While some of the latter posts here offer a modicum of hope, overall, it seems FE is, well, 'falling............."

I'm disappointed.....   but then I don't play elemental anymore, either....    we will see what the Devjournal "suggests" might happen. 

Oh, I don't know. I think that they picked the three most important areas to gut and renovate. Plus, I'm sure that there will be other little touches beside these three that have been mentioned only in passing, like unit encumberance, magical item crafting, etc.

The one thing I'm kind of worried about is that terrain still doesn't seem like it will have any bearing on resource yields or combat. From what I got out of the video, it seems like the wildlands:

1) Are visually appealing.
2) Have a difficult fight.
3) Have one or more of the appropriate shard type and a reward item.

Other than that, the game mechanics driving colonization, resource production, and modifiers to unit effectiveness seem pretty much the same. Would that be fair? Granted, I'm not saying that it doesn't look fun, but it would be nice if the land 'did' a bit more, too.

Im not sure if I completely agree here. I think something that has been woefully overlooked is the factions themselves. While each faction will have its own unique flare, it doesn't seem like much is being done to make cities more interesting. It is true that they are trying to make cities less micromanaged, but in my mind, this places a heavy burden to ensure that players don't simply set and forget their cities.

True enough. Although, right now, I'd say that this is more of a question mark for me than a disappointment. I think that the races' different starting stats playing a bigger role will help this as far as combat goes (and hopefully magic, as well). But, I haven't seen anything as far as unique buildings, more durable faction/sovereign bonuses, etc. It seems like there would be lots of low-cost things that could be done without adding lots of new capabilities to the engine.

I guess time will tell. Right now I'm cautiously optimistic.

I'm still hopeful.  The game doesn't need Dynasties to be fun, but it was one thing that made WoM interesting.  If they do champions better, and the world is fun to explore, and nations and races are not generic, along with tactical battles being fun...I can live without Dynasties easy.  But, I was hoping that they would find a way to fix it and make it better for FE.  But, if it's easily modded back in, then maybe if FE does well, it will be added back in, better than ever.

Elemental's scope was way too big.  Stardock is refocusing this game.  Yes just I am just like the next gamer wishing for Elemental to have a-z features but its too much.  Lots of features that just didn't get enough love, attention and detail.  That is why we have expansions (we are getting this one for free). This is a good thing.

When you get the beta for FE, your getting the whole sandbox game (not campaign, cutscenes and a few other tiny things) and a good amount of time to test it. Judge things then.

Dynasties would've needed so much work that I believe this was a good choice. Cool concept, but it's more important to get the whole game right. Maybe dynasties could be included in the Elemental game that comes after FE.

Yeah, that's what I got out of them saying that it was on the other side of the 'feature split.'

Well this is a damn shame. Especially since dynasties really didn't need that much more to be great. Just basic heritance, really. Anything more would be gravy. The fact that I can just turn dynasties on is nice, but I was hoping they'd get that functional aspect too, and turn from a half-implemented good idea into a compelling game mechanic.

Does this mean that cities still just up and vanish if an enemy sovereign dies? 

Also the "less city micromanagement" in this interview sounded suspiciously close to "dumbed down" or "deemphasized", but it's Stardock so I'm at least far less worried than I otherwise might be.

Understanding that FE is meant to be a shorter timeframe, more condensed game with a regional rather than global focus...

- cutting the dynasties make sense.
- de-emphaszing the city build doesn't.

If anything, the city should be more engaging and meaningful in a game when you have fewer cities. They should be thinking more along the lines of Caesar IV and less Civ IV.

I was worried about this too.

from what I've saw from the video of the the changes to the map they're doing before they took the video down... you will still have a global focus (world map)

I am fairly confident that all they meant was not having to build housing to grow your cities. That became tedious. In addition, that would free up city space to build more meaningful buildings.

I completely disagree. If that was the only thing done to dynasties, they would feel just like the glued on feature they are in WoM.

It sounds suspiciously like not having to tediously build 40 houses to grow your cities.

With the extremely weak implementation in E:WoM I can only applaud the design decision not to waste time on implementing a slightly better but still half-arsed dynastical upgrade.

Dynasties in games can be great fun when the game is centered around them and the game covers multiple generations during normal gameplay - to take an extreme example, look at Paradox' Crusader Kings or the upcoming Crusader Kings 2 - but when it is added as an afterthought or in games where a typical game lasts one or two generations it is seldom worth it.

I support the decision to focus on the three important things. Dynasties definletly sounds like an extra to me.

I agree. By extension, i'm assuming their getting rid of the whole "proposal" action too. They could so something simple where the "class" of the wife provides a bonus to the empire (no more kid spawning but it would still have a purpose).

This is excellent feedback. Thank you.

Dynasties were half-baked in Elemental because they were based on an idea that the races were civil with each other. It didn't matter if the other race was Empire to your Kingdom. Dynasties in Elemental stopped the races from being all they could be. I'm glad it has been cut and I hope many of the other so-called features have had the chop as well if it allows the game to be more focussed on what it should be. If you want to play with dynasties then play the excellent Crusader Kings.

I propose a tag <GameIsFE>TRUE/FALS</> to easily switch between EWOM and FE

Dynasties were half-backed in Elemental because diplomacy and any sort of interaction with the AI whatsoever was quarter-baked at best, not to mention I don't think they ever really decided on how exactly your sovereign dying was supposed to work.

I'm excited for FE but I am afraid that all the focus on RPG elements and gutting the "half-backed" 4X elements like Dynasties or even Diplomacy will leave us with a game that is basically a rather good RPG with some basic base building tacked on to the side.

Sure we have seen a new tech and weapon system but if cities exist simply to explore and heal from, and the interaction with the AI isn't improved, then it will be pointless to even add AI's into the game. Interaction with the AI should have some depth beyond warfare, this is 4X. Without significant improvement over WoM you may as well just not have any AI factions and go run around killing monsters. Having Dynasties removed does not fill me with hope on this front.

dynasties were flawed in their current implementation. heroes should be one of the best units in the game and handing them out almost at random either mean the player can massively abuse the system and get a huge advantage, or you have to water them down. neither is fun. and because there's no aging, you end up with loads, which is really fiddly to manage.

having said which, i would like them back at some point. medieval total war manages it quite effectively. so long as there is aging the build up is not too irksome. and if a fairer mechanic like essense is used to limit them then that will override the randomness of births and diplomacy abuse. if i'd designing it i'd still have the dynasty screen, but don't represent any of the family members in-game until you choose to imbue them by sacrificing essense.

... is naval stuff cut too? don't see any use for them

I'm glad it got the cut.  It was a mechanic that wasn't much fun for me.

If it can be reworked in a better way, maybe it can be added back in the 2nd XP.

The Naval question is a good one.  The game needs some kind of mechanic to be able to travel to other lands.  Always having to play a pangaea type world gets boring.  Certainly it can be done, Other much older games have done it.  I would like to hear from Kael or Toby what is in store for the Navy.  Islands with rare sites, water monsters, pirates, there can be all type of fun shit to do!