I guess I'm just generally less impressed with what you see as taking risks. I see Elemental as a game using a classic model and grafting a few interesting mechanics to it, as it stands now.

Again, a lot of good elements that show up in lots of other games. If and when terrain manipulation is fully realized, I will point to that as a truly innovative approach. The rest are either things Stardock has already done, popular game have already done or are small things that while interesting, aren't especially innovative.

If you want to use the strictest sense of the word, yeah, I guess they've innovated. They've taken something that's established, and done it in a slightly different way.

Of course if you do that, you have to do that for every single game that Elemental and Stardock is supposedly outshining, by according them their just dues for the "little changes" they make.

I prefer a much higher bar before I start calling someone innovative, so it actually means something. Elemental has the potential I think to really do something that no one has seen before, or do it in a way that seems new. Elemental as it is now doesn't do that. It's doing fun, but not innovation.

No wai, this is the point where we call each other morons and swear to be enemies for the rest of time!

Right?

What I see as 'innovative':

-the Sov being 'us', the player.  Yes, MoM did this kinda, however from a 'man behind the curtain', not 'man on the map' perspective.  Elemental also takes it further, to a more 'rpg' extent in what is at heart a fairly traditional 4x strategy game.

-dynasties.  I think this could be expanded upon a bit (for example, Sov death would allow a progeny to take over, instead of it being game over), but still having kids, marrying them off, etc. is pretty cool

-spells being able to affect the map so much (raise/lower land/mountains/etc.).  Again this could be expanded upon but still it's a nice addition.

That's off the top of my head.

Ahem...Heroes of Might and Magic. Elemental literally is that game with some different mechanics, and a higher emphasis on 4x. It has all the same elements, arranged differently.

This to me is a side feature until they actually develop it. Your children can't succeed you. Your dynasty really has no impact in the game other than as a bargaining chip, or heroes that you feel like you own in a flavor sense. Sorry, it's promising, but I'm not convinced this really innovates. Like so much with Elemental, it's a bare skeleton of what could be... and that doesn't warrant calling it innovative yet.

The game only mildly delivers on this now. So far raising and lowering is the only feature anyone mentions.

If we subtract all the qualifiers from talking about Elemental's features, we're not left with much. Again, people are going to disagree about where they set the bar. I set it pretty high...like Diablo high, for what that game did for an entire genre of video games. That was innovating. This is a good start.

Regardless, reasonable folks can agree to disagree.

And a good thing that is, too.

I just want to say that I very much appreciate that comment by Frogboy. No excuses. Telling reviewers to call it like they see it, and not review thae game later after they've fixed stuff.

Mighty big of him. I'm impressed. I was already hopeful this game would become great, now I'm sure of it.

Do Heroes of Might and Magic 4. The game, by that point, is in a form that resembles Elemental enough you can make some pretty clear comparisons, just for the sake of "Has this really been done before" and "Have I played this format before?"

Master of Magic, Civilization in just about every iteration, and Alpha Centauri all had terraforming spells/techs.  I'm not sure if the newer Civs allowed it, but I know SMAC let you raise land from below sea level to high hills (since I don't believe it featured impassable mountains).  SMAC even had weapons that deformed the terrain (nothing more fun than bombing an entire continent out of existence).  See also SMAC for a great example of a modular and very fun unit design system.  Yes, it's sci fi, but "Civ but with lasers" isn't really that different from "Civ but with magic", it's just the difference between jet packs and enchanted wings made of feathers and wax.

EWOM is derivative, period.  It treads quiet unashamedly down an ancient and well worn 4x/TBS path.  That's fine.  Despite the the game review industry's (yes, the same industry people are slamming for not praising EWOM's 'innovation') obsession with that vaguely defined term, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing something that's been done before and doing it really well.  Whether doing X a slightly different way counts as innovation depends on who you ask.  Unfortunately at the moment most of the innovative things StarDock has done with Elemental are either bare frameworks with very little content to back them up, or are just plain broken, which leaves nothing but rather generic 4x game with an interesting back story.  While the bugs and balance issues are troubling, what I'm really waiting for is for StarDock to finish up the content side.. and my concerns about that will be another post entirely.

I'm a bit disappointed that only one person responded about things that make the game fun, and then only to say that they found it fun and admit that one of the bugs/gameplay flaws might not actually be a figment of my imagination.  I'm still hoping someone will point out some specific aspect of the game that I'm missing that turns this rather bland 4x experience into a fun and innovative game once discovered.  Instead all I'm seeing is statements of praise and faith in StarDock and their support for the game, without any feedback on what they've actually done right.  C'mon, folks: Show me the fun.  Give me examples of things you enjoy doing in Elemental, what exactly makes the game gold for you.  I'm not looking to argue over what people find fun, and I hope even the doubters here won't argue with others' enjoyment, I'm just having trouble finding the enjoyment myself now that the new game smell has faded.

*nods* As someone who played Galactic Civ. II for years, I can feel with the reviewer. It's just very frustrating to have paid now, and essentially I have to wait until end of the year to really play it.

I'm still going with my second (dynasties), with the caveat Nenjin and I made regarding allowing succession upon Sov death being a nice change.

To add to the dynasties point already made, it allows 'breeding' -- the choice of a mate affects the traits/skills/abilities of the offspring.  In my current game the wife has the 'dominate' trait (not sure that's the name -- it prevents counter-attacks, a very nice thing) to be passed to the females (apparently males are or can be affected by the father's traits/etc., females the mother's).  Breeding in/out various traits/skills/abilities is interesting, and I haven't seen this before (waits for someone to correct me ).

Nobunaga's Ambition allowed you to marry off daughters/seek marriage as diplomatic weapons.  I'm still researching the dynasty building, I have a feeling I've seen it in games before.  Perhaps a Total War game?  Not sure.

Nobunaga's Ambition allowed marriage as a diplomatic tool.  The Guild 2 had real dynasty building (offspring to further lineage, etc.). Edit: The Guild 2 also allowed succession by offspring if the sovereign died off.

Slightly off topic, but I think Elemental eventually plans, maybe, to have games go on so long your Sovereign dies of old age and your children take over. I mean, why else list the age of your sovereign? Why list the order of succession of their children?

It's one of those maybe things that, if done, I will point to and go "Yes, now that's innovation."

*quits while some shattered shred of his argument remains *