Assuming the next patches will fix the balance issues, Elemental is a very good game that presents a relatively new concept: Post-apocalyptic world.
Of course, as an idea there is nothing new about it, but Elemental also placed this in the game play itself, especially in how resources are treated in the game.
Resources are rare. Rare enough to make you want to start a war over a single mine. Rare enough that every temple/mine/field you find is a reason for a celebration.
From a city perspective, it makes every city unique, since each city will upgrade itself with buildings and bonuses according to what resources it has in it's range.
In kingdom/game play perspective, every game will be different from the one before. The tech tree advances as well as the soldiers and general strategy will be mainly decided on the resources located near your cities.
There is no single "winning strategy", simply because a player will decide his strategy based on the land around him (again, all this is true AFTER several patches that are supposed to come).
All this is a great advantage in a strategy game, but it also raises a concern regarding multiplayer games.
While there are multiple strategies to pick from, some will still be stronger than others. So doesn't that mean that in a multiplayer game the result of the game will be heavily decided on the start position of the players and the land around them?
