Some more recent thoughts

Also, even among the human units, there needs to be differentiation.  All melee units feel the same.  It would be great if spears or pikes were good vs cavalry, or got a first strike when defending but had lower attack value, or if axes were armor piercing, or something.

Its a bit unfortunate that swordsmen feel the same as axemen feel the same as spearmen.

Give us a reason to explore the different weapon options, rather than just choosing the highest attack weapon available at each tech level.

Maybe we can have rogue units with light armor and daggers that are invisible except when you have a unit in an adjacent tile.

Some very good points.  This game has huge potential but it just isn't coming close to fully developing all the good areas it has.  Hopefully there is a lot we are not seeing yet.

I suspect you're just not going to like Elemental. Civ V comes out in September though so you can perhaps try that.

I'm not trying to be flip but saying that different resources are all the same or all techs are the same really just tells me that this game isn't for you. I'm sorry.

Hush frogboy! I think you will like this game. Weapons are going to be different on release. From what I hear from   is that there will be slash, pierce, and dodging abilities. Monsters get special attacks. Wizards can be made. Entire legions will rise from the ground at you whim. Maybe Beta 4 confused you because it is so much fun. It is not a game. The game comes out in a few weeks.

Beta 4 is certainly not anywhere near what the final game will be like.

But someone thinking that the final game will suddenly completely change the game is in for a disapointment.

I see Wild What and I know (by clicking on it) that it provides a lot more food than fertile land.  I know that Swords do less damage but are faster while  Maces and such are slower but do more damage and thus it depends on whether my strategy in battle is survivability (lasting power) versus trying to finish them off quickly.

The game background is that the races are basically derivatives of Humans. The Fallen came from Men. Someone may not like our backstory but it is what it is and we like it.  We're big fans of the George R. R. Martin books (fantasy, all men) and it definitely influenced our work.  

I believe most people will think Elemental is an outstanding game on release.  However, it won't be for everyone. Some won't like our art style. Some won't like that we chose to have humanoid races. Some won't like that you can't train dragons and unicorns in your cities.  But the game that tries to please everyone ultimately pleases no one.

That can be a big difference. Particularly when you're looking at recruiting parties and larger groups; it's no good having the best weapon and armour if it's costing 900 gold to train a three man party. Plus of course you've got to decide between a two handed weapon for the additional attack and less speed, or a shield for more defence.

 The AI doesn't seem particularly adept at creating units (or anything else for that matter) at this point so how big a difference it will actually make to the game remains to be seen. Due to the way the party and larger groups work I expect cost will make a huge difference; you're going to have to balance better equipment against being able to recruit in sufficient numbers to be useful.

From what I can see only Empires can use Wargs, and only Kingdoms can use horses. There's no difference otherwise, beyond of course Wargs and Horses being separate resources. Differentiating them a little more might be nice. The food is fine; since it's the main key to expanding your cities it's a fairly important resource, and it makes wheat particularly important since a single wheat field provides enough food to support a top level city by itself. It gets more important as you expand, since you'll want to be founding cities which have no local food supply to claim other resources, so surplus food from your other cities is a necessity.
 

It doesn't need to be balanced. You've already built the building, if it's useless to that city then you've wasted the resources invested in it to begin with. Combined with the specialisation bonuses you can get from the various buildings and level up selections the cities work fine as is.

Your sovereign only respawns if they're in neutral/friendly territory. It's not a big deal in the early game while you're off adventuring, but it does become important once you go to war. As your main magic unit, it's a choice between deploying them on the frontlines where they can use all those wonderful spells you researched but at the risk of being killed, or keeping them safe but being unable to deploy their magic. As time goes on and larger parties of troops become standard it's particularly risky, since a single party of archers can wipe out the sovereign in one hit if you aren't careful.

It is difficult to simultaneously parse the two messages from the developers that the game will not completely change, and yet we are unreasonable for judging the quality or fun of the current build because, you know, its just a beta.

[Not in this thread, but other responses have clearly demonstrated the frustration of the developers with people's comments that aspects of the game, particularly tactical combat, are not really any fun yet.]

