I realize that we've been extremely spoiled by patches for the last couple of days, quickly jumping from B to C to a hotfix to C, but when can we expect 4?

I'm anxious to make my own Kingdom. :3

Not until next week.

Horse Archery should be a tech that allows experience to make horse archery more effective.

Inexprienced Horse Archers shouldn't be that useful- both historically and mechanically.  (Ranged, fast units tend to unbalance a game fastt- see Kohan and its infamous goats, or the AOW games)

Will we be able to define things such the map grid size in python?  This thread about changing the city building grid to smaller 3x3 tiles instead of 2x2 is something I'd really like to try.

yeah i wanted to make a post about it

i really dont like low hp in general, whatever the dmgs are i really like to start with high number in hp so its easier to balance things

also with the actual "sauron like" combat system meaning sometimes ppl attacks 2,3 or even more times the dmg should be lower compared to ppl hp

One way to get a bear.  Idea of mine

Tech: Rangers on the warfare tree , but with maybe civilization and adventure prereqs (this can be done- something simple like Harvetsing and some low lvl Adventure tech like Heroes)

You can then train rangers who can capture a bear or other animal it defeats in combat (+50% vs animals).

Allow for combining ranger+bear with mounted warfare?

Indeed. I think that everything should be rebalanced, since the scale of the game has been changed. So what was the original idea? Thousands of units / army and epic sized battles. 5-10HP/unit with that setting = absolutely acceptable. However what we have now? Only a couple of units / army [max 200]. -> Individual units are much more important with the current settings.

It's good to see the elemental machine is humming along nicely.

On the issue of the UI, can we mayube get a warning when there are things that urgently need attention? For example, it is way too easy to end a turn when scouting units still have moves left. Therefore if you forgot a unit, it remains motionless for quite a while without the player noticing it.

Also we may want to build something in our settlements, and it is easy to forget that too. Like for example when you found a kingdom, you cannot build housing right away. You need to wait a bit. I want a warning when it is possible, because I forgot to build houses more than once. Granted it is part of the game to keep track of these things, but that does not mean that we need no help there. Also we need to be able to see at a glance if a town is training units or building buildings.

One more before I shut up. Can we get the option to rotate the map or to change the angle from which we look down? Quite often I found myself looking at a mountain pass without the ability to select a unit there. Sure we can get to the cloth map to fix it, but this should not be needed.

Ok one more. Can we get an option to select a random race and sovereign? Choosing a leader and race is nice and everything, but I would also like to pick randomly so you never know what to expect.

I think every faction should have what the tarth faction has at the moment - a boost to the soldiers' health. I've been playing that faction mostly and the health and offense and defense (for that faction) seem quite proportional.

It is not difficult at all to build units that have more defense than offense, even with lots of research into weapon upgrades.

For example,

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7192/elemental1279709093.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1292/elemental1279709089.jpg

Also note the importance of upgrading the experience of your unit - 480 health for a noob compared to 1440 for a hard rider.

Solo versions of the unit:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9333/elemental1279709389.jpg
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3449/elemental1279709394.jpg

well they could release at 00.00 monday in the same exact moment when its both next week but still this week

A lot of people are talking about there not being enough HP on units, and to a degree I agree.  But, the idea that one good hit from a big sword will kill you if not dodged or deflected is pretty realistic.  I like that it is hard to get hitpoints.  It would be hard to have big epic armies if a stack of two or three units could stand up to almost anything on the map. 

In addition to this, if you want more HP for your units, there are already a few ways to do it that at least on a large map can be easily done before you run into any major battles with the other players.  One of the later technologies on the war category increases HP of your units, and its one of the ones that gets a "refined" version of the tech so you can get it over and over and over again.  You can also build temples of fortitude which give a huge percentage boost to HP especially if you get a couple of them.  It gets even better if you fortify your cities so you get a huge defence boost on top of that. 

I remember earlier discussions on this forum where a lot of people spoke out against the idea of monolithic armies or easily obtainable super elite units that could be made in mass.  I always liked the idea of having a army made up of mostly low powered units with a few powerful knight and caster types to give it oomph and direction.

I think that while some of the weapons do seem to be overpowered in relation to the HP, I don't think the answer is to raise HP or lower the attack of the weapons.  I think the answer is to make the extreemly highly powered weapons much harder to get.  I think the answer to this would be time in troop training.  While it would be unrealistic to have a powerful sword cost 50 metal or something, I don't think it would be unrealisitic to have it take a much longer time to train units who are going to be wielding powerful weapons. 

For me, the game so far has progressed on a tangent curve.  My accumulation of gold and materials starts out slow but starts building faster and faster as the game progresses.  By the time I have explored enough to find some enemy factions and decide who I want to take over first, my resources are really accumulating at a faster pace than I can spend them unless I suddenly have every city churn out high power units all at once.  The only thing I don't have a surplus of is time.  If time was the major cost in equipping and training a high level unit, it would make the choices of what I design my troops with mean a lot more.

Another thought would be to have different tier weapons have level requirements to be wielded.  This would require two things.  Allow basic units to level up in a very simple way.  No stat boosts or anything, just have gaining a level affect one thing, the type of stuff they can be equiped with.  This leveling could be gained slowly over time even if the unit is just sitting in a city, and happen faster if the unit is actually involved in fighting.  Then, add a button to the troop training menu that says "upgrade" which will let you select a unit stationed in the city to switch out to better gear, similar to the item shop for heros but with the cost being in materials and metal rather than money.  I know it might be to late in the game to implement something like this though. 

