Countdown: 10 days to release

from JoeUser Forums

In 10 days, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released to the public.

Building a new 4X franchise is a challenge.  If you look at Wikipedia’s 4X chronology there aren’t that many, particularly if you focus purely on turn-based ones. 

What features matter depends on the person.  For me, I want to feel like I’m building a civilization.  That’s why I was drawn to Master of Magic and Civilization.

Creating a strategy game that focuses not just on warfare but magical ability, technological research, diplomacy, questing, etc. means that the computer AI has to be really really good. And having spent the better part of 20 years writing AI, Fallen Enchantress has been the biggest challenge in my career.  It’s the first AI I’ve written that is explicitly multi-core which lets the computer players do a lot more strategic modeling (basically, playing out different scenarios) than anything I’ve written before.

The biggest challenge has been simply getting good enough at the game to translate my “skillz” to the computer players. That’s where you guys come in. I read your reports and go “Aha! That’s a great strategy!” and soon it shows up.  I don’t expect to stop improving the AI on this game for a long time – well after release. I think we’ll see some really interesting player strategies post release that will simply be too tempting not to incorporate.

With that in mind, here’s a video that demonstrates some of the improvements made in the past few weeks that have been getting checked into the code base in preparation for the October 23 release date.

 

53,854 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Great video.  Can't wait  !!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I was hoping to see more things that make you 'feel' the game before the release, but.. Good luck! It's not a bad game at all and I'd most likely buy it if I hadn't already.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


Cool. Sweet taster! Thanks.

Notice the cultural border glitch from Yithral around the 3:45 minute mark?? ;)

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I forgot how beautiful the game is when you have a nice video card. That looked very smooth.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Cool.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

May I have one question:

Will 60FPS limit be increased? I am asking because I am using 144hz lcd monitor, and I do like smoothness of it, and higher FPS definitely helps. I would love to be able use my PC and monitor to its fullest instead of being forced to 60fps max.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I really like that level of personal detail on the characters.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the vid. I'm excited to see it play on my comp :)

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Also thanks for always putting up videos. Good time for launch, mid terms will be long done. Hope you have a great launch!

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I can't believe you have a freakin' pet fox. That is awesome. I will not comment on how hot the woman in that vid is, as I am a gentleman.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I will do my part an do some let's play videos and AI analysis posts! 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Omnax, reply 8
May I have one question:

Will 60FPS limit be increased? I am asking because I am using 144hz lcd monitor, and I do like smoothness of it, and higher FPS definitely helps. I would love to be able use my PC and monitor to its fullest instead of being forced to 60fps max.

 

60fps is the speed of the human eye. Although the difference in your 144hz monitor is most likely noticeable to you, the difference is placebo rather than actual.

 

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for this latest video, Frogboy.  Tantalizing Stuff ! ...

I enjoyed hearing your comment (paraphasing), "that when you get into the Polishing phase, it's surprising how fast the bugs get squashed".   You know that several Beta-testers (in multiple threads) have expressed misgivings (concern) that there would be enough time left, before the October 24 release, to get all of the known bugs fixed.  (I was one.)  However, the astonishing rate at which Derek's v 0.984 Changelog has been evolving over the last several days, added to your comment here, really is encouraging.                  The progress really  IS  astonishing ...

Again, thanks for regularly sharing updates, insights, and progress, with the folks on the forums.      :thumbsup:       

 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I see that the weird zone of control issue persists, lol. It almost seems like an intentional artistic choice now :p

But nevertheless I agree that the changes made over the course of this beta have been impressive and positive. I particularly love how each of the factions seem to be incredibly powerful in their own particular ways, and yet the game still finds a way to make you pay for your arrogance in thinking you've maximized early game technology and money growth with Pariden or raised a shifty army of dodgers with Krax or trained the most impressive army of heroes with Relias. This without even without going beyond the challenging difficulty level. This game is worth every penny I paid for WOM and then some. In fact I was kinda looking forward to throwing more support behind this project if and when stardock released a 64-bit version for an additional fee as was being discussed several months ago, but then I came across this article: https://forums.stardock.com/433508 that indicates it will be releasing with 64-bit support (I see beta 983 still opened in 32-bit mode). I guess I'll have to find other ways to support the project. I have friends who love gal civ 2 and sins, never played WOM, and you'd think it would be an easy sell to get them to try this out but they seem surprisingly reluctant.

Anyway, great work all, now I intend to catch up with the next two vids.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sythion, reply 14

Quoting Omnax, reply 8May I have one question:

Will 60FPS limit be increased? I am asking because I am using 144hz lcd monitor, and I do like smoothness of it, and higher FPS definitely helps. I would love to be able use my PC and monitor to its fullest instead of being forced to 60fps max.

 

60fps is the speed of the human eye. Although the difference in your 144hz monitor is most likely noticeable to you, the difference is placebo rather than actual.

 

 

There is nothing as speed of an eye :-) and it has been proved many times, saying that human eye can see only 24 or 30 or 60 is just mystification. There is huge difference in smoothness between 30 to 60 and same between 60 to 120. I enjoy it, and it was possible in WOM, so do not really see reason to limit it for everyone. If someone is happy to run at 30fps I am fine with that. But I got HW to get much more then that, I payed for it, and I would like to use it.