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Elemental: War of Magic v1.4 Released!

Elemental: War of Magic v1.4 Released!

Stardock is excited to announced the v1.4 update for Elemental: War of Magic!  Current users can update to v1.4 via Impulse, and includes a variety of updated features and fixes.

Full changelog can be found here, and here is the highlights:

  • Max army size reduced from 12 to 6 units
  • AI more generous about imbuing their champions
  • Increased # of turns on many improvements from 1 turn to 3 turns
  • Tech multiplier reduced from 1.5 to 1.3 (faster research)
  • AI more greedy when demanding tribute
  • Tech multiplier reduced from 1.5 to 1.3 (faster research) 
  • Higher level monsters will spawn later in the game no matter what 
  • AI smarter about targeting in tactical battles (not always the "toughest" unit) 
  • AI more likely to choose guardians on city upgrades 
  • Fixed bug that resulted in the AI not reliably learning higher level spells 
  • Fixed bug where if the AI hated everyone they would still say they're handing their kingdom over to (blank) 
  • City Hubs store more population 
  • City Hubs provide less zone of control by default 
  • Embassies are no longer an unlimited improvement 
  • Fixed strange noises quest to have an illustration 
  • Fixed the train unit window UI where the unit costs were messed up 
  • Updated title logo 
  • Vastly reduced the cost of a non-aggression pack 
  • Teleport spell cost increased from 40 mana to 250 mana 
  • New flavor text added 
  • Reduced the value of monuments to the AI 
  • City Guardian units buffed. They're much more powerful now, correspond with city level
  • Large number of balance tweaks throughout the game
  • Improved path finding.
  • General AI strategy improvememts

More information can be found at www.elementalgame.com!

94,444 views 41 replies
Reply #26 Top

I´ve been playing 1.4 all along the weekend, what means that I was pleased with the changes, but no more. Just right now, when I´ve come back from work, it doesn´t load my saved games. It is kind of weird because I believe that yesterday I was able to load some of them.

Regarding to the 1.4 changes, I don´t like the huge increase in mana for the Teleport spell, 250!!!, are we crazy??. It would be much better, and more logical, that the cost was per unit basis. This would make you to think in which of your heros is going to be sent to do the job.

But first of all, please Stardock, fix the memory errors once and forever!!

Reply #27 Top

I have been playing for a week now.  One bug I run into several times is during tactical combat - sometimes when a unit's turn ends, the game refuses to acknowledge and move on.  Other units can be clicked on and examined, but the turn won't advance and combat is frozen.  <ESC> won't bring up the menu - the only exit is to manually crash the game (ALT-F4, Task Manager, etc).  This has happened during a screen saver activation, another time after a long pause while I answered the phone (no screen saver), and other times right after using a special ability (or having one used on me).  Not every time, of course... maybe one out of every 10 combats.

 

Otherwise I like the game, but seriously -- no boats? And I'd like some indication when planting a settlement how it is going to be constrained... some cities have no trouble growing up the side of a hill, and others just arbitrarily stop in seemingly open plains; some cities transform blasted land to grass, and others seem to just leave the blasted lands, and languish at size 1.

 

Last bug I've seen three times now: AutoResolving a combat between my 2-unit army (Hero + Dog once, Hero + Hero once) and a Level 1 Bandit or Outlaw.  My party is wiped out, and the bandit is unharmed!  In both cases, the heroes in question had at least defense 5 and attack 7 or 9 (padded armor, axe or spear).  That's some bandit!

Reply #28 Top

Sorry guys, I'm throwing in the towel on E-WOM. I respect that Stardock has tried to stick with it and get it right, as I have come back several times after a major updates to give it another shot, but I still find this game almost unplayable with not much help at all on what to do (found some old video on youtube) and choppy graphics on my system with a good graphics card. I had high hopes as an old fan of Master of Magic, but I'm done.

Hopefully Fallen Enchantress gets it right.

Thanks for the effort, and I'll be watching future releases

Reply #29 Top

I haven't given 1.4 a chance.  I may someday, but I doubt it.  There are just too many other games to play.  I gave WoM a ton of play for months, but no game can keep my attention forever.  I think even if they made the mythical 1.5 "Everything Xia wants patch", I doubt I would put time into playing it.  Right now I see my game schedule being Mount and Blade, then Skyrim, then Old Republic.  Those games will keep me very busy for a very long time, I imagine.  The patches have been too little too late to keep me interested.  I hope FE inspires some play time.  Right now, if I was given FE to play, I doubt I would even turn it on.  And it looks like an awesome game, but I'm a little Elemental burned out.  Hope it comes out in Feb-March, I imagine by then I will be really wanting to play it.

Reply #30 Top

I think it will probably be coming out right when I leave for Basic. I hope Aircraft Carriers have game time... I still play a few hours of WoM every night. It really is fun if you know what you are doing. 

Reply #31 Top

How did you figure out what you are supposed to be doing? After looking at the out-of-date manual and a not-very-helpful old utube videos I got frustrated after installing new patch releases and gave up. It is hard enough to find time to play, even harder spending time trying to figure out HOW to play without much guidance.

Reply #32 Top

I have been playing since the beta opened. I would suggest making a map where your only enemy is on another island and set the tech pace to fast. Get Harvesting, Questing, Equipment, and Leather Armor. Build spearmen to protect your city and then scout for resources with your King. It does play a little differently than other games. 

Any specific questions?

