I'd very much like to see the Kumquat engine leased for other games.  Top of my list would be a TBS based on the Wheel of Time novels.  A full blown, sandbox 4x game as well as detailed campaigns following the story line.  Red Eagle Entertainment has the rights for WoT games and movies.  They've recently teamed with Obsidian Entertainment to make gameS based on the books.   These games may have an action/RPG focus (just a guess based on articles I've read).  Perhaps they'd consider teaming with Stardock on a TBS? 

Why stop there?  How about a TBS based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation series?  Set in the story-line during the era of inter-planetary feudalism and space piracy. Not much was said in the series as to what occured during this era.  There may be some creative story freedoms as relates to game design?  And there may even exist the potential for another book writing deal? Other authors have written in Asimov's universe.  Perhaps its not so far fetched that a deal could be made to make a game and publish an accompanying story?

One can dream....

I have to disagree. IMHO RTS games come down to about 10% strategy and 90% CPM (clicks per minute). There are even apps available for RTS games that will put an average CPM number up in the corner that you can monitor duing your games...Starcraft, C&C, Total War.  If that isn;t a major part of the RTS then why do so many RTS players care what their cpm is?

You can make up for a whole lot of strategical mistakes if you are doing twice as many actions as your opponent. Learn the basic strategy, usually not difficult, then exercise your mouse finger. Not very strategic, again, IMHO

The tactical battles in Elemental are flawed most definately, but changing them to RTS is not the answer.

Polish, polish and more polish. On all levels - gameplay, lore, sound, art, UI.. nothing really feels polished enough yet.

When I first played Sins I was instantly sucked in by the cool factions with a solid backstory. After the rock solid gameplay I was totally addicted for a long time. With Elemental, I sadly don't feel any of that. There are too many factions that are way too similar and lack any kind of personality. Creating a custom Sovereign is equally bland as you can't select powers for them and they basically start out as peasants in rags. The beginning of the campaign doesn't make much sense. Elemental just doesn't hook me in any way.

So what I would like in an expansion:

1) Fewer factions that all have an identity. Sins of a Solar Empire, Disciples 2 and Master of Orion 2 are good examples of games that have cool and interesting factions. Factions meaning races basically.

2) Sovereigns with identifiable, customizable powers. MoM and AoW:SM did this right and that kind of magical customization could still be expanded upon. The Sovereign is your avatar in the game and needs to be more interesting and look more impressive from the start.

3) A solid magic system with magic domains and specialization options.

I'd rather have factions that are cultures and groups rather than races. It's a little silly to say the equivalent of "All Asians must be nationalized as part of the nation of Asia". "You're an elf! You can't help us fight evil! It's against the rules!" I think it'd also help give the factions more opportunity to distingush themselves because they're interacting more often. How a faction treats certain races for instance. It also could allow for interesting unit choices. One faction may allow their ogres to be warriors, priests, and rangers. Another may restrict them to peasants. Yet another could restrict them to paladins. This allows the ideals of a faction to be expressed in more creative and interesting ways. What would a strict Spartan-like society do with, say, orcs and trolls? Likely very different than Athenians. This attitude can extend into diplomacy. A faction could otherwise be agreeable to another but be very contentious about certain ideals and policies of each other. It also allows the races themselves to be more than just one-trick ponies instead of mindless cliches.  It allows for interesting intra-racial issues. The trolls of one society may look down at the trolls in another who may feel that the first set of trolls have betrayed their heritage. 

After all, as the man quipped, "...because you humans have a wide range of cultures and attitudes, but krogan all think and act exactly alike."

Edit: Darn you Frogboy and your teasing!

2) If you are able to add spells that affect the battlefield much like the volcano one does the main map, make the elements more distinct (see previous part of the sentence) and other tweaks to the general way that magic works, it would be awesome.

3) Initiative...  Not that I don't like the current way of attacker firts, then defender (pure MoM style) but initiative a la HoMM V (just to mention one) is more fun to me. More choices, less cheese.

So... bye bye (for now) to Gal Civ 3 it seems (unless you were getting ready for Political Machine). Altough I'm to miss more that RPG because I'm almost holding my breath for an RPG by Stardock. :/ I haven't touched the quest part yet but I agree it has so much potential in it... and not just because of dungeons.

Keep doing what they are doing imo.

I love the game so much, its the best game this gen imo on any system.

Yes it has issues (AI and Magic need work).

But as of right now I am extremely addicted to this game.

 The system in some areas is fine - the relative scarcity is nice, the essence mechanics are working fine. The spell lists are a problem - far too many spells follow the rules (i.e. do something that can be achieved via perfectly mundane means - adding defence to a unit for example, otherwise known as glowy armour) and few allow you to break, bend or just plain ignore them (teleport for example. Good start, now why isn't there any spells that allow me to teleport units in tactical combat?) which reduces magic to a 'cheap' means of doing something rather than a fantastical and world changing force.

 The selection of magic books is another issue. There's no real reason not to take every book, beyond the fact that most of the spells are duplicated. Why not give magic it's own research screen but rather than civ, war et al have the different books - fire, earth etc, and have arcane research work in the same manner - research Earth magic then either pick from the available spells or increase your earth level. You unify the two research areas which makes it a lot easier for new players to understand, and in addition a player can tailor their magical capabilities to the game at hand, avoiding issues like having only the air book and no air nodes on the map. Just for kicks, you could also attach an arcane research bonus on nodes for their particular school, making them more than just batteries.

