite expensive to impart to your troops, and should only be found naturally on fantastical creatures. Resistances being stat-based or trait/ability-based is irrelevant because the effect can be identical.

And an example is HoMM IV. It has resistances in the form of traits/abilities - these of course are not common. That doesn't prevent Nature from not having a single damage spell. Or Chaos from containing the vast majority of all the worthwhile damage spells - the exceptions being Hand of Death and ice bolt. It's actually telling, though - HoMM III had the problem of the 4 schools of magic being more or less the same. They all had powerful attacks spells, for one. Even between two sequels in the same series, one had this problem and one didn't. The only real difference between the two in this respect? One had the balls to make each school truly different, and the other didn't.

Sure, nature ward isn't as useful as chaos ward. But chaos ward is worthless unless you're fighting chaos-aligned creatures and/or a hero proficient in chaos magic. In this example, nature 'resistance' isn't as valuable as chaos magic, but that doesn't make nature magic bad. A powerful nature magician can utterly dominate an equal chaos mage... A hero proficient in life magic can negate a significant portion of a chaos mage's damage potential, order magic can be used to prevent said chaos mage from even acting at all, and so on. 

HoMM IV is different enough than what Elemental is trying to be that it is not a very good analogy, but IMO it's very clear evidence of poorly differentiated magic schools being a result of developer laziness or uncreativity, rather than the existence of resistances. I think lots of developers are afraid that if you concentrate most of the offensive spells into one school, people will almost solely focus on that school. But that is only the case if they can't come up with interesting, effective ideas for non-damage oriented magic.

Personally I find damage-oriented spells to be boring, except for their graphical effects which tend to be very satisfying. HoMM IV had all sorts of problems, but I thoroughly enjoyed its magic system because it dared to give us truly different schools, and a huge number of worthwhile non-damage spells. 

Some problems with the system you describe:

Having lots of magic damage types and resistances, as you describe, creates a more boring version of a rock/paper/scissors type of effect, where the winner would come down to who has the correct resources and magic research to counter the other person.  (The way elemental seems to be developing, this  could come from a number of areas, from someone capturing the correct magical node, getting enough of the correct resource, researching the correct advance, etc.).  At the same time, having different damage types and resistances doesn't add much interesting gameplay to justify splitting things into different damage types, since you're still using a caster to cause effects to enemy units (Since different types of spell effects like AoE, debuffs, buffs, etc. can still be applied through a single magic damage stat.).

In addition, balancing the ease of finding magical resistance is also tougher than you suggest, since several different combat styles (Pure channeler/elite physical fighters/hordes of weaker fighters/others I may have forgotten or not heard of) have to be balanced against each other.  If magic resistances are too hard to find or too expensive, the "pure channelr" strategy may become unbalanced.  This is an issue that will occur in the game no matter what, but adding lots of resistances to juggle makes the problem a lot more complex, since the cost of individual resistances must be balanced around the fact that several enemies might be following a "magic heavy" strategy, while using different forms of magic.  however, not a lot of interesting gameplay would be added, since you'd still be playing a "physical army fights magical army" type of game.

The quest system/magical creature system would also have a similar problem (Questors and magic users would have to juggle the problem of which resistances/weakness/etc. to go after, and the creatures/magic would have to be balanced, but the overall gameplay would still be quite similar whether or not there were different damage types, as one person would develop spell based tactics and strategies, another would base their game strategy on whatever they needed ot do to get quests done and get magical creatures.)

Could all this be balanced?  Perhaps, though it is a lot to keep track of.  Is there enough interesting gameplay to be worth the development time and problems afterwards?  Not really, is what a lot of us (Or at least me), who don't see lots of damage types as necessary are thinking.

... No, not really. Like I've said several times already, as long as magical resistance equipment is rare and expensive, you will not be able to field enough of it to result in an actual rock/paper/scissors type of effect. You also have to consider whether or not it's worth the investment at all - is it worth such a huge investment to protect a few of your troops from fire magic if it's not going to help them at all against the other elements? That's a lot of resources you're using for a very specialized purpose, for a very small portion of your army. 

