Beta 1Z News and Info!

So the stability update will actually go live this weekend and not next week? Awesome, the 10 or so turns I get to play before a fatal error, blue screen of death, and system reboot are pretty fun.

This weekend's update is just to fix some of the more egregious issues.  Next week will be our first real stability update.

I like that Stardock is really looking at the different race populations issue. I myself am really hoping they come up with a good plan that works, and retains the multiple populations. But, why do you need multiple populations of different races in a city if they don't have populations move from city to city?

In MoO2 you can move different race pops to different worlds, but in MoM you take a city and whatever was there is there; there isn't any moving of races to different cities. Personally, I think the MoM way is simplier, and I would be happy with that. Also, after playing the 1Z beta today, and remembering how Stardock did GalCiv2, I can't forsee any reason to move populations to different cities as in MoO2.

I'd be happy with either the MoO2 way, or the MoM way, just as long as there are different races that a nation can control.

3. Does that mean to start a game, exit that game, and start another game and have it run without exiting the Program? It sounds like that's what that means.

Should we report traits chosen at start that don't work as intended ? for instance if I choose a sov that can raise the research points if he stays in a city, I won't get those extra research points.

Are you guys really THAT set on the global economy model? I hate to sound like a broken record, but it has been coming up a lot lately and just straight out of right field after all the discussion that has gone back and forth over the months on the game's economy.

Because I really think you should at least give player feedback a chance on it.

Also, on the AI. If it can be made more defensive and less aggressive it would make game testing go a lot better. AI right now seems to have a Kamakazi death wish.

Very nice to see a game company intent on releasing a finished product, instead of whipping something up and spending the next 6-12 months fixing it (I'm looking at you, Bad Company 2...) or worse, just forgetting about it. Take all the time you need guys! It'll pay off in the end.

Awesome, too bad I am not at home to try it out right now.

SIege sounds awesome. Naval battles I am not too sure about. Will they be available as tactical battles as well? I still see the naval battles of Empire:Total war in front of me. My god, that was a heap of feces of a game. And the naval aspect was pretty much one of the worst thing about it. That is why I am asking, naval battles are fine by itself, as long as it works properly and it is in fact strategic rather than a hopeless uncontrollable and unresponsive mess.

Sounds like a very sound plan. We need stability for MP.

Nice. The 1Z stability is still far from being perfect, however it's much better compared to the older versions. I will try to find new CTDs & lock ups today, because I know that you lads love to fix these!

This can only be a good thing. Looking forward to the update.

I've not contributed much in the way of bug reports, as whenever I seem to get one, someone else has beaten me to it. Should I still upload the save, debug.err and such?

Ok. Just had a complete game. 250+ turns, but the deal was I had only 1 enemy faction. Will add a second enemy and go again, then add 1 etc.

I already know with 4 or 5(max.) enemies I get Memory Out errors with after +/- 140(ish) turns

Killing Trolls is a total PITA. Yes. I know they will be tweaked...

Some map elements are not accessible without Magically altering the land, which is late stage big time due to research turn costs. There is a Ruin in a lake, and a herd of Horses on an Island (Sable) perhaps.

Add a Quest object spawning offshore...

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2379/elemental1z1.jpg

Here is one thing I found that could be a BUG. If you select a Hero and it indicates a Battle(swords), then cancel that battle to try and recruit them, they report the SOV Charisma required as thier actual Battle rating. (doh!) See PIC.

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/9971/elemental1z.jpg

P.S. Not to bitch but the map could use some smooting around the outter edge. What is with all these little coves with Shards in them that you can't grow even a Town around.

Also, can we get some clairification on why a Pioneer who captures a Bee's Nest, with the proper tech gets the added FOOD bonus, without being connected to a City, vs a Pioneer who captures a Shard but does not get the Bonus added unless a city IS attached...

Double standard....

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" <----- good quote if you you ask me

  Just enjoying the feedback and the commitment from you Stardock, and the other people testing Elemental.  I have really had a great time reading all the informal comments and updates that Frogboy, BoogieBac, etc., are making here. 

