The mid game crisis:
Pacing: Epic
Difficulty: Challenging
While I find the game overall enjoyable in the beginning the game play lacks a bit in the mid game and onwards.
The problem I’m seeing is that there are just too many resources in the game world by mid game (excluding food).
When you have tens of thousands of every resource and 6+ shards there is really no excitement in building another city, acquiring yet more resources or building a building that increases the amount of resources that you churn out.
On the topic of cities, they level up too fast even on epic pacing and structures are way too cheap to build. I’m fine with cities leveling up to L2 fairly quickly but L3 onwards should be increasingly difficult (requiring many resources and time to complete).
AI: The AI in beta 4 was much better that what I’m seeing now. AI goes to war with you when they are too weak to do much, never defend their cities properly; they underestimate the power of the player’s sovereign and are susceptible to summon rushes.
Weapons and armor: This has been an area that has bugged me very much in elemental. I was expecting to see flaming swords and armor that reflects spell and so forth, something along the line of Diablo’s or randomized items. Instead we get a few types of very unexciting types of weapon and armor that can be accessed very quickly.
Monsters: I have yet to run into a dragon or the like by the time I’ve killed off the other nations, which might be something you unlock with the exploring tech. I’ve never invested in this tech because what is the point of exploring when you have everything you need.