Yea ... I don't think we should get rid of gardens.

This is my first Stadock beta and though I don't post much I've been hanging around since mid-Beta1.

The level of interaction and the time you guys spend talking to your players is amazing (even for a beta).  I don't think I've seen another company this responsive (and eager) for player feedback during the development process.  I've always been a fan of SD games, but after this experience I'm pretty well sold on anything you guys release.  

Just wanted to say thanks for showing that you understand we will all spend hours of our lives on your games and that you are doing everything you can to make it as enjoyable as possible.  That seems to be rarer and rarer as time passes and the industry consolidates into larger and larger shops.  

And so I'm somewhat on topic, Beta 2A looks great.  Anxious to see the tech tree updates and the new city building.  Hopefully next play through I won't have to escort 208 different spoiled brats home from the bar and back to their parents estates. 

Once there are other things to do with essence other than start cities, that will be a big deterrent to city spam. Yes, City spam is sitll an option, but your essence tank will be dry later in the game. I think that provides an interesting strategic choice - Go with a large but largely mundane army (possible because of large number of cities) or will you conserve your essence, have less cities and therefore fewer armies, but be able to have a strong magical offensive and defensive capability later. And it needs to be balanced so both are viable options.

You make a really good point. I haven't posted my opinion but I have made a bunch of assumptions only realizing after that when more gamplay mechanics are available , it could make an impact that would alieviate my concerns. Without all the peices of the puzzle in place, we have to becareful not to go to far down a single path otherwise we might find out later it was balanced all along and our changes had an impact in a way we did not intend.

i believe thursdays are "the" day; someone correct me if im mistaken.

The changes in city building sound interesting; I am looking forward to trying 2-a out.  I was feeling like cities were feeling a bit crowded and were taking up a smidge too much of my time in managing when I feel like I should be exploring, fighting, questing, and founding new cities.

Nice to see these changes being made @.@ I understand that betas aren't for fun but it is very frustrating when the game doesn't respond how you want it to after a lot of tries.

Also this wireless keyboard is frustrating too

Koodos guys, keep up the good work!

EDIT:  Wrote this up as a new post in the Elemental Ideas forum, https://forums.elementalgame.com/384528

Concerning city spam.  Many empire building games have some mechanic for corruption or inefficiency.  As the empire grows, the penalty grows, so that the more bases you have, or the farther they are from the capitol, the less efficient they are.  They also have various technologies (or government types) that reduce the penalty.

Is there any such mechanic in Elemental?  The basic idea of Kingdoms vs Empire would be a good starting point - Kingdoms are smaller, and have a heavier efficiency penalty if they grow too large, while for Empires, bigger is better.  The Palace seems ideally suited for a Kingdom wide bonus, while smaller structures like the Tax Office could help the city it is built in.

If there is (or could be added) such a Kingdom-wide bonus/penalty system, then it would work to reduce city spam.  Without the right structures, research, or spells, a few, well-built cities would be more efficient than many cities.

My thoughts:

Efficiency bonus/penalty - modifies the output of gildars, research, prestige, materials & construction time for each city.  (The mechanic for an individual city bonus is in-game, with the Administrator perk that some NPC's have, +10% production, or Royalty for increased prestige)

City based modifier - individual buildings, spells, or certain administrators, that apply a bonus to one city, offsetting the realm-wide penalty.  Tax Office for gildars, Town Hall for Prestige,  Warehouse for material production or construction time, Granary for food production (which would need a change, to be built in any town.

Realm wide modifier - the Palace leaps to mind, for overall efficiency.  Not sure about any others.

Spells - (no clue how spells will work, but I'm looking at this from a Master of Magic basis)  Spells could be cast on cities to give a variety of bonuses, either lasting for a set number of turns, or until canceled, for an up-front casting cost, or using shards in some manner.

Research - various research improvements that give a flat bonus.  Caravans, for example, could reduce the realm penalty for all gildar, food, iron & material production, as there is now an efficient way to move goods around, stimulating commerce.  Other techs could give a flat bonus.

I'm not sure if this type of idea would be welcome, or if it could even be added to the game at this point.  I think it could, from looking at a few of the NPC perks.  But it would combat the city spam, at least for Kingdoms.  Empires should be larger, imo.

Thursdays are the day for new beta versions and such, but it's pretty easy to push updates to Impulse. They might stick with the thursday thing for that, but there's no technical reason why an update couldn't be pushed out today.

I know most of these have been discussed after a search of the forums, but would like to cast my vote.

Roads. They help me feel like my kingdom is “connected”.  Doesn't have to be a huge strategic implementation but could certainly speak to the movement issue and maybe some sort of trade bump.

Really like the beach idea but they are so rare seafaring recedes as a strategy to be pursued.

I like the ability to impose my will on the environment (ie settlers in civ) could certainly have a reduced scope than those in civ.

I wouldn't be so quick to nerf the plethora of buildings. Embrace the notion that I may never build all of them but leaves open the ability to tailor cities to respond to strategic needs. (yes, I’m a content junkie)

Faction/Kingdom/Empire specific buildings & tech? Like the direction galciv took with race specific buildings &tech. maybe not all but several unique ones.

Transferring items could use some love.

Will we be able to imbue items with enchantments?  ie..  claymore +1, +2… ect.  Trying to remember the game that had an item maker that was pretty cool where you add spell affects and such to items but long term memory is trashed….

Research seems a bit daunting; even with three of the tech tree branches offline my thought is when they do come on line there would be much waiting around for advances across the board.  Could all branches be research simultaneously?  Maybe at a slower rate but it would at least feel like you were making progress on all fronts instead of single threading your research.

Cheers

From reading the posts so far, we're all impatiently waiting for 2a.  I also do want to re-iterate that you are a rare gem in this day an age for game development.  None of your game so far were disapointing, quite the contrary.  I only started with Beta 2 (was too late to enter 1), but have been part of Sin Of Solar beta.

On the city building, I agree with most, let see what they came up with and see.  They'll re-address it if the majority feel it not quite right (why we are part of a REAL beta test).

On the unit movement, I'm sure other have tought about it, but sovereigns with different starting movements would be nice and getting to 30 moves a turn is just insane.  I know, it's mainly because a quest gives you a potion or book for it and this will be balanced out, but even 8 would be very high.  For the units, I like what we have right now.  A base of 1 that you can upgrade according to equipment.  Armies are very slow to move.  Makes you think a bit more about what to build and design of units (speed/attack/defense/cost balancing).  Makes you create the type of unit that fits your style of play.  Different creature/race should have specific movement related to them (wolves have 2 or 3).  Road would be a nice thing and we know horses are around to boost even more the movement.

On the movement interface, I agree, the usual path and turn time indicators would be nice, unless they can come up with something creative.

On the NPC, I really like the idea of some joining the strongest or most appealing cities and actually was under the impression it would work like that.

On the item exchange, personally I don't mind the exchange from far distance, but a cost needs to be associated with it.  My opinion would be to have a teleport item spell and only the sovereign or champion with the spell can buy and teleport as long has he as enough mana.  Within the same spot, no cost and everyone can do it (to state the obvious just in case).

well movement should be limited on the upper side... cause outmaneuvre other players / units is a huge advantage... maybe limit movement speed to 10-15?