  Frogboy, I briefly worked for a software co.  We had 2 walls in our support area.  One wall had a bunch of negative problems, comments, etc, directed towards the company or employee's of the company.  This was kept so that we could fix, alleviate, take action or just ponder on ways that could benefit or make changes to the software. 

  The other wall had all of the positive comments and notes.  This was for morale boost.  This wall had very few well wishers.  I think you should have something like this(maybe you already do).  

  Both spaces were helpful.  One helped you concentrate on what needed to be fixed(to a degree in what order) and the other gave you positive reinforcement from company admirers of products or services.  I don't see a need to post every print mail, e-mail, telegram, etc., but it does help if you have a small space devoted to both area's that employees can see and read. 

Just want to say that the gameplay is great, fun and addictive, it's come a long way since the start of beta 1. In particular, making the resources global was a brilliant move, they give the economy just enough depth without too much micromanagement. All of which makes it all the more heartbreaking when the game crashes every 20 turns or so =/ But I definitely think the game itself (when it works) is ready for beta 2, as soon as the stability problems are worked out I look forward to multiplayer.

Also, I might be in the minority, but I like the trolls. Since I never get past turn 30 or so, I min/maxed my sovereign to be as strong in combat as possible, to give me something to do during those first 30 turns - trolls are the only thing that presents any challenge, and they can still be killed. I think it's important to have something absurdly difficult present itself early in the game, it gives you something to do with all that expensive starting equipment if you choose to make a combat sovereign, and if your sovereign is a wimp you can always retreat from them and build up your armies - it gives you a goal to aim for, a reason to train soldiers. Why would you want to research the next level of weapons and train a ton of soldiers, if there's nothing nearby that your sovereign can't handle easily? You do it so you can finally get your revenge on that damn troll!

Now I haven't tested ranged units yet ie Archers, are they in yet cause when I looks at the tech it gave no new items in the description. Or will they be add in at a later date? (which beta?)

So is espionage gonna be added in an expansion or Elemental? (I remember people talking about it but it was awhile ago.)

Reducing the game down to just 1 opponent seemed to stabilize it for me as well. I played a dozen games with lots of crashes and on my last one had one opponent and got over 100 turns.

Also in the 100+ Turns.

I was never able to get my sovereign over level 1 as I was not able to win a single combat against anything including a bandit and a lone spider.

I was never able to build any units other than peasants despite researching various military technologies. In my opinion even the weakest sovereign should be able to beat the weakest unit (spiders?) or else they'll never be able to get anywhere in the game (Can't accomplish quests, can't defend, etc)

Pacing of the game is SLOW.... Research costs grow exponentially while research ability grows linearly with building development. Seeing 30 plus turns to still research initial green techs is INSANE.

For me the micromanagement of the new economy is a lot worse. I'm having to manage materials, food, metals, city size limits, (gold seems to be the one abundant material) etc to build anything in my city queues.No long build queues either, I have to come back every few turns when something completes in a town (and it is a pain in the new interface to know when and which town, isn't as obvious as before)

I liked it a lot better before where I could generally build what I wanted if I had the money and resources were largely a factor of time. I could also queue up a lot more and not worry about micro-managing build lists of each town every couple turns.

I think that there should be the option to EDIT our custom Sovereigns. I mean, if we find out that we don't want a particular thing, or want him to try a slightly different playstyle (but know that MOST options we still want) then I would like to be able to edit the (custom)Sovereign in-between games.

Not only would it be better from a "fun" perspective, but also from a testing perspective. For instance, removing Hardy, and re-adding Hardy, to see if it does ANYTHING. apparantly Hardy + 20 Constitition = 40 starting HP  ...  FUBAR!!!

Even if you have to save the edited sovereign under a new name, starting from a template you already spent 5 or so minutes on would be nice.