What does that have to do with anything? Of course I'm using a caster to cause effects to enemy units, what else would I be using, a toilet? Without resistances of any sort, it is impossible to to create a creature generally resistant to certain elements and not others. Personally, I think that alone is justification enough. With magic being as central as it is, the inability to differentiate between the damage done by a fireball and the damage done by an ice blast is crazy.

First of all, so you're saying that fighting against a channeler who has focused on Earth magic shouldn't be any different than fighting against a channeler who has focused on Fire magic, or Air or Water magic? It's all the same, I shouldn't have to adapt my strategy when fighting each one? I suppose fighting archers should be the same as fighting swordsmen, too. While I'm at it, why not just make one spell in the whole game that does everything. There should only be one unit, too, why bother with having more than one? It'll just be "unit" vs. "unit" anyway. Pfah.

Fighting against sovereigns who have specialized in different elements should feel vastly different IMO, and require very different approaches. Fighting against an Earth channeler? - expect him to slow your army down at every turn, block your attacks and try to slowly whittle you down. Fighting against a Fire channeler? - expect him to try to annihilate your army as fast as he possibly can, preferably before you can even engage.

Except in extreme cases like Dragons, etc (fantastical being with naturally high resistances to certain elements), magical resistance shouldn't form an integral part of your strategy. It should be a method of helping to preserve particularly valuable units that you'd rather not lose to a single, particularly well-placed/timed [insert spell here]. I hope we will never be fielding entire armies of troops with high magic resistances, unless as the result of a very powerful enchantment. So really, I don't think resistances would result in balancing problems at all, because equipment-based resistances would be more of a convenience than anything.

Quite frankly I don't care whether or not we even are able to make equipment with magic resistances. I'm much more concerned about natural resistances (although I definitely wouldn't complain about equipment-based resistances, either).

If resistence to specific elements is uncommon or rare (and I think at a minimum everybody agrees that it shouldn't be something your peasants are running around with in the base game), then a single resist stat does work. Most of the time thats all any unit is going to have. One of the other methods of handling the odd cases (like fire elementals) can be used to deal with the odd cases.

It is simpler in a way, because a unit has one score (resist) instead of fire/water/air/earth/life/death resistences. Given what we know about it right now, for the majority of your troops all six scores would be the same for a given unit anyway.

With some way to add modifiers, yeah. If all you have is resistance and all spells go against it, what you have is a fairly simple system with no way to do the odd things (like unit X being immune to something).

Which is why I favor that type of system. You get to keep the single stat resistance and most of the time that does the job, but the ability to deal with the odd cases (like fire elementals being immune to or even healed by fire damage, which I've seen in one game and really struck me as nifty) still exists. It's also a lot more modder friendly.

I vote yes, definitely.

I think a system like MOM would be fine for this game also.  Creatures had special abilities some of which would be things like death immunity.  I can't remember if there were things like fire resistance or fire vunerablity but adding those would give the same effect as having a bunch of damage resistance stats.  Give give Ents a fire vunerablity 50% or some dwarven like creature a magic resist 25% and you get the same effect without making it into a spreadsheet game.  There do need to be magic damage types but this way would be a little cleaner assuming most creatures are have an average resistance/vunerability of 0.  Basically the same thing but you are only showing the ones the differ from the average.

The first question I asked myself is do we have magic nodes? Or do we have elemental nodes?  It seems to me that the whole idea of the game is about elemental magic. 

To me, this aspect of the game seems to be about the different sorts of magic nodes, and the elements they control.  So I guess I am going to come down on the side of a more complicated elemental damage types.   I mean, what is the point of having fire nodes and air nodes.  Fire elementals, Air elementals - If they all do the same type of damage?  And have the same vulnerabilities or none?  I guess the answer is a simpler game. Not necessarily a better game – just a simpler one. 

