How are sieges being handled? I would think a wall would be more suitable for keeping people out rather than farms or outposts...

Oh damn I hope we can build walls! One thing I really liked from Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic was being able to defend cities from behind a wall.

Frogboy and you say the game is not fun this looks AWESOME! Is the cloth map gonna be usable in the release so I can play it on my crappy laptop instead of just the desktop?

Can't wait till I can join the beta!
-Crasus Akechi

It has an inherent disadvantage. While building cities close together has the 'turtling' advantage, it is an inefficient use of land and essence. Since the cities are close together, they'll eventually start taking up each other's land. Thats land that can only go to one city. Plus, if you ever want to build another somewhere else, thats one more city that adds on to the city upkeep. Building an outpost revives land, if you build another right next to it, it will  "revive" land thats is already revived.

I say if a certain area can support multiple cities, then go for it. But it might be wiser to use your essence and city upkeep to spread the cities around and take advantage of as many resources as possible.

I think that there should be a minimum distance that requires at least one tile between the maximum range a city can build into- this way you can still turtle (you'd have to put an army between them or something) but it would make it much more challenging....just my opinion of course

I suppose it's an example of a "Twin Cities" thing, which is not unheard of (Budapest is actually two cities grown together - Buda and Pest).  I was just concerned that it would be the norm in the game, but it sounds like this is just a special case for defensive reasons.

I think the disadvantage is access to food.  Your total population is determined by your food supply, and if you've just crammed a lot of cities in a small area, you're not going to get access to much land/food.  As a result, you'll just have a bunch of small towns that'll never grow very big, and big cities are essential to building the more advanced buildings.

Hm, a whole host of setting problems stuck out like sore thumbs to me.  Most of them wouldn't be issues, except this is a post-armageddon setting and you (Frogboy) have espoused that this game's setting will be engrossing.  First off, making cities to function like tetris blocks strikes me as simply bizarre.   

Overall, I'm not given the sense that the world is recovering from catastrophe at all.  There's no sense of urgency and I really don't feel a sense of desperation and near futility.  Why?  Because there are simply too many circumstances where the setting would seem to indicate that things are proceeding in a normal fashion.  I mean, inns?  What's the purpose of having an inn in a hamlet of 30 people that accomodates no nomadic travelers?  Inns are a product of mature, merchantalist economies.

And then there is the biggest setting killer: gold is a relevant resource at the beginning of the game and it shouldn't be.  Honestly, if a few haggard survivors were emerging from 100 years of darkness, they wouldn't be concerned about gold.  It would be utterly meaningless.  Call it "an abstraction" (or a cop out) all you want, it doesn't substitue for the authenticity of demonstrating what people really would be concerned about: food, water, and safety.  Perhaps the first level of buildings should require no gold at all, because the remnants of civilizations have no formal currency based commerce yet.  At the very least, quests should reflect this fact. 

Instead of some dude and his family offering you gold to clear out rats, they should offer their loyalty.  So the quest should follow something along these lines:

You encounter a young, armed man in the wilderness.  As he approaches, you can see that he is panicked.

"Madam, please help me!  My family and I were living in a cave yonder when a colony of giant rats beset upon us in the night!  Please assist me in rescuing them and you will have my fealty!"

When you engage in combat, the man joins you as an allied soldier.  You engage the rats, but if you kill them too slowly, they begin to slay members of the man's family.  After the fight is over, the number of civilians remaining join the city of your choice.  If the young man survived, he joins you as an armed soldier.  Personally, I'd like to see instances like these be responsible for most of your early population growth, rather than people just abstractly wandering in from the countryside.  Prestige would play a role, but rather than just giving you a steady stream of citizens from god-knows-where, simply make prestige improve the perception of wandering bands toward your sovereign (thus making it easier to convince them to join you.)

It would be rather interesting to see prestige as a commodity in the place of gold at the beginning.  In other words, you would have to spend prestige to raise an army early on (they would go to war for you out of trust not gold, after all, which prestige would simulate.)

Anyway, I'm sorry to say it, but the setting isn't shaping up at all to capture the depth of a D&D campaign as was the claim.