Choose a sov with 20 in strength and dexterity (20 in str will double your attack value and 20 in dex will double your defense value), the book of restoration and the trait that gives you 4 points in rresearch and the trait that gives you 1 point spell each turn.

Then go west to kill a spider, then go back to your city, wait until you recover all your health. Choose the spell "mass heal" as soon as you can. then explore a little.

That should get you started.

To train other units you see in red the resources you need. for instance a pioneer will need materials and gold. So you need to build early on the workshop, then research lumberyard to build two of them and get 9 material per turn. It's better if you build the second city a little south east where there's an other forest to build lumber yard on.

Remember some equipment will need iron (so you need to research iron mining first)

And I think that a week sov shouldn't be able to beat anytime a spider. I like the fact that they aren't only XP bags.

I totally agree. Even with the trait that gives you 4 more research points it's so slooooow. And there's so much tech to research at start to get your economy and a basic defense: farming, mining, construction, equipment, quests, 1 or 2 magic tech to be able to harvest crystals and get 150 max spell points for that fire giant.

I too liked the old system, and I'll need some time to get accustomed to the new one. But I can see the advantages of this one : you speak of micromanagment, but in fact it's just that we lack some kind of report about what are doing our cities (like in civ where you can get some kind of excel sheet of your cities, what theyr are building, how much culture they have etc. You can even build new thing from that screen.) the actual micromanagment isn't due to the new system but to the lack of a way to keep an eye on anything important.

What I'd like to see is a way to set our custom 'triggers", like "When I finish that building I want to be warned" or "Warn me when that unit arrives at destination".

The problem is you can't ask to build something next to a building that isn't built. There need to be a way to ask for an entire line of buildings like in supreme commander. I can see the problem : if you ask ABCD then destroy C, should D still be in the queue ? It isn't an easy thing to implement. So what we need is a powerful UI to get the job done.

If you have to choose a specific sov in order to get anywhere in game, there is a problem. Also, you can edit the sovs file under units to cheat.

The whole point was it is a problem that needs fixing.

Maybe not anytime, but at full health any Sov even the weakest should be able to beat the weakest unit in the game without building an army (which isn't available early game). This is a minimum. I would also argue it isn't bad to have some "XP bags" in the early game to give you a start if adventuring is the route you choose to go.

While what you say is true, it wasn't my point. When you have multiple cities they're now all working from the same pool of resources and they're a lot to keep track of. Just queuing up buildings in one town can be a pain to manage all the resources you need. But then what you've queued up counts against what you want to queue up in town #2 (and 3).

They wanted people to only have a couple towns and I think they accomplished it. It looks to be hell of a painful micromanagement to have a lot of towns (or a lot of resources for that matter).

This doesn't bother me so much. However, trying to built a town next to a mountain range and with the square building plan they're constrained to you can run out of spaces.

Remember we're in beta Numbers aren't already crushed and the battle mechanics aren't set yet in stone. And there's traits that don't work as intended.

That's weird. There's no resource in red in the unit infocard of the building UI when you mouse over it ?

And what about sovereigns that aren't made at all for combat and exploring but empire managing (like with traits that gives bonuses when you're garrisonned in a city) ?

Oh. I didn't see it like that. Maybe because I don't start a new city if I don't need one. So even with 4 cities I don't have much to micromanage.

The problem you raise about where you spend your resources is a good one. I hope devs will find a good solution to this.

It's the same as the problem I raised : whatever will limit you, you can't plan ahead the buildings. That is the problem. Even next to a mountain, if you could plan like in Sup Com it wouldn't be such a problem.

To build something other than a Peasant, your base unit, besides the new Pioneer, Research as much of the stuff you want under the Warfare tab, Armor, Weapons... etc.

Then select the Peasant template and then Upgrade. Add the gear you have/want, then Save it as a new Template.

Most costs are strictly Gold based, unitl you get into the heavier armor stuff...

Sent a Private to not clog up the Forum with Pics

In elemental, there is is only 2 standard units: peasant and pionner. You must design all others units.