But I can also see the rock paper scissors point of view.  But I am not sure that that is necessarily a bad thing.  It may be, but here's my thinking.

If a group of axeman is wearing chain mail, armour traditionally in role-playing games is vulnerable to piercing attacks, then it makes logical sense to send a squad of knights with lances or spears to combat them.  This means the chain mail clad axemen are at a distinct disadvantage against the Knights, but that is just good strategy.  Surely, the same should apply to group of fire elementals?

When a fire mage attacks a city with a large group of fire elementals.  Surely, the correct strategy would be for a fire mage to combat fire with fire.  On the other hand, a wind mage could call forth an ice storm and destroy the fire elementals.  Fire elemental vs. Fire elemental would be even odds - while the freezing cold and wet of an ice storm would do extra damage against fire elementals. Fire elementals and water or ice elementals would both gain advantages and vunrabilities against each other. Comlex - yes - but in my opinion fun.

I can see how making different sorts of damage can complicate the game, but for the same reason, if we simplify the game too far.  Then we take away the very meaning of the word elemental.  For how can we play game based on magic elements, if there is no advantage to taking control of or studying one single element over another?

As I have said, in other posts -- I genuinely believe that the game should be easy for novice players to get into -- but complex enough for advanced players to really sink their teeth in to.  I cannot see how varied damage types are going to truly complicate the game play greatly.  It may make it more strategic for advanced players, but that is the kind of thing that novice players grow into.  Anyway, that is my point of view.

Perhaps it would be possible to scale the amount of difference that the elemental type damages make depending on the difficulty of the game. 

So on easy game, elemental damage types would have no effect. 

On a normal game, 50% of damage is elemental damage and can be resisted by 50% of youe elemental resistance the rest just gets through and deals normal damage.

However, in a hard game, all damage is considered to be of its elemental type and therefore completely resistible by elemental resistance.  That would mean that in a simple game for a novice player.  There would no difference for the axeman vs. the Knights or the fire elementals vs. the ice storm.  But, in a hard game.  The strategy of what you attacked with what would win or lose you your fight.

Several magic resistances add little extra versatility (and even less when they are a weird case in the big picture) and add a lot of complexity (for little gain).

We have fire nodes and air nodes because probably flying looks like a weird spell for the fire school while raising a volcano looks weird for the air one... Not all spells go around damage (I hope).

About Fire elementals and Air elementals, the same: one could fly (better maneurability in the battlefield), the other have better combat stats, and so on. Damage types are just a minor part of all the versatility you can have in a unit.

RPGs don't support your idea at all: fire elementals aren't vulnerable to anything in most editions of the most popular RPG out there (DnD).

Well it appears we are at an irreconcilable impasse here, because quite frankly my imagination isn't wild enough to imagine a world were a small handful of magic resistances (whether implemented as stats or as traits/modifiers) hardly adds versatility and adds a lot of complexity.

I mean, I could probably explain the basics of magic resistances to someone who has never seen it before in one sentence. And I could probably expound on most of the subtleties of a given magic resistance system to that same person within a single short paragraph. If I can do that, then there is really not much 'complexity' there. It is not going to make a novice's head hurt trying to figure it out. If implemented as stats rather that traits/modifiers (things that only show up if relevant - ie non-zero resistances), the only risk is a cluttered infocard.

I have already covered the versatility front and I'm tired of repeating myself. If you still don't see my point there, then you are either stubborn, ignoring me, or our perceptions of reality (or understanding of the word 'versatility') are not consistent

To me that sounds like i shouldnt care about resistance, because i will never know which element i will encounter in the next battle. And since it is so expensive and hard to come by i better should invest in more troops or better weapons then in resis. So, in my reasoning Resistence is useless to care about.

That in turn makes damage defnition useless, because all spells will do exactly as stated. Because, since resistence is so hard to come by, no one will have it.

IMHO your arguments defeat your agenda. And much more defeating are your borderline attacks on people for not agreeing with you.