Personally, I think that cities of certain city size should be blocked from building certain buildings (or would it be more accurate to say cities of certain prestige values?) However, I daresay that if you have the technology for an Inn, you should be able to build an Inn inside any city you want to.

Also, this is 100 years! after the Cataclysm ... and the bonus resources don't actually appear "lively" until it is atop of revived land. Otherwise its just a shadow/Marker to indicate that the place WILL become Wheat or Fertile Land if revived land spreads there (something only a channeler can see?).

Perhaps the ability to place more deadly terrain and dangerous lairs would help for the immersion?

Anyways, starting with Gildars from turn 0 is a necessity. Before you research "Currency" you can pretend that its a pure abstraction, and then with the advent of "Paper" combined with the tech "Banking" you can assume/pretend that most of those "coins" are now actually paper-money and bank notes. Having one form of money is a necessary game mechanic for games like these.

Brad stated this as being the case in the OP.

Good idea ! It fits more in the Elemental Lore.

And there's a glitch in the screenshot : Engeneering text says that "Allow the construction of workshops ..." But you were already be able to build one ! With all the changes made to gameplay, text of technologies should be more accurate.

You state: "Upon achieving level 1 in civilization, I am presented with 4 technologies to choose from. 1 of them is solid green (farming). 2 of them are nearly green (civics and engineering) and one of them is yellowish (Mining)."

This explains a mystery to me.  Many of your players are Red-Green color deficient.  In addition to your color scheme, please attach some symbol to each technology, representing its likelihood of being offered.  Keep Red/Green deficiency in mind in other parts of the game as well?  Thanks

Iwas referring to someone saying that an outpost had an inn in it at an early stage. I was of the impression that Inns should require City Size 3 in order to build.

City 1 -> only huts, farms, and resources gatherings + Walls

City 2 -> basic economy buildings like market and training yard

City 3 -> Taverns, Inns, Houses (civics stuff)

City 4 -> advanced buildings, Apartments, Theaters, Acadamies

City 5 -> Really High-End buildings, buildings produce more (I think its normally x city level multiplier (like x5 here), but I think 5 should be extra (like x6)), also capable of building massive walls with Catapult-like turrets. Capable of building wonders faster?? Perhaps disproportionately large area to build in as well (at least 50-100% larger than what size 5 should mathmatically become if sticking to the sequence)

If they follow the City 1 - City 5 play of Tasunkes description then I fail to see the strategy at all. The city building could be totally automated more or less. You would always build the same in all cities (at least the first ones) cause you have no choice. The only difference is what food sources you have. Not much strategy in choosing between wheat and sheep if you have a wheat field and no sheep available. I could write the AI for that

Woah....that's Ultima III. That brings back the memories.

I actually kind of agree with the notion that having gold as a relevant currency in the world right after the cataclysm is kind of silly. I'm trying to think what would be a better system. Here's one idea that came to mind:

You start off without any currency. When you stumble upon the first goodie hut that would give you money, it displays an event,  something like "You stumble upon a stash of trinkets from before the cataclysm. People hold these things dear to them, you can use them to barter and trade for favors!" -> trinkets become your first currency

After certain amount of turns / population growth / technological advantages / the first marketplace built, you get an event saying "The trinkets from before the cataclysm are have become commonplace and are starting to lose value. It is time to create a real currency for your kingdom to trade in. What name will your currency have?" Now, you change to the gold standard, and instead of having a fixed name, each kingdom has their own named currency. You trade in your own currency (1:1 between everyone), so it'll just be for your own flavour. A default name could be something resembling the Kingdom name: the Portux kingdom would have Portuxians as their default currency name etc.

I think this or something similar would make more sense given the post-apocalyptic setting, and if different kingdoms have different currencies, why not leave the option open for creative modders to work out some sort of an interesting economic system between kingdoms?

To rationalize the use of gold early on in the setting, you might simply say that it has an inherent alchemical value as well, making it a useful trade good, because everyone can use it to do some minor things. That way it doesn't just have the abstract value a goverment gives it.

