I've been playing Elemental for relatively extended periods thanks to the stability of 3C and while I enjoy it a lot initially, I find I start to get bored with the game-play after the initial city is established. For me it is seeming more about process than strategy at present. It is heading toward a game I would 'like' but not a game I would 'love' long term.I know this isn't the finished game but we were asked to look at balance and game-play in this version.

I keep thinking about what I love from my favourite games and why they keep me coming back year after year where other games lose me after a week or two. And I really don't want Elemental to fall into that later category.

I'll try to be more specific.

The World

The world itself doesn't have character or real meaning. Swamps and snow are just coloured tiles that don't do a lot other than change the way trees are rendered in them. I know there is a book that the world is written around and that it is supposed to be a wasteland. But the world doesn't 'live' or promise anything in itself. It is just a brown space to move around in. Contrast this with AOW or Fall from Heaven where each terrain has heaps of character and as a player you become immersed in the current environment. I realise that atmospheric sound hasn't been added yet and that this will help a lot but the world isn't gripping me yet.

I guess I would hope for more ground cover that animates when in close like grass that wafts in breeze. And terrains that mean something to the specific race or alignment. Battle bonuses in swamp as an example. And terrain that doesn't automatically shift to your life/death alignment when you build on it, but some-how needs to be changed or adapted to get other bonuses.

Maybe also having the ability to build walls and towers outside your area as a first line of protection would be good. A unit stationed in a tower attached to a section of wall protects against attacks on the adjacent wall pieces. This would help to make the world more strategic - especially if the resources became rarer and more strategically important.

Goodie Huts

These are fun for a short amount of time but then they end up as 'process' again. After the initial city building is finished I'm pretty much over rummaging through goodie huts. At this stage I'm wanting to take strategic ground and prepare for the main game against the AI. But it feels like the purpose of the main game is stringing quests together rather than developing a grander strategy.

I wonder if some-how linking some of the goodie huts directly to grand strategy would be good. An example may be to provide a specific bonus with a found weapon against a specific AI player. Or some diplomatic goodwill that can be used with a specific player.

Starting resources

The resources around the player unbalance the game too much at present. They should probably give less materials but offset with some rare super resources in the wilderness that players will want to capture and protect.

Tech balance

I'm liking where this is heading structurally but the bonuses from libraries etc give way too much of an advantage if you are lucky enough to have one near-by. I think I would dramatically reduce the research bonuses of resources but allow more buildings to boost the research within cities but at the expense of other buildings. Even just a couple of points can translate into a major advantage. Eg. Build a library but can't build high level commerce or military buildings within a city if you do. Leads to city specialisation.

Unit balance

Battle results are rarely close or interesting. Each time it is the same process and doesn't give any opportunity for strategic advantage. I think one of the problems is the movement squares make the battles seem much more abstracted than they should be. If there was more movement allowance and strategic elements on the map that gave bonuses or penalties it would make the tactical battles heaps more fun.

Also the units are really really unbalanced. A couple of points one way or another means a massive advantage in power.

Spells should also probably only be used a limited number of times based on intelligence.

Shards

The magic shards seem to have lost all their strategic importance. These should be the main goals of the game. Many more spells should rely on these before they can be cast. Controlling a shard should impact on all sorts of levels. It should give you a major magic benefit if you have that magic sphere in the channeller. But it could also have a major negative diplomatic hit against the empires whose channeller has this sphere as well.

Spells

At the moment it seems many of the combat spells are all identical. Should only be able to use a specific spell [ 1 + floor(intel / (6 x spellmana)) ] per tactical combat. That way if a magic user has intelligence of 16 they can use a two mana spell twice per combat but can only use a three mana spell once.

Conquered Cities

There should be a penalty for capturing cities. At the moment you take a city and just keep on rolling along.

I'd suggest that prestige of the city should halve to reduce the usable area. It should lose 1 size level through removing housing. Half the buildings and should collapse. And all the resource improvements should disappear.

So if a level one city was captured it basically removes it from the game. This will make level 1 cities more like outposts than towns.

Strategic focus

I'm finding the game is wanting me to micro-manage everything as it gets bigger. Much of this is to do with the goodie huts and city building. I would much prefer to be heavily focussed on a small number of strategic elements for extended periods than flipping around doing this and that all over the map.

I hope this doesn't come across as too critical. I am enjoying the game but it isn't gripping me yet. And it is mainly the middle game that is losing me at present.