I am in favor of damage types, but only one single magic resistence stat.

That is obviously true, but that is what “opposite camp” says all the time. It is just very simple RPS system. It offers very little extra strategical and even fewer extra tactical decisions compared to general resistance. On strategic level you study to counter opponents’ magic, on tactical you just learn to not use fire spell against fire elemental (see I.P.Pavlov).

Also another issue is that this RPS system implies there will be lot of similar spells which differ only in type of magic. (this is just my personal assumption with no real-info of course; though many people seem to come to similar conclusion). If this is not the case, what other purpose those resistances serve? How will 17% air magic resistance counter “teleport enemy” spell? In the same way as 17% general magic resistance – it just wont. Yet with first case you have 6 additional stats, that wont be used most of the time, except for direct damage spells (which should be minority of spells).

Perhaps magical direct damage will be very common in Elemental, but it should be much more common than physical then, because we will have just one physical attack and defense stats (probably) and they surely will be used a lot. Having 6 stats for attack/resistance type which will be used in 5% (or even 50%) of cases compared to 1 attack/resistance which will be used in the rest is overengineered.

I think the last option is correct. I would add a different perception of word variability as well.

I would also like to point out what VicenteC said (or someone earlier in the thread), that lots of you try to add too much logical stuff into magic – eg. fire elemental being completely immune to fire (or even being healed). This is completely arbitrary and for every case of game/book/whatever where it is like that, exists one where it is not.

Also someone asked what else should be difference between spells than their type of magical attack. I really hope to see that direct damage magic will be only a small subset of all possible spells. Apart from traditional resistance, buffs (bless, heal), debuffs (curse, petrification) we can have lots of world altering spells (volcano, burn forests), adding abilities (fly, swim, run), unusual effects (teleport, mind control, freeze), summoning/construction (those elementals, but why not a defense tower or ditch as well) and dozens of more.

I sincerely hope that direct damage will be mostly concentrated in one or two schools (be it Fire or whatever) and therefore 6 magical resistances would be mostly useless simply because there wont be much attack spells in the rest and investing in those resistance wont be worth the effort.

What I've accomplished is making you attack me with less potent spells.

I agree, we have the same goal here.  A variety of fun, useful spells and effects.

Agree all the way,Heroes 4 is my favorite in the franchise and sure it has some problems,but also some really good ideas as well,totally different magic schools being one of them.Agree on damage spells,too...i can only hope Stardock will concentrate more on other kind of spells and not on fireballs,fire blasts,fire storms and armageddons.

You'll never know which element(s) you'll be facing in your next battles? That's pretty short-sighted. One of the points of strategy games is, you know, to prepare for what you think is most likely going to happen. If relations with your neighboring kingdom are going south with no end in sight, and you know that said neighbor has focused only on the fire element aspect of magic, perhaps it would be worthwhile to outfit some of your more valuable troops with fire resistance. I can't speak for you, but in many strategy games I have been able to predict what sorts of enemies I would be fighting, stretching pretty far into the future even.

But even more important, as I've said before, are natural resistances. They will always be there, they are not something you have to explicitly prepare, but they might affect how you use them depending on who/what you're facing and they might affect how your opponent attempts to deal with them. It makes you actually consider magic when determining how to use which troops/creatures where, and when. If the bulk of my military might resides with a host of summoned water elements, for example (and if water elementals are vulnerable to fire), then I might be very cautious about getting myself into conflicts with powerful fire channelers or fire-breathing dragons or what-have-you. Without different resistances, I simply wouldn't need to care.

So dragons will be useless, too, right? They will be rare and hard to come by, so no one will have any. That is a fatally flawed argument. Not in the least because it also ignores the fact that the most significant resistances should simply be natural properties of some fantastical creatures. Not to mention I only ever said significant magic resistance should be very rare and expensive to impart to regular, mundane troops. Personally I think it'd be fun for faction bonuses/traits and certain types of armor/equipment to provide minor quantities of elemental resistances. 