Heh ... I was just throwing out some ideas. All the real choices (in such a situation) would become available starting at size 2, and size 5 would be preferred above all else.

Ok

I think there should be other factors then city size. It just feels strange that a city just below level 3 cannot build a library (or something), but after one more citizen and level 3 suddenly they can. Why not just have some buildings so expensive that you cannot build them until later. And ofcourse some buildings would depend on tech to be available.

Well, maybe "limits" on # of building per city (as well as needed tech) will work without performing abstract limits onto cities. Meaning almost everything has a limit of 1 in an Outpost, while some of the simpler buildings gain slots at level 2, some of the more economical buildings gain slots at level 3, Most all gain slots at level 4, and everyone doubles slots available at level 5. (while high-end buildings gain more slots ... equivalent to the same # slots of a lower tech building ... aka if there are 12 house slots, apartment slots would raise to at least 4.

Yeah, we shouldn't be able to build cities very close to each other, but this is my subjective opinion of course.

Would you consider adding snow terrain and ice over the sea?i wrote it in this post (https://forums.elementalgame.com/378966/page/8/#2585839) would be cool at least think about it i mean the whole game looks barren not even grass.grass is usually everywhere it dosent take long for it to grow at least a year or two i lived next to a burned down farm in 1 year there was grass everywhere i was like wtf

I believe that having Gold as currency even after a cataclysm is just fine.  Gold has retained its value throughout human history.  Gold is portable, can be concealed, does not rust, and is easily recognizable.  It can be converted to luxury goods such as jewelry or armor ornaments.  Being small, it is much easier to trade than other commodoties such as grain, hides, beer or wood.  If you are fleeing for your life you can take a pouch of gold but you cannot take 40 bushels of corn.

When we look at history, at the very worst of times, people still valued gold.  During the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Black Death, the Holocaust, the Mongol Invasions....gold was always an asset of last resort.  I believe it is entirely appropriate to use it thusly in Elemental.

Perhaps it would help for us to think of a gold coin as something the size of a penny, or smaller.  Not an ounce coin, such as a Krugerrand.  This was 250 peices of gold is a reasonable reward not an immense one. 

Edit:  Postscript regarding city placement.  I think we should allow the players to put cities whatever distance from each other they want to rather than force certain strategies through the use of placement rules.  If someone wants a dense, diseased, hungry city because that fits with their idea of a fun playstyle, let them!  If someone wants distant, large, hard to defend cities because that fits with their idea of a fun playstyle, let them!

I don't think you'd want to build them too close to each other anyway. I'd put a minimum distance simply to prevent newbies from crippling themselves. Maybe allow it so level 3 cities can touch, if they were built right at the minimum distance. Something like that. There will be a sweet spot for how far from each other you want to build them, and it will depend on the situation. I think it will add an interesting decision for players to make. Do you build them close to each other and make a defensible perimeter, or do you spread them out in order to secure as much land and resources as possible?

That would be even worse! As a newbie, a player may build 2 cities near each other not realizing they will expand.... all of a sudden mid-game their cities are touching forcing them to start the game over or deal with a crippled empire.  Thats why I figure the minimum distance should require 1 tile between cities at level 5.

Yes. Thanks A LOT for this, Frogboy! This summary helps understanding many features.

If you could keep it on a little more to show domains like recruiting, spells and diplomacy, that would make an excellent tutorial for Beta 1Z.

(How do you know that your channeler can't recruit XYZ the Trader in exemple?   )

I'll take opportunity to propose a little UI improvement: in the upper bar with your global resources pool, it would be useful to indicate the current flow by turn so as to know what's the trend.

Ex. for gold: not only "500" but "500 (+3)" or "500 (-5)" and same for other resources. To make it more visual, you could also write it in green when balance is positive and in red when it's negative.

As a reminder:

Elemental takes place a century after the cataclysm.  People aren't just coming out of caves or something. 

A better analogy would be a decade or so after the black plague or something where civilization has been greatly reduced and is dispersed. 

Combine that with the fact that the world is just starting to really recover from the effects of the cataclysm -- there are patches of living stuff and there are manors, estates, and inns that dot the world but there is no real government in place.