Before I get to the aar I want to say I am a fan of Elemental and the team behind it and I took the time to write this because I want Elemental to be the best game it can as well for any discussion about ways to improve the game.

To save time I'm going to start the aar mid-game...

So it's mid-game and I have 6 high level cities and more resources than I can possibly use as well as around 30k in gold. My cities are all built the same way, 1 of every building that I’ve unlocked (except for housing obviously).

As I explore more of the area around me I make contact with another sovereign and he does what all sovereigns do 99% of the time I make contact with them, he declares war.

He is of the Empire race as am I (if forget his race but his color is purple) and looking at the rating in the top right corner I see that his is twice mine.

My cities are lightly defended as I usually don’t build up till I am at war so now I have every city build my best defensive unit which is a team of  9 soldiers (with tier 2 experience) with full leather an axe and a shield, their stats are 35 attack 80 defense. I also have access to Darklings so I make a few teams of 9 soldiers (with tier 2 experience) to screen the city closest to the enemy. Their stats are the polar opposite of my soldiers with 70 attack 35 defense.

I link one of the Darkling units to my sovereign and head off to the North as I see many units pouring in towards one of my cities (what turns out to be the bulk of his armies).

I attack one of the armies which consist of 8 or so individual soldiers vs. my sovereign and a darkling unit (consisting of 9 darklings).

At the beginning of combat I cast the storm spell which is backed by two air shards, all but 1 soldier resist and the spell does 7 damage. I cast storm again this time they all resist, in frustration I cast a third time and 3 fail to resist and take 7 damage.

As I’ve discovered, in elemental your sovereign becomes pretty useless by mid-game as they fail to scale with the units you can build. They are at their peak before they make the 1^st city and then become increasingly unimportant from then on.

I move my sovereign to the back of the combat field and then maneuver the darklings backwards and forwards so that the enemy ends his turns standing in front of them. The darklings do 40 damage per hit and they slaughter the enemy. Rinse and repeat for about 8 turns till the enemy starts sending armies that consist of 1 soldier.

Only 1 enemy soldier type caused a little trouble (some soldier armed with a reaver) and kills a few Darklings reducing them to for 9 Darklings 6.

I contact the enemy sovereign to see if after wiping out his armies he is more willing to negotiate a cease fire. Well it looks like he wants me to pay 12k for the privilege to make peace and not wipe him off the map. I don’t have any diplomatic points and though I have more than enough gold I have no reason to pay so the war goes on.

So now the time has come for a counter attack. I contemplate researching more combat techs but really there was no point since my Darklings armies already can wipe out a numerically superior force. At this point nothing really matters except pumping out more armies. In fact at this point (though I didn’t know it at the time) I’ve pretty much already won the game.

My sovereign with the darkling army moves towards a major enemy city which is undefended except for a single pioneer unit which I smack aside and then march into town.

I examine the city and see it is packed with tech and mana buildings. But more interesting I see it can create the reaver armed unit that gave me a little trouble. I create an 9 soldier unit of these soldiers and see that this army has some damn impressive stats. I’m eager to see them in action.

On the way to the second enemy city I run across an enemy army containing 3 individual soldiers. I attack immediately and instead of auto resolving as I usually do when fighting a inferior force I go into combat mode.

I move the reaver armed force into position where the lemming army ends its turn standing in front as I do in every combat. I attack and this unit hits for over 100 points of damage, I attack the second enemy soldier with similar results. Now it’s my sovereign’s turn and I have to chuckle, she can barley do maybe 17 points of damage with her sword and even less with her spell, she is more of a figurehead than an effective unit.

I take the second town which was undefended as the previous one and make contact with the opposing sovereign again. I figure after taking two cities he must be in a more agreeable mood for peace. Again he demands me to pay 12k for the privilege of peace, I refuse.

I take the 3^rd city without a serious opposition and move on and take a forth. The fourth city is interesting as it can make shrill and spider armies and… A DRAGON! I'm very excited as this is the 1^st time I’ve seen a dragon in elemental. I set about making shrill and spider armies as well as the dragon.

So now my army consists of darklings, reaver soldiers, shrills, spiders and a Dragon – the weakest link in it is my sovereign.

With a power rating of around 1000 this army could probably wipe out everything by itself but really what keeps me interested is my new dragon pet and the death I think it should be able deal out.

As I move towards his 3 remaining cities that are no higher than level 3 the enemy sovereign makes contact. Now he’s now all buddy buddy with me and seeks peace. I laugh; now that I have an unstoppable force and he is on his knees he wants peace. I click “no” and move my stack of doom towards the nearest city and along the way I find one of his few remaining armies consisting of 3 soldiers which I attack immediately.

Combat starts and my sovereign is first up and I moved her far the rear as she is mostly there to get xp. I then move my dragon into position and fire off its fire breath relishing in what I think is going to be fiery destruction. To my dismay it does 8 points of damage. “Ok” I think, “maybe it’s more of a melee unit". The dragon attacks with claw and teeth but this does only about 20 points of damage. I move in the spider army and they do 35 points of damage, the shrills do 60 and the reavers do their usual 90-100+ points.  

I am saddened by the fact that  the bug armies (spider/shrills) do more damage than a friggen dragon. I banish the dragon to a backwater city in disgust so it can wallow in its failure to be epic.

A dozen turns later the enemy sovereign is destroyed and the only remaining sovereign is Gilder which is so far below me in power it is not even a remote threat.

A few turns later the game crashes.