Reply #33 Top

Using Impulse to update is a nightmare.
My SN went invalid for some reason, log in is a pain and its a constant annoying sales pitch with them.

Reply #35 Top

Не понимаю. По русскый, пожалуйста.

Reply #36 Top

Где качать ! Я плин лицензию купил а она глючит !!!

Обновил аглицким патчем 1.2 перестало глючить!

Версия 1.4  платная !? 

стардок нехватает денег что их глючный проект все время надо обновлять.

Я уже заплатил за игру 480 рэ и полагаю что имею право обновить новые патчи бесплатно !

Translate

Where to swing! I плин have bought the license and it errors!!!

Has updated english a patch 1.2 has ceased !

Version 1.4 paid!?

стардок not  money that they errors all time should be updated the project.

I have already paid for game 480 рэ and I believe that I have the right to update new patches free of charge!

Reply #37 Top

Да конечно 1.4 будет бесплатно. Дело в том, что Стардок продал Impulse (менеджер закачек) Gamestop (идиот корпорации), которые уничтожили его. 

Стардок делает новый менеджер закачек, что зовут Стардок Сентрал. Думаю, что будет очень скоро потому, что бета за Elemental: Fallen Enchantress будет испольэають его. Надо ждать только месяц может быть меньше.

Reply #38 Top

Played a bit to freshen before heading into FE later this week :D

 

After 78 turns my game crashed to desktop due to "Invalid Cell Call". (update)On second game I made it to turn 146, this time I tabbed out so maybe it causes it.

 

I made a treaty with Procipinee on turn 3 due to her spawning right next to me and being on Extreme (was afraid of getting rushed). Afterwards I could find no mention of us having a NAP and there seems to be no way to dissolve it? I was trying to be a good TBS neighbor and take her out early to steal her fire shard by pursuing war tech to grab early armor and weapons but it seems these NAP last forever (or until CtD)?

 

I noticed the weapon/armor selection is still pretty much pointless. Not many choices here, just take the largest attack and largest defense options, with possible exception of travel boots and cloak for LoS/move. What possible motivation would one have investing vital character creation points into staff/+1 armors when you can simply buy a staff and travel boots with starting gildar? Additionally I am very confused over some of the shop items, a lot of redundant items such as the healing vial and dried pork (heal exactly the same). Tactical combat seems completely the same, just wait for them to run up to you like idiots and get in the first strike, I've heard enemy sovereigns cast spells now but I can't confirm this.

 

Troop recruitment seems like it is buggy, you start with the ability to train groups of 3 or 5 units, but you can only train a single unit if you click randomly on the first experience level and group of 3 until it pops up so you can train a single pioneer instead of 3 since you only need 1 to start a city. Its pretty frustrating really and I am not sure if the intention is to force you to build 3 as a minimum or if being forced is the bug. It slowed down my early growth enough that I restarted the game once I learned you need to do a 'trick' to recruit single units. Also my group of 3 peasants is always 4 peasants so frankly either I am missing something obvious or the system is really buggy atm.

 

I am sure a lot has improved though if I head deeper into the game. I saw a few new quests, though some old ones had really crap rewards (maybe randomized?) such as saving a village from darklings for less gildar than I would find lying around in a goody hut. The skill books seem more common which is good. It still seems pretty random to what you might be up against when you face a dungeon, you could be bringing overkill or get slaughtered, is there a way to scout them? City management is very unintuitive and I don't understand if city upgrade bonuses stack or are replacing previous ones and where this information can be viewed. I also couldn't find detailed information on what buildings I have constructed in the city with individual buildings being overcomplicated in what they require to construct/maintain/produce. The very first building you construct has incorrect text, +10 prestige instead of +1, going off experience only I know this modifies the rate that population grows. This bug(?) seems to be important as wherever I build that tower seems to gain max pop near-instantly making all those other +1 prestige buildings with huge maintenance costs even more pointless. Population growth speed overall seems to make these buildings rather pointless but perhaps if my games lasted longer pop would be used up faster in troop production so I can't really judge that well.

 

I can't really complain though, I would have been ok with Stardock dropping support for Elemental after the first few months and focusing everything on FE (kinda wish you did actually :D ). I've had it since its dreadful launch but my expectations drop all the time now (ex. Sword of the Stars 2). You guys are awesome for acknowledging that failure and giving us silly early adopters/preorderers a couple free games! Super excited for FE and can't wait to see what sort of amazing world Derek and Jon have created for us! Meanwhile I get to watch people buy SotS 2 w/ all DLC at a fraction of what I paid for it, I am a sad panda :(

 

Edit: Been going over the FE dev blogs again and it looks like a number of my complaints won't be valid with the reboot. I'm very excited about the civ-style resource system, finally a reason to place cities without the bizarre system of hoping random resources spawn near you when you research a tech.

Reply #39 Top

I've said after the 1.3 that I never redownload it.I did and all I can say the E:WoM became an enyojable game. Much better than the other versions. It's playable finally.

Reply #40 Top

I am glad it is decent at 1.4.  Just picked this up on sale- better late then never I guess-

 

Waiting for 1.4 to download.

 

We shall see.

Reply #41 Top

Quoting blastpop, reply 40
I am glad it is decent at 1.4.  Just picked this up on sale- better late then never I guess-

 

Waiting for 1.4 to download.

 

We shall see.

 

Can you send me the link for the sale? I want to buy it too but 39 Dollars and FE in front of the door is too expensive for me.