This may be the design intention, but it isn't coming through in the current build.  No unit has staying power, because attack values are so strong that most units are killed in melee in the first hit.

Combat speed doesn't matter unless you have enough movement to be able to move a tile and attack on the same turn, which basic soldiers do not have even with lower damage weapons.  So why should I bother choosing the lower damage weapon?

Perhaps fewer weapons would work better; I think the design intention should be to make sure that every weapon at a given tech level  has some kind of reason to use it (though earlier weapons can be outclassed by later weapons, thats fine).  Being 2 gold cheaper than a unit that does 2 more damage is not really a good enough reason.  Options should be meaningful, otherwise they can feel like clutter.

They are not all the same but I do not think they are coming across the way you intend them right now.  I am really enjoying the beta already and expect to enjoy the game even more so.  I know some resources give more food, but at the moment with how many are present vs how much I actually need and the minimal effort required to acquire one I never feel the need to even check.  I have rarely in beta 4 been hurting for any resource and have had surplus of almost everything. Unlike before where I had to sacrifice precious essence to build a settlement it now costs me like 85 gold and 15 material maybe.  I do not have to think to myself should I build by the wheat or the fertile land, I just build a town near both. 

The more I think about it the over abundance of resources makes for a lot of that as well.  I had a large city today whose area of influence encompassed 3 gold mines, 2 libraries, 2 wild wheat, a fertile land an air shard, a temple, 2 ore mines and 3 wild horses and I think a crystal crag as well.  I love resources but that seems a little over abundant. 

Some of this may be AI driven too.  I know there is a lot of effort going in to making the AI work and it has improved significantly, but maybe in the end when it becomes harder to defend all my cities the over expansionist in me will be crushed. 

I know also that not everything has been implemented and this is not the real game yet.  It just feels like some of the intentions have been under realized.  For example you talked about some weapons being faster and slower than others but at the moment it is almost impossible to see.  As was mentioned most units only survive till they get hit once and I don't think I have seen any weapon attack more than once.  I know you said tactical battles are a work in progress so make sure that intention is realized.  I guess maybe I just can not see how the attack speed is functioning so it gives it a feeling of sameness. 

How does attack speed work in the current build? 

As for the techs they all feel the same because they still come at such a blur.  Once the game gets moving it usually takes 3-4 turns to get a new tech (which seems to include between 2 and 10 items).  By the time I get around to using it I already have the next one, and it is pretty much the same for spells.  I would like to see a little more to start and then take a little bit longer to reach the good stuff.  Instead of starting with clubs only maybe start with the first few items, clubs, daggers and axes.  Then you have something to work with in the beginning but still have a goal.  Make sure that different feel is realized an noticable to the player.  ie Clubs cheap, daggers fast lower damage, axe slower higher damage. 

Unit upkeep should vary a little too.  It takes more gold to keep a claymore and a suit of full plate in good repair than it does a simple club, and the skilled warrior behind it probably wants more gold too. 

The other thing is at the moment everyone seems able to get every tech.  I don't know if this is something you guys have thought of but for example tech in Master of Orion, unless you were creative you had to choose one tech from a tree and the rest you had to either trade for or hope to find, with a rare breakthrough that gave you all the techs in that field.  So for example I research the magic rings, and can choose one that I will be able to make.  If I want the others I need to come up with a way to get them.

Once again in Master of Orion some things took a long time to research so you kind of reach a temporary plateau where some things a worth while for a period.  If it is going to take me 60-100 turns to research claymores maybe I want to train some guys with longswords in the meantime.  Sort of a tech lul where a certain level of item is viable for a longer period.  Otherwise right now it feels like a tech race to me that the computer never wins. 

In the end Frogboy I like what you guys have done so far.  I know its getting close to release and huge changes are not going to be made but take a step back and see if things are going where you intend them to be. 

By the way the art style is great.

I have to agree that in the current Beta 4 build, there really isn't much difference in weapons. Of course if you have a more powerful weapon than that makes a difference but it seems like you always basically want to equip the most powerful weapon to kill your enemies asap on the battlefield. Damage should definitely be reduced. It could be that in the final build this is completely changed, this would actually be easy to fix. I don't mind that the units are mostly humanoid. I just want to actually have a purpose for having different sorts of units. Would also like to see tech be better paced.