Selecting books worked in MoM because you picked up different attributes according to the number of each book you picked; it works in Dominions as it affects the traits your god's blessing confers. It fails in Elemental because there's no reason not to pick every book, while at the same time no real reason to pick any books, which is hardly fitting for a game styling itself a war of magic.

Sounds really good. With the production costs of 2010 I think the best approach is to start with minimal resources that are fully realised and awesome. And then add more awesome content in expansions. Three awesome factions with a small but solid spell selection will have exponentially more appeal than 10 generic factions with hundreds of generic spells without a solid magic system.

I posted some thought out ideas concerning a solid foundation for a magic system during beta but the post seems to have disappeared.

This will drastically improve tactical battles. Excellent new. Now we just need to diversify the number of squares different unit can move so you can strategies hit and run techniques.

Yes, I agree with this. The magic system is okay. even with the imbued essense. The problem is lies on the spell list and the implementation of the magic system in the game. I don't think that a ruler who imbued the magic essense to his followers is a bad idea. It is the spell lists are just bad and not fun.

I think, it is better if you just limit the player's spellbook to one at the beginning of the game; or two if you don't choose another talents or equipments, and three if you put all negative traits to the sovereign. Don't let them choose all the spellbooks at the sovereign creation.

For the combat... well, I don't know. It is just like Heroes Might & Magic series, but lack of something important. maybe it just because Elemental is not a Heroes Might & Magic Clone; so that type of combat won't give any fun to the Elemental

I can only say this :

Age of Wonder has good combat system, but it is slow pace... and I hate slow pace game.

Heroes Might & Magic has a simple combat system, but it is fun / perfectly fit to that kind of game type. Unfortunatelly, it doesn't fit to Elemental game.

What about Master of Magic battle mechanic?  Hmm... I don't know. It has been a long time ago

So, why not Elemental creates a whole different combat system that fit to the elemental alone? Just be yourself, just be Elemental War of Magic. Make it different and exciting.

I think the gamers in this forum has two version of feel when play this game. the first one is people who love strategy game. They see the game as the other version of Civilization, where the strategy is the first and the most important aspect of the game. This type of gamers think that the game should like a chess. Where everything should be thought logically and strategically.

the other gamers see this game as an RPG game with Civilization flavour. Where they just care to the heroes and their equipments, then hunt monsters to the very late of the game. The problem is what is Stardock's point of view of this game? See it as RPG with strategy flavour or to see it a strategy game with RPG flavor?

For me, Elemental is a game about a protagonist who is a channeler, who lead his people on a post apocalypse world. So, it is always about the protagonist and his citizens. You should always thinking the game from the point of view of the protagonist, the sovereign. What does he need to lead his people in a broken world? first survival, then protection. So you should make the strategy that help that kind of feeling to the gamers. (that what I feel from playing the sandbox mode)

Because the game is focusing to the protagonist, he should always important to the game. From the very beginning (when he has only a settlement) to a point where he has a vast kingdom to lead. You must put him to a different role when his kingdom evolve. From a front lines adventurer / commander to a king of vast kingdom who deal a large scale battle to the evil factions.

As a king, he should stay behind the lines, as when his life ended, the game will over. So, what kind of support he could give to the front lines army when he hides in his strongest stronghold? That's a matter of game mechanic.

The style of Elemental allow the players to role play as the King Arthur, from he has nothing, get the sword of the stone, lead his loyal subjects to glorious battle, recruit loyal knights and create Knights of the Round Table, unite the land, and become the king of England. But even King Arthur will not always on front line although his influence, his strategy, and his presence is still very important to the story. The important thing is the glorious feeling when the player play the Sovereign (king Arthur) as him, not as the King Arthur Faction. that's why heroes are important. Protagonist involvement to every aspect in the kingdom is also important. It is different than other games that focus more on political, chess type of computer game who lead the nation from the point of view of... a kingdom. So... Mr. Frogboy, just makes Elemental, Elemental War of Magic. Not another clone of Civilization or something. Just let it be... Elemental.

Brad,

The Dynasty system stays, right? it will get fleshed out better, right?

More resources will be added, right? Better city building, right?

Tactical combat, magic will be improved, right?

Unique Factions, tech trees and A.I.'s ala GC2 complete, right???

If so, you have my money for whatever expansions you put out.  I am liking the game a lot.

Hi,

I have been reading all the comments and have played the game since it was released. I would like elemental with the following going forward....

1. Better Balance, maybe allow the player to set a 'slider' on certain aspects like weapon and magic damage, monster spawns.

2. More 'water' units, allow docks to be built further away from locations.

3. Flying units would be nice, or the ability to make you army fly.

4. Combat need alot of work, maybe have a turn stack that is per unit, a bit like D&D initiative.

5. More HP for heros, maybe they gain per level the amount they have in their stats.

6. Make Inventory more specific to the body which solves Mr T problem

7. I like the dynasty part, but it's need fleshing out more and allowing maybe even internal attempts to take over and maybe even allowing other factions to become part of your kingdom due to marriage.

8. Maybe have less quest locations but don't make them disappear (allow them to offer more quests, maybe even NPC/Other Player quests). You could leave locations the same and have them offer different levels depending on what level you are (rather than reasearch which is odd).

9. Maybe have dungeons that can be explored like the map.

10. Multiplayer!! With time turn limits and more than 1v1 combat (i.e. allow all combat to be done at the end of everyone's 'turn').

11. Maybe build in 'ages' where you can only advance so far and with each new 'age' you see the world get better and you allow the player to have the current 'king/queen' die.

There are loads of directions you could go in but overall once all the obvious bugs are gone hopefully we will have a good long term game.

JD