6 Months after Release: 6 Suggestions

from Elemental Forums

E:WoM has been in retail for half a year now, and while there has been significant improvements (especially in stability), I'd like to see the following 6 areas get attention:

1. Terrain.

Problem: Zone of Control has only insignificant strategic value; it is of almost no importance if my empire comprises 100 or 100,000 tiles, because the tiles it comprises have almost no significance. The game still plays like a space-genre game: fertile lands are like colonizable planets, the occasional shard or mine are like asteroids, and the rest is uniform vaccuum with slight cosmetic graphical variance.

Suggestion: Make land mean something strategically: As long as you have population enough to work them, make owning forest tiles, for example, in your ZoC give you small bonuses to food and materials, or plains only to food, or hills only to materials, or swamps a small percentage chance per turn of discovering something arcane, etc. (When I say as long as you have population enough to work them, I do not mean that you need to send out peasants to harvest, I mean that your ZoC will calculate your total boni based on your total influence, something very simple.)  Additionally, there should be more interaction between terrain type and magic (e.g. summoning swamp monsters only works in swamp tiles, tree-ents only in forests, etc.) as well as terrain type and units (rangers and summoned spiders with boni in forests, etc.) and special abilities and terrain (e.g. spider web special ability gets a penalty in grasslands, no change in hills and swamps, and boni in forests).

 

2. Tactical Combat.

Problem: Much has been said about this recently. I would like to add that tactical combat would feel less goofy early game if friendly units could move through and end their turn in friendly-occupied squares.

Suggestion: Regarding Special Abilities, there have been a number of posts about that recently, I would like to add references to mine over the past months and years here (https://forums.elementalgame.com/400669, https://forums.elementalgame.com/390970, https://forums.elementalgame.com/378701, and my favorite here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/369399 and here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/374597). Additionally, I'd like to see one tile in Tactical Combat hold up to 16 friendly human-sized units or 32 small ones or 1 dragon-sized unit or 8 mounted units etc. etc., so that I can move my units through friendly squares.

 

3. Diversity I.

Problem: Unlike many strategy games with fixed descriptions of units with well-known attributes (e.g. the Civilization series, Warcraft, Sins of Solar Empire, etc.), EWoM does not even have unit types. There is no such thing as a "knight", there are only attributes. This makes strategic balance and counter-balance difficult, because there are no inherent boni or penalties to one type of unit versus another. This means that unit creation -- with its seemingly endless possibilities -- actually feels quite bland, because there are currently very few significant strategic differences between the units. Theoretically, we have lots of "choices" in unit creation, but practically, these feel like choices between "Lasers III" and "Lasers IV".  

Suggestion: By default, unit special abilites (which I have called "maneuvers" elsewhere). These need to be tied into unit statistics (intelligence, agility, etc.), so that modifiers such as magic spells (which might buff or debuff statistics) or terrain modifiers (see above) bring strategic variance in addition to tactical variance. Make many of these maneuvers be faction-specific. I have listed a few score of such suggestions in my threads linked to above.

 

4. Diversity II.

Problem: The factions feel very similar to one another.

Suggestion: At least one quarter of the unit-related special abilities (which I call maneuvers) should be faction-specific. With the implementation of Point 1 (Make Terrain Matter), make faction-specific boni for terrain in an empire's ZoC.

 

5. Diversity III.

Problem: Research feels bland and, despite the variances in breakthroughs, too similar to GalCiv's "Lasers" and "Armor": linear.

Suggestion: Cross-path research dependence (https://forums.elementalgame.com/369399).

 

6. Magic.

Problem: Magic still feels one-dimensional. In addition to what feels like a paucity of spell choices, most spells seem to feel surprisingly mundane: otherworldly graphics house the framework for doing damage to enemy units. Where is the subterfuge, where the sorcery, where the hint of the transcendent secrecy?

Suggestion: First, make more spells that interact with other in-game variables for more strategically relevant choices in certain circumstances (e.g. spells which modify or which are modified by unit statistics or terrain, e.g. "Visage of Grandeur" which for one turn gives units boni based on the caster's charisma etc.) -- that is, it shouldn't be the case that you can always purchase More Firepower at the same time for the same price, because this lessens our chances for surprise, for synergy, for strategic genius. Then, dramatically increase the number of spells whose main influence has nothing to do with dealing straightforward damage in tactical situations or in unit logistics management (such as teleportation etc.), but rather which directly influence an enemy's ability to scout (e.g. stealth, misinformation, misrepresentation of one's own value, even the direct representation of illusionary forces or buildings on the strategic map); all units' statistics (buffs for friendly and de-buff for others, or map-wide spells which affect both friends and enemies in the same way, thus also increasing our need for specific strategic choices); diplomatic influence; etc. There have been numerous suggestions in numerous different places, but it seems that making a "fireball"-type spell is easier to implement.

 

I suppose Point 1 (Terrain) and 6 (Magic) might also be keyworded with "diversity", so that most of my constructive criticism revolves around what appears to me to be strategic invariance.

To me, I suppose most of it comes down to lack of synergy and the resulting synergetic strategic variance. Everything feels straightforward, and that leaves little room for creativity and surprise, but rather rewards good logistics. (I do not mean to say that good logistics should not be rewarded, only that this, should it get too much of the upper hand, as I believe it has in EWoM, makes for a one-dimensional approach and makes for extreme Late Game Tedium, https://forums.elementalgame.com/378632).

In any case, thank you in advance for listening and for your constructive feedback.

 

3,681 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Just wishful thinking?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

You have good points. There is little to discuss as we dont know what they are doing with the new game. That makes suggestions and discussions more pure guesswork. Lets hope they will release more info for us to discuss.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Terrain.