I am starting to realize that you guys aren't playing the game on epic. Try a slower tech pace and literally all of your problems could be solved.

I thought Tarth was too much of a coincidence. All my soveriegns will be named Brienne from now on.

I think this is a mapscript issue and not a gameplay issue.  I've noticed that many maps have a tendency to have a "central" region that has a lot of resources - particularly one that is a crossroads between various start positions.  This is a highly strategic (and conflicted) area, so I think it makes sense for it to have a higher resource density.  I like this.

I think the challenge with resources is that when so much of the income in the game comes from resources (research comes mostly from ) then the game is extremely sensitive to imbalances in resource distribution due to the mapscript.  In Civ, map resources matter, but not to the same extent as here.

In the early game, an Elemental faction that gets a gold mine at the start point will have 500% more reliable income (adventure income is not reliable) than one that does not.  A faction that gets a temple or library will have 500% more magic income.

This makes balancing extremely difficult.

Having said all this, I'd prefer more resources on average to fewer.  I personally dislike that most of the map has very few resources, and so is just empty wasteland space that can never be used.

This is incorrect. I have made a few of my own maps and there are always way too many resources generated in all territories. I made some huge continents and no matter where I build a city I am liable to get 10 or more resource plots easily. Lots of repeats too.

I don't understand how you can think that is a good thing. I have unlimited resources basically, for a barren world that seems pretty ridiculous. Not to mention I have no reason to fight anyone as I have more than what I need.

No matter where you build a city?  seriously?  I cannot replicate this.  Please post some screenshots.

I have observed the exact opposite in most games I play.  In about half of the space, cities would get zero resources, and in most of the rest they'd never get more than ~2-3 until they grow to truly huge influence radius.  I've had games where I start on an island that doesn't have 10 resources.  10 resources is usually half a decent sized continent.

Yes, resource income spirals out of control in the current build, but this is mostly because of high income from caravans and from things like stacking the Palace with the Great Theatre, and the long build time of units - I earn resources faster than I can spend them.

I'd sooner tone down the income of individual resources than have fewer resources.  Fewer resources would make the difficulty in balancing even more pronounced.

Frogboy, I think you missed the orginal posters point.  He was basically complaining that unit design was not compelling. He stated various reasons for this some having to do with lore (humanoids dominate) and some having to do with gameplay (different weapon and armor types are not different enough to make the units unique and interesting with unique roles for different units).  You seem to have been distracted from his valid critique by the overall negative sentiement.

"I know that Swords do less damage but are faster while Maces and such are slower but do more damage and thus it depends on whether my strategy in battle is survivability (lasting power) versus trying to finish them off quickly."

Your own reply recognizes that choosing equipment for your army should have strategic and tactical battle implications. 

What the orginal poster and many other players are asking for is a system that grants players the oppotunity to make meaningful choices suc that their armies are unique and fun for them.  There are many ways to present players with those choices and the game as allready embraced some of them as core concepts.  Choice like mount, armor, equipment and training.  The feedback you are recieving is that the current choices available do not create the differntiation and distintion between different units that players crave and which you yourself recognize as being at the heart of unit design.

Finally I implore to recognize that many people are on this forum because they are passionate about gaming (yourself included obviously)!.  To extend that idea, many of us (myself included!) are passionate about fantasy stategic gaming in particular.  Quite frankly I will buy this game even if the reviews are lousy just to lend support to any publisher willing to take on the genre.  Please, try and appreciate that if some people are complaining it is because they really care about the quality of this game.  We just want to help.

Unfortunately, the last month or so hasn't been the same as the earlier phases of the beta for providing feedback, at all. In the early betas you had what feels like a more open dialog and a more malleable game. More stuff was open to change. In the last few weeks things got locked down and then the chill came down on saying negative things. Now I know why things changed the way they did, but still.