Anyway, I think HP is fine, its just to easy to make one hit killing machines.

One issue that I have is that I have to go to the cloth map to find treasure tiles quickly.

If there were a way to identify them as quickly at the higher zoom levels that would be great.

You can rotate the map already! 

You need a third mouse button or a way to simulate one. I haven't found a keyboard shortcut, but my Logitech mouse has programmable buttons and 'third mouse button' worked perfectly. Makes the game much more fun.

keywords: mouse rotate button viewing angle

I really like your ideas.

Best regards,
Steven.

But Starcraft 2 comes out next Tuesday! How can you force such a fierce conflict upon my free time! . *hopes unrealistically for a Monday release*

This is why I'm in favor of a combat system with four variables rather than two.

Defense = Avoidance skill

Attack = Accuracy skill

Damage = ....

Armor = Damage reduction

cloth/leather has higher defense and lower reduction, plate does the opposite in addition to slowing movement (without a mount)

Example using fake numbers:

Unit has 16 dexterity this provides a bonus of 16-10=6    let's pretend that 1 defense provides you with a 3% chance of avoiding an attack altogether. So naked, this agile unit has an 18% chance to avoid the attack of somebody with an equal attack bonus.

Now leather armor provides a 30% increase to your dexterity defense bonus, we'll round it to keep calculations simple. Now the unit has a defense of 8 or 24% chance to avoid equal skilled attack.

Leather armor also provides a meager damage reduction of two against slashing and bludgeoning, one against piercing.

Now take the same unit in plate. Full platemail will reduce your dexterity bonus to defense by 50% this unit has only a 9% chance of evading an equally skilled attacker.

It also cuts battlefield movement (dismounted) by 50%, to a minimum of 1.

The damage reduction on plate is 10 against slashing, 7 against bludgeoning and  6 against piercing.

Attacker has 16 strength, this gives him an attack skill of 6, and a damage bonus of 3.

He's using a broadsword which has a listed damage of 7 and gets a bonus of 3 from strength. So 10 possible damage.

He swings at the person wearing leather. With an attack skill of 6 and a defense skill of 6 the defender has a 24% chance to avoid the hit altogether, if that fails he will take 8 damage.

He swings at the person wearing plate, attack skill of 6 vs a defense skill of 3. 0% chance to dodge, because of the disparity created in the two skills a further damage bonus is applied since the attacker can more easily focus the assault in weakened areas or strike with more strength in the right locations. So the % disparity in attack vs defense skill, in this case 100%, is applied to the Str bonus, this provides +6 damage from str on top of the 7 the broadsword has baseline. 13 damage, 10 of which is absorbed. 3 damage total.

Obviously the numbers and such can be tweaked, but this gives a general idea of what I had in mind. Thoughts?

Slainangel52 I completely agree. I think these four stats would greatly enhance the tactical battles.

Bioware has used the same idea in Dragon Age Origins, and I find it works perfectly.

I agree with Slainangel52 for the most part. Stats / System that make the most sense to me:

• Stamina: used the move the unit on the map and in tactical battles (including attacking, etc)
• Constitution: governs max health
• Defense: Y/Z - used to avoid taking physical damage (X) and magical damage (Z)
• Armor: W/X - used to reduce physical damage (W) and magical damage (X). Also has a type: light, medium, heavy
• Attack: accuracy and damage dealt with physical weapons
• Intelligence: accuracy and damage dealt with magical attacks
• Wisdom: max amount of mana

• Health Regeneration: how quickly the character regenerates health
• Mana regeneration: how quickly the character regenerates mana

So basic attacking would work like this:

1. Attack roll: (Attack / 3) + random number between 0 and Attack - (Attack / 3)
2. Defense roll: (Defense / 2) + random number between 0 and Defense - (Defense / 2). Take any bonuses / enchantments related to defense.
3. If final attack roll is larger than defense roll, then the defending unit takes damage! If not, the attacker misses (bonus to counter attacks if original attacker misses maybe?)
4. Base damage = Attack + bonuses
5. Damage reduction = (base damage) / (base damage + defense). Take into account armor type, damage type, enchantments, etc.
6. Final damage = base damage * damage reduction.
7. Defender's health -= final damage.

Armor types would influence damage reduction against damage types (slashing, peircing, blunt). Special armor may introduce defense against magical attacks as well, etc. The system would be very flexible and would allow for more interesting tactical combat.

That would be what 'Not until next week' means.

Well it is quite easy. since Starcraft 2 is an RTS game, and by definition RTS games usally suck, then you should have no problem not playing a sucky game. Therfore you can concentrate on Elemental.

Stardock - PLEASE make this configurable. I also am using a logitech mouse, unfortunately it does not have a option to use the middle wheel button to simulate the 'third mouse button' and none of the other options seem to make this work for me. If I could bind this function to a key, I could then make this work by programming one of the buttons on my mouse to use that key.

PLEASE! (I'm asking VERY nicely Cari..) [I'm willing to send chocolate or pizza or even cheap wine]