You do have a point about the in-between lands of a faction. They exist primarily as the area traversed by units and secondarily as a possible location for a goodie hut. However, the mechanics you suggest do not necessarily make this land more interesting or compelling to control. These kinds of mechanics are incredibly similar to those found in the Civ series, though without the addition of tile improvements. All these mechanisms do would be to add up all the "workable" tiles and apply some static bonus based upon some calculation. Thus, in the most general case of such mechanisms, a type of geographic determinism would emerge in much the same way as the Civ series, wherein factions with a good starting location and reasonably good expansion possibilities would have an extensive advantage from the beginning. A better idea would be something more in line with starbases from Gal Civ, wherein improvements could be created in the in-between lands that held some strategic effect. Some possible ideas would be a trade post, which provides a bonus to near by trade routes, a guard tower, which houses units which automatically attack enemies within a certain range of the tower, or any number of lesser resource buildings, which would work the various tiles for a minor resource income. This way the player has more in choices as to how to use these lands beyond a standard mechanic.

2. Tactical Combat.

Your idea about moving units through each other would be interesting, though there are many hurtles to making this both workable and fun. For instance, how do you handle a tile being attack which has 3 different units in it? How do you handle selection of each unit from the tile without additional levels of UI? In general, there are good answers to these questions and a whole host of others, but it is questionable is this one mechanic is worth the additional effort compared to others such as terrain considerations, flanking, or unit fatigue, which would all be more easily implemented.

As for your numerous posts concerning special abilities, these posts are intiguing and have a lot of interesting points, but the argument for these abilities was made much more powerful when presented with a mod, which easily showed both how easily they could be implemented and the extent to which they made a deep impact.

3. 4. 5. Diversity

Diversity is a nice buzz word in general, not that it is ill placed in this context. In your first diversity point, you make an argument for unit types, yet unit typing concerns definition and distinction, not diversity. In other posts, I too have made a similar case for unit typing, though now this case feels weak under the weight of many other considerations. What makes a knight? A mount? Heavy Armor? Some kind of Lance? Beyond some metaphysical quality defining a knight, we might consider a knight as a sum of equipment and training. Thus, why not simply define distinction based on these points. As far as equipment is concerned, it has been stated that FE will contain damage types and resistances, and as has been proven by several mods, abilities can be attached to any equipment, even to the point of making entire stat based skill trees.

As for your third diversity point, it is unclear how interconnected research trees will make really make the game more fun to play. While it could be interesting to have a few cross branch interconnections, such as War Colleges requiring Logistics, each interconnection means further defining the possible paths of research. For instance, say we have 6 technologies A, B, C, X, Y, and Z which are connected as A->X, B->Y, C->Z. In this example, we have 3 initial choices of research, and no matter which we researched we will have 3 choices for our next goal. However, if we change the interconnections to be something more like A->X B,X->Y, X,Y,C->Z. The player can research all the first three choices, but then is horrifically limited when they arrive at the second tier. A more interesting thought might be to allow multiple paths with mutually exclusive technologies. So one might have two competing technologies, such as communal farming v industrial farming, with both technologies being prerequisites for the next tier technology. This would allow for the player to choice his technological path while also making his faction feel distinct based on his choice.

Addendum: Btw, you use boni numerous time for the plural of bonus, however boni literally means "good men" not "good things". In current venacular english bonuses is correct, though bona or bonum are both correct in terms of Latin meaing "good things". Boni Viri - Good Men, Bona Res - Good Things.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

good constructive thoughts - I think this could be the Gameplay demandabots manefesto.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Thank you.

@ Kenata: You bring up a number of good questions, let me just briefly say:

Quoting kenata, reply 3

1. Terrain.
These kinds of mechanics are incredibly similar to those found in the Civ series, though without the addition of tile improvements.

One the one hand: Yes. While the Civ series has a lot of faults, the way that terrain works *in general* is not one of them; it makes land something worth fighting over. Currently, in EWOM, that is not the case, and is a serious setback for me when I try to play it as a 4X game.

On the other hand: No. Please note I only meant to sketch the mere bare bones of a basic kind of system and was by no means indicating that there should not be the kinds of modifiers you indicated as well -- I attempted to do that in my other posts on Terrain.

In other words: I disagree strongly with your claim that something like this would not make the game more interesting; I think any 4X game -- even space-based 4X games -- needs to have terrain with inherent value, or else expansion is moot. Additionally, making terrain have some form of valence would allow the player more choices: Do I attempt to maximize materials here (which would mean less food), or should I rather attempt to invest in long-term gains in food there (which would mean short-term loss in materials), etc.? More strategic choices = less no brainers = more fun.

Quoting kenata, reply 3


2. Tactical Combat.


Your idea about moving units through each other would be interesting, though there are many hurtles to making this both workable and fun. For instance, how do you handle a tile being attack which has 3 different units in it? How do you handle selection of each unit from the tile without additional levels of UI?

 

Agree. The same questions I pose too. I attempted to answer at least a few of these questions (brief sketches) on some of my other threads on terrain. (hgaving problems linking because I cannot open other Elemental windows, they crash today). Granted, there will need to be some additional form of UI, but so many aspects of this game need an UI-overhaul anyhow.

PS. I am unfamiliar with a lot of English vernacular and believed to have read "boni" as the plural for "bonus" on fora such as these. ;.) Since English is a language without explicit flexion (except in cases of pronouns), how is one supposed to make *dative* plural?

PPS. Bah the forums (sic.) go boom again, I give up I post without links.