In the earlier betas, feedback was pretty useful. Right now stuff is locked down so a lot of it either can't change (the resource system) or won't change (combat speed, which we've been trying to change since forever), and we've got an out of date version of the game anyway. So it doesn't seem like feedback is very useful at this point.

I didn't really know there was a difference between them. Even knowing that, I'm not sure how one of them is focused on survivability more then the other. Combat speed doesn't give me better defense. Unless they've changed it, it does let me move faster, but why the sword unit can move faster across the tactical map then the mace unit... well, that discussion has been repeated several times already.

Or they could take some of our suggestions on combat speed, finally. A CS 1 attack 10 Mace vs a CS 2 attack 6 sword under one of the combat speed proposals is a more interesting choice, because in some cases (not moving very much) the sword user will get to attack twice and do more damage, but under heavy movement it won't. You could also give the sword a "cleave" special ability and the mace something else to further differentiate. With the way it stands right now I agree with you, a faster weapon either does things that don't make sense (letting you run faster), or doesn't particularly matter at all.

Scooter, you may be playing on a small map that doesn't have a large amount of land in sequence? I am playing on maps I made, ones with 20 by 20 tiles with large continents. I see resources everywhere. Perhaps that isn't the issue though, perhaps it is that caravans are generating too much but I definitely see too many resource plots.

edit - I just went in game and counted how many resource plots I have. I have 5 towns spread out a little bit and in that area of influence I have 30 or so resource plots with another 20 resource plots just right outside my area of control. A lot of those are copies, for example a few gold mines, scenic areas, etc. 

I didn't miss the point.  We like our lore. We don't want elves and orcs and unicorns. The game isn't for everyone.

Frogboy, having only humanoid soldiers and such is fine. I dont care if there are elves, orcs, and unicorns, etc. I also haven't seen the final product yet but I think what one thing they are talking about, and what I hope is that there will be more variety between weapons. I can't really say because I don't know what you guys have done to combat now but in beta 4 the uniqueness and variety in combat is lost I think. It would be great if a dagger could attack several times, weakly, while a much stronger weapon could only attack once, etc. Also maybe soldiers with heavy armor were slower than soldiers with light but have more protection, etc.

By the way, I am doing Epic and it is true that researching tech and such is much much slower but I feel like the cities are progressing so fast and I am amassing resources easily but now my tech and such are going so slow. Actually, I like that the tech and such advances slowly but I would like the city progression and resource progression to be in balance with the tech and magic progression.

Yes, you did. He's talking about things not having much differentiation. That's not just about unicorns, it's also about weapons and spells and resources. The point is very much that it doesn't matter if I take fireball vs <some other first tier single target damage spell>, or a sword vs <some other melee weapon>. They're pretty much the same thing in the end, differences are cosmetic.

Look, if you're at a point where you don't want people talking about this stuff anymore, then just say so. Flippant remarks like "the game isn't for everyone" when it's about something basic like weapon types really doesn't add anything.

Well for all we know, that has changed in the latest version Tridus, but I have to agree that in Beta 4, it is rather true that there is very little difference between the different weapons and magic. You just go with whatever is the most powerful. 

Beta 4 weapons values are place holders.  That is why we have betas is to get feedback. Too many people play these games expecting them to be demos.

Heck, I don't think Beta 4 even has two handed weapons in it does it?

You guys realize that within ~2 months of release, people are going to make tons of mods with elves, dwarves, hobbits, and God knows what else....

I mean we knew there wasn't going to be those races in the official game from day 1, but we also knew that they'd be modded in rather quickly...

Why wouldn't that make sense.

If I have a certain strength, I can move so fast under so much load. If I'm carrying a 40 lb war hammer or a 5 lb sword - I'm probably going to be able to move more freely with the lighter weapon, especially if my strength is borderline for being able to pick up the weapon to begin with, but enough for the sword.

To me, combat speed is trying to simulate something of a weight system where the heavier you are, the less fluid your actions get. Not saying it shouldn't be changed, but I don't think of it as not making sense.

Doesn't that change if you have shards?

For example, if I have a fire shard - I should take fire spells because they will get more powerful.