bfwebster

Reply to My take of the game in its current state in FE Beta Elemental Forums

Some feedback of my own: 0) Is there a simple written guide/manual for EFE? I find the in-game help largely useless; the last thing I want is some video clip when I'm just trying to find out what a certain thing is or how something works. A PDF keyboard shortcuts chart would be nice, too. 1) EFE is what EWOM should have been (which, for me, raises the question as to why I've had to pay for EFE, but I'll let that go; I've spent my own time on the game design/dev

Reply to Thoughts on the 1.3 beta series so far in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

[quote who="Lycenae" reply="36" id="2954776"] Also, it should be harder to build more advanced units in hamlets...[/quote] I think that's an important idea. EWOM already does this with archers -- you have to have a Level 3 city to build an archery range (which I actually find mildly annoying, but only because I'm a big fan of archers; it's probably excellent game balance). Here's one possible approach to that that might fit well into the current game arch

Reply to Thoughts on the 1.3 beta series so far in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

Can anybody think of good examples from history or literature where a country is made up of a small number of very specialised cities? Finance: New York. Government: Washington, DC. Food production: Chicago. Industrial production: Pittsburgh. Research: San Francisco. It's a game abstraction, but it's a useful one -- otherwise, we'll be playing SimCity: War of Magic. Ancient Greece (pre-Phillip/Alexander) actually isn't a relevant mo

Reply to Thoughts on the 1.3 beta series so far in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

A game is a game. It is supposed to be fun. Challenging, yes -- difficult, yes -- but it should remain fun. The new population use system sucks virtually all the fun out of the game as you progress, both in terms of building cities and training units, as do the increasingly long lead times in the tech tree. I'm not looking to play a social modeling system -- I want to play a heroic thud-and-blunder 4x game. Yes, we need more types of quests, goodie huts, etc. Lots more . I've

Reply to War of Magic: v1.29 beta log in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

I haven't placed EWOM in some months, mostly due to (a) work demands, (b) the prior frequency of crashes and (c) various game design issues. But I happened to download the latest and greatest (1.29) last night and have spent a fair amount of time playing it. Some immediate observations: -- I'm still getting crashes. Not as often, but given how many other games I have played for hours on end without crashes, it's a bit disconcerting how frequently EWOM crashes, given how lo

Reply to 1.19c Changelog in WOM Support Elemental Forums

[quote]Oh, and 1.19C is still leaking memory like a damn sieve.[/quote] I was able to continue a saved game under 1.19C that would OOM/CTD after 3-4 turns under 1.19B. However, 1.19C crashed with an OOM about an hour or two later. Sigh. EWOM has gone on the shelf until both technical and game design issues get straightened out. ..bruce..

Reply to 1.19c Changelog in WOM Support Elemental Forums

I'm less concerned with the memory issues, and more concerned with content and fun factor. . . . The world is bland.. I'm concerned with both -- I have a saved game that crashes 3-4 moves after I load it -- but I agree that the second issue is more profound. Memory leaks can be fixed with some time and the right tools; game design is a lot harder. And your comments pretty much sum it up. I've always enjoyed the explore/expand aspect

Reply to [1.19n] OOM CTD in WOM Support Elemental Forums

OK, this is just...pathetic. I loaded a auto-save from before my last OOM crash (yesterday). I got about 3-4 turns into it--and it crashed again.

Reply to [1.19n] OOM CTD in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Lots of OOMs on 1.19b here, too -- and this on a system with 6GB of RAM (Win7 Pro). Furthermore, the OOM appears to be tied to game progress, not just amount of time since launch. I got one OOM (with a CTD), relaunched EWOM, picked up a savegame, started playing, and CTD'd again with an OOM within about 20 minutes.

Reply to EWOM v. FFH2 (and SMAC) in War of Magic Elemental Forums

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="3" id="2873219"]FFH2 and SMAC worlds were soooo filled with interesting landscapes, and factions. SMAC only had 7 factions, but they were so distinct, so interesting. FFH2 had...what...21 factions? They were fantastic, different races, cultures, units, so much style, flavor, history, and lore. I would sit and read every single entry to learn everything about FFH2. Every hero bio, every nation bio, every leader bio. Lore on that

EWOM v. FFH2 (and SMAC) in War of Magic Elemental Forums

I've posted elsewhere in these fora that my two favorite 4x games of all time are Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC, released in 1999) and Fall From Heaven 2 (FFH2, a fantasy mod that runs on top of and vastly improves Civ4). I happened to hook a monitor up to one of my headless 'hanger queen' computers in my office and discovered that FFH2 was still installed on it. I hadn't played FFH2 in many months, mostly because I had actual work to do, but I thought, "I'll just fire up a quick game." Fi

Reply to 1.19 Changelog in WOM Support Elemental Forums

[quote who="Victor5" reply="118" id="2871936"]Not sure if this was addressed anywhere yet, but is there any chance we'll ever see a much-needed pre-battle formation mode (in either 1.19 or later). In other words, immediately when the combat-map comes up (before the first turn begins), you can position your units strategically ala many other TBS games. Of course, it would all have to be done in a small (depending on how many units you're using) limited area on your own side. <

