LOL, YES!

I've been playing since the launch. I was playing tons of CivIV before the launch. I am strictly EWOM now. I will have to hold off on Civ5. There is only so much time in the week. Alas, work gets in the way. Did you ever play the X-Comm series? There was a great feature there that allowed for turn based or real time tactical combat. You could switch out whenever depending on your skill level or situation. THAT was a sic feature that I'd like to see with EWOM.

How much more do you like Civ5 over 4? Is is a big improvement?

You can easily some up key elements of various computer games - Some brilliant elements are forgotten these days? The way army combat worked in Civilization Call to power was ingenious - take that and make it turn based and you have the combat system in Elemental! Call to Power also had the duplicate world of outer space which was another brilliant concept but was dropped in Call to Power2 probably because it sucked too much computer power and the AI cannot cope with it (But the AI in any call to power game was useless regardless).

I have seen some turn based games make brilliant use of 'reaction' turns. A reaction turn occurs when a unit reacts off turn to the activity of on turn units - this would have served a game like Galciv brilliantly, and also would serve Elemental. Imagine if your archer which is out of range could be given reaction orders to fire at the enemy when it approaches during the enemy's turn? This is what I'm talking about!!

We have outstanding unit progression in Neverwinter nights2 and the brilliant concept of the castle construction and upgrading. Unit progression being the useful lesson here for Elemental although NWN2 unit progression is somewhat too complex for my liking.

I don't think there is anything all that special about the civ series - just see Alpha Centauri for all the rest of the brilliant game concepts you could ever want or need.

Civ5 with the ability to design your own units would be interesting...

It uses XML and it's moddable (:

I realize that it is modable. I'm more concerned about version compatibility. Take for example some Civ IV mods who don't support the latest patch versions due to various changes. I wonder how they will handle this with steam.

Modding currently is buggy as hell in Civ5. Not to mention Civ5 jipped having animations in multiplayer, so everyone just kinda teleports around.

Now i know people had performance issues with Elemental and some still do, but Civ5 going between turns is retarded slow. My machine is pretty powerful as well.

I just hope elemental when finished up with patches and updates, has the same multi options as single. Same game.

Hexes are definetly better than squares regardless of if you just clash 2 units or goto a tactical battle map. For that reason modding a fantasy world into civ 5 has some promise. I have faith stardock will eventually make us whole with Elemental but I think its 6 months to a year off cause right now no true random map generator and the state of the ai is pretty bad.

"Spear chuckers taking down tanks"

Sadly this statement perfectly defines everything that i despise about the civ series. Then with civ4 they give us this wonderful unit experience platform which you cannot use because of unit attrition and yes, the old spear chuckers killing tanks motto rolls on happily in civ4 so that none of your experienced units are safe or can live long enough to gain all those wonderful experience options!!! (unless you love reloading of course)

If i had to pick a game that Elemental was most similar to it would be Rise of Nations not civ5.

In presentation only.

I hope the Stardock team is playing Civ 5 right now and picking some ideas around presentation, like UI and combat animations.  But in terms of the gameplay I'd like to see Elemental LESS like Civ 5 and more its own game. 

Is this ability interesting in Elemental in the first place ?

Based on opinions on this forum, unit design in its current state could be replaced by a slider. Do you want a better, more expensive unit or worse, cheaper ? Ok, there are bows too. So you could have 2 unit types: bowman and footman, and a slider for each. And instead of equipment, units could have levels assigned to it.

Unit design sounds interesting, but I don't see a point for it now. Maybe if weapons had drawbacks (Dominions 3), maybe if there was more than 3 (4?) unit attributes...

Elemental now, or Elemental after the 3-6 serious patches (oops, sorry Expansions) needed to make it deep, colorful and full of content?

Because, I'm afraid that if I added Elemental to Civ5 right now, elemental would break it (OOM anyone? )  Sadly, I'm losing faith that Elemental can be brought up to what they were promising us before some modder (FFH anyone?) makes a nice mod for Civ5. 

I really really want this game to work, but seeing Brad's recent timeline which basically notes that many of the main elements of the game are being completely redesigned (Magic and Tac Battles).. who's to say that when these Patches (uh sorry again, expansions) are finished, that it doesn't bring up a whole score of other balance/playability/fun issues up again?  

Elemental, get your dirty hands off my Civ5!