There is no point in having different damage types if they are all modified by a universal magic resistance... Unless you mean physical damage types, in which case we couldn't disagree more!

I have never seen a good, logical argument how different resistance types leads to fewer tactical decisions compared to general resistance. Sure, if something is immune (or nearly so) to fire magic, I will quickly learn to avoid wasting my mana throwing fireballs at them... But how does that limit my tactical decisions? For one it doesn't necessarily mean all fire element spells need to be useless against them - some fire spells could (and should) use fire as a means of accomplish something that is not directly related to fire itself. Someone's example from another thread was a flare spell that could blind units, for example. And secondly, if creatures can only ever have an overall magic resistance, then when I encounter them I will not treat them any differently than anything else RE magic - other than that perhaps I won't use magic on them and let my physical troops deal with them. If they have a 30% magic resistance, that just means that any spell that is affected by magic resistance would be equally diminished, and thus my choice is pretty much the same as it would be for a unit with zero resistances...

Different resistances, on the other hand, make you think. If I'm going up against something highly resistant or immune to fire and fire is the staple of my magical abilities, I am between a rock and a hard place. I could try using fire spells at diminished effects if I really know nothing but fire magic, or I could use spells from other elements, even though I'm not nearly as proficient with them. Without resistances, there is less of a motivation to actually diversify yourself on the magic front, and there is less of a difference between the elements in actual effect.

That is a red herring, IMO. Just because something is less common than something else doesn't mean it should therefore be less developed. Things that are less common can still be emphasized more, be more relevant in strategic considerations, etc...

It is arbitrary because fire elements don't really exist. Anything and everything regarding magic is necessarily arbitrary, because it is fully subjective. Ideas put into it can be grounded in reality, but ultimately magic as a whole is entirely a matter of imagination. If you remove everything that is arbitrary about magic (or even games in general, and especially fantasy games) then you won't have a game anymore. There is, IMO, some logic to beings consisting of/subsisting of or generally reveling in, say, fire being resistant to or immune to, say, a fireball. Now in a really deep and complex magic system I'd probably say that Fire mages would be quite effective at dealing with fire elementals - fire mages control fire and could do some serious hurt to something consisting of it, after all... They could perhaps disperse a fire elemental. But such systems are not practical in computer games (they work much better in tabletop RPGs where spell effects are largely determined by people's spontaneous imagination, whereas computer games must follow rigid rules). And so personally, I'd prefer to go for the next best approximation - which is magic types and resistances.

I see your point, I just don't agree with it (nor the argument you used to support it), it's not so hard to understand. It's probably similar to what you think about the single magic resistance argument, but reversed.

And that's one of the reasons why it's complex.

No, there is not any logic to it because as you said, it's arbitrary and subjective.

Then if Fire Resistance is useless against Flare, does that mean we need yet another Resistance stat for this? If so, how it combines with Fire Resistance? Or does that it mean Flare is unresistable?

Just to clarify, I wrote "...very little EXTRA tactical decisions..." (emphasis on extra). Obviously multiple magic classes system does create more possibilities for decisions than just single resistance. As I see it tho, they are more or less straightforward and dont add any real depth. Indeed, you can do monsters partialy or completly immune to something. But side effect of that system will probably be plenty of units with magic resistance stats like 8/12/9/18/3/14  %. (just equiped with cheapest items). Other effect might as well be very easy counterability of specialised player. That is if research for 6 shools resistances will approx scale to 1 type of magic (counter specialised attack is very easy 1/6th of effort), or on opposite, very rare use of resistances in case that approx 1 resistance research scale to 1 magic research. (then I should study magic instead, which I can use against other opponents later as well). Problem is that attacker has to pick "first" and you might try to balance between those two extreme cases, but you have to do a compromise which will either favour resistances or magical studies. The more types of magic you have, the bigger the problem is. Lets not forget that we can design our units so min-maxing will happen. Lot of games avoid that by having prefactored units.