Reply to Lord Xia's Treatise on Elemental improvement, ver 1.1 in War of Magic Elemental Forums

My $0.02 worth: -- A general thumbs-up on most of Xia's suggestions. -- Caravans should either be abstracted away (as per suggestions above: autorestart after a period) _or_ they should become full-fledged (though auto-moving) designed units that resolve tactical combat just like any other unit and can be built increasingly more powerful as techs advance. If EWOM is going to have 'real' ships someday, it might as well have 'real' caravans. -- Succession: here's another

Reply to Will there ever be an option to upgrade old units? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

One of the many ways that Fall From Heaven 2 improved Civ4 was that it accelerated advancement of units via experience, while at the same time having a shorter tech tree (vs. Civ4 going from spears to nuclear weapons). Since Civ4/FFH2 had upgrades already, the result was that you could develop a great set of veteran units -- not invincible, but certainly powerful (or very useful). With Kael over here at Stardock now, I have hopes of a similar system making its way into EWOM.

Reply to 1.19 Changelog in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Hey, Kael. Feel like we're back in FFH2-land, and that's a _good_ thing.

Reply to After playing a whole bunch of games... in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Some agreements and additions: -- The Teleport fizzle is a major pain, especially when I have a city that may be attacked and I'm trying to get an army there first. Haven't noticed any particular rhyme or reason to when it happens; at first I thought it might be a feature rather than a bug, but I'm pretty sure it's a bug now. -- You can't use the 'equip' button on newly-acquired NPCs until they have bought something in a store. -- The store itself is flaky in correctly

Reply to My units won't move any more in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Yep. Had two transports on auto-explore. Even with auto-explore turned off, the boats are a pain. They won't disband, they won't go back into a city with a harbor, and the game keeps refocusing on them even when they're not moving.

Reply to My units won't move any more in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Will check -- just saw this further down in the forum.

My units won't move any more in WOM Support Elemental Forums

Elemental 1.11 running under Windows 7 on a quad-core system with 8 GB of RAM. Put several hours into this game today. Just finished conquering a pesky neighbor. Just reached 'Dungeoneering' in Adventure tech. I start to move some units -- and suddenly they won't move any more. The little blue 'X' appears, but they just won't move; doesn't matter whether I have auto-turn on or off (it was on; I tried turning it off and manually advancing the turn). Everything else seems

Reply to Brad’s reign of terror ends in Elemental Dev Journals Stardock Forums

I have mixed feelings about this. :-) FFH2 is my second-favorite computer game of all time (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is #1), and I have spent more hours playing FFH2 in all its various versions and incarnations than any other game. I just checked the FFH2 site on Civ4 mods to see if they were doing anything for/with Civ5...and saw the news about Kael joining Stardock. So . . . no more FFH2. But it'll be interesting to see what Kael does over here. I bought Elemental today. I

Reply to MORE Mega Events! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Not much to add here; my two votes are for: (a) a minor civ becoming a major civ, particularly because minor civs tend to get picked off by the AIs as the game progresses; (b) a true supernova which (contrary to what some other posters said) would have an impact on a large section of the map, with the radiation shockwave travelling outward in a circle at the speed of light, but declining in intensity (inverse square law). Impact would be to reduce population, lower PQ (but allow improvement afte

Reply to NEW POLL: December or January release? in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Last year, Star Trek Legacy was released just around Christmas time, and one could see that the game was buggy, not well thought out, and all in all a mess. [/quote] This is also exactly the mistake that 2K Games made two years ago with the original release of Civ4 -- and the result was a slew of scathing reviews ([link="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QRY8X9YF8T5L/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm/"]including mine, on Amazon.com[/link]; note my original 2-star rating, which I couldn't edit as 2

Reply to NEW POLL: December or January release? in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

January release - I'd rather have it more complete a month later. Christmas is not a factor. ..bruce..

Reply to Galactic Civilizations: The case for no multiplayer in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Frogboy: for what it's worth, IMHO your decision is the right one. I've played MP games over the years (hell, I was trying to design one 25 years ago -- see http://brucefwebster.com/notebooks.htm; the navigation links are at the top and/or in the left column), and I spent quite a few hours on LOTR Online this past summer. But for turn-based strategy, my preference is single-player, and I'd rather have you continue to focus on improving CG2 for that. I think that many of the MP enthusiasts just r

Heads up for people reporting 'sudden performance issues' in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I downloaded Dark Avatar the day it appeared and have been playing it heavily ever since (as my wife can tell you). But over the weekend, I suddenly started having some performance issues, with sluggish and jerky displays, and even problems editing the text. I was ready to submit a bug report -- and then last night I tried to watch a video I had downloaded via iTunes. When I opened it up in an iTunes window, it was unwatchable: skipping frames, etc.; however, if I viewed it fullscreen