On the other hand if you have just magic (of any kind) vs anti-magic system (that is one universal resistance) than you can make research of both somehow equal (obviously with some nonlinear scaling). So you can have "stupid" barbarians that are immune to your smoke and mirrors, but they have in fact invested as much resources as you had to achieve that. Plus they almost surely wont be "completly" immune as that is kinda privelage of a few. While balanced, this system preserves uniqueness of magic types (as long as the spells differs more than just in colour), because you can still choose which type of magic suits you more (or which node is closer...)

But truth is, that creating elemental immune just to fire would have to be done in some other manner (tags just for these special cases?). But this is sarifice I am willing to make to have actually balanced system, which is immensly important in multiplayer game.

Did you ever played any P&P RPGs? There is a load of ideas to amke damage types without having a trillion resis against anything.

A Water Elemental is simply immune to Water and Ice spells. Poison spells are more effective against units that are already weakend (% to resist = % of remaining health +- modifiers as per spell). Fire spells have an inherent chance of ingniting targets and / or environment. Lightning effects have a chance to stun and / or ignore metal armor.

Magic Resistence would only come into play for direct effects, like forced shapechange, illusions, mind tricks. My reasoning is, that an elemental effect is just an elemental effect. The second my magic has created fire, it is fire and behaves like fire.

Ah well, my english isnt good enough to argue it any further. It took ages to write that post

It could always reduce the maximum teleportation distance. Resistances can reduce the effectiveness of spells. If a spell does damage, resistance would reduce the damage done. If a spell slows, resistance would reduce how much the target is slowed. If a spell does something like teleport, the range would be reduced. If a spell does something binary, but with a duration, resistances could reduce the duration... I think you'll find that most spells actually fall somewhere within these categories...

So you're saying that there is no logic behind a lava-dwelling salamander being highly resistant to fire-based damage and effects? Sure, someone could create a perfectly self-consist magic system in which lava-dwelling salamanders are hurt by a fireball just as badly as, say, an Ent. But it would be confusing, because it contradicts our reality-based preconceptions.

In fact I would argue that in most cases, resistances are indeed pretty straightforward. A creature whose natural habitat is, say, extraordinarily hot should be resistant to heat (fire)-based damage and effects. A creature that is made of flammable material should be vulnerable to fire-based damage and effects. And so on. A creature that bores through rock shouldn't have to worry much about being buried underground by Earth magic - not only is that its natural habitat, but it can always just bore its way right back out again...

The matter is complicated when talking about elementals because while a fire/earth/air/water elemental might live in fire/earth/air/water, they are also made of it. And so while they should be resistant/immune to the relevant damage type, a magic-user whose specialty is control fire/earth/air/water should still be very effective at countering them. For example, there could be a "snuff flames" spell in the fire element that, instead of inducing fire damage simply puts out fires. It could be used to disperse an opponent's fire wall, or fiery weapons enchantment, or even a fire elemental... This is an example of the complimentary nature of magic resistance types and disparate magical schools/elements; the combination allows, in this example, a fire elemental to be resistant/immune to fire damage, but not to every fire spell.

Of course this is what makes sense to me, and being as we're talking about magic here anybody is free to make up their own magical rules. Personally I prefer mine to be logical abstractions and extensions of reality than wacky contrivances with no connection to reality. In the latter case, the magic system would be complex. In the former, not so much. If I was reading a description of a Fire Salamander and all of a sudden noticed "Weak to fire, strong against water" I would be like "What the @#$&? Where did that come from?!" - and if all such resistances were in the same vein I would never remember any of it. On the other hand if I saw "Resistant to fire, strong against water" I'd think, "Ok, I can see that," and I would probably remember it from then on, because it is intuitive.

I suppose it depends. The best way to handle things like that is probably ala HoMM. 'Immune to mind spells' and 'Eyeless' come to mind; creatures with these traits would be immune to mind spells or blind, regardless of what spell from which element was used. Unless, of course, you want to be able to blind eyeless troglodytes, or hypnotize mindless golems.

Then your wording was unclear: "It offers very little extra strategical and even fewer extra tactical decisions compared to general resistance." I suppose that could be taken either way. Nonetheless I entirely disagree with your assessment that the only thing it adds is the obvious decision not to use fire magic against fire immune creatures. See my previous posts...

Why do people always ignore my previous posts when responding to a later one? The result is a discussion that just goes round and round in circles. Like I said SO MANY TIMES, in my opinion resistances for regular, trainable units should be more of a convenience than a major component of strategy. Honestly I don't really care all that much of resistances for regular units are even in the game - I'd like it if they are but I wouldn't particularly mind if they aren't. You cannot, however, design your own dragon, or ent, or elemental, or kraken - they are what they are and they have what they have. No min-maxing to be done and no 'picking' to be done.

I'm fine with the ability to focus your magic research in such a way that allows you to impart magical anti-magic properties to your units. That could be a fun way to play the game now and then, and could even be combined with the 'regular' aspects of magic to create something of a middle-ground.

Regarding the bold section: no it does not preserve the uniqueness of magic types. It is the exact same thing as a system without magic damage/effects and related resistances, with the ability to specialize in a typical 'barbarian mentality' (which I think was already ruled out by the devs). Nonetheless in that system I still cannot have lava-dwelling salamanders that are resistant to fire and weak to water, and so on...

Whether implemented as tags/traits/properties/abilities or as resistances stats in line with ATK and DEF is irrelevant. The same effect is achieved, and neither is really any more complicated than the other. Really, tags are slightly more complicated than stats, with the added benefits of being more versatile and visually cleaner. If you think stats would result in an unbalanced system but tags would not, then you are confused because they are in effect pretty much identical.

Elemental is not a multiplayer game. It is a single-player game with multiplayer functionality... Or at least that was the original intention. Brad has stated that he will not dumb down or remove features that are great in single-player just for the sake of multi-player. Don't expect Stardock to be tweaking Elemental every few months for the sake of multiplayer balance like it's Starcraft or a competitive RTS. 

Well yeah. A system like that would be ideal, but as I said in a previous post it is not practical in a computer game! I would prefer a system like the one you just mentioned, really - it allows for much more variety and many more options than different magical resistances does! However, without a human to manage such a system, it would be unwieldy if it even worked at all. Really I don't see why we're arguing at all, because you seem to want an even deeper magic system than one with different resistances. I would love such a system, but AI is not at the point where it can successfully replace a human GM...

In a computer game, a system like this would require, among many other things (here I am just using the examples from your post): immunity tags (and possibly resistance tags...), special mechanics for poison tags, ignitability for fire (I hope my water elemental isn't going to all of a sudden ignite!) What would affect the chance lightning has of stunning? Armor would have to be tagged specifically as metal or not metal, and not just have DEF ratings and such. This is really just the tip of the iceberg, because you basically need to add individual details here and there for most things...

I suppose it could be done, but no one who thinks different magic types are too complicated would go for it...

This is not even a question. There must be damage types, otherwise the combat system will be an epic fail. This is my opinion. [85% of the voters said "yes" so far btw...] Just go and read this topic:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/367799

..or this:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/367578

Interesting topics I must say. I agree with Frogboy of course, some swordsmen or archers shouldn't be able to kill a dragon. What about 100 archers? Frogboy says: no...and I agree with him again. [Actually they are only talking about ATT & DEF in those topics of course.] However, what if we enchant the arrows, so they will do +3 dmg as fire? [Let's say that given dragon has zero fire resistance.] Those bowmen should do some serious damage in that case. It's simple and fun...without features like this, the combat system will be dull and primitive.

Either way [correct me if I am wrong], Boogie has stated that we gonna have magical damage types. So if this is true, we gonna have resistances & immunities also.

I don't think those are that hard to do. Ignite and poison for example are just debuffs (or negative abilities) that last for a certain amount of time and do something. They're really not much more complicated then other abilities would be.