I’ve been following the Elemental journals for a while, but did not purchase it when it first came out, mostly due to a lack of time. I’ve picked it up last Friday, spent the weekend playing and would like to share some thoughts on how the game could be made better:
1) The sovereign’s stats should have a greater effect on the kingdom. As it stands, for a non-magic heavy sovereign that will simply go out and bash heads, setting INT and CHA to 5 seems the way to go. To avoid this:
STR - Provides a global bonus\penalty to kingdom metals\materials production (+- 5% per point)
DEX - Provides a global bonus\penalty to kingdom guildar production (+- 5% per point)
CON - Provides a global bonus\penalty to settlement defense (+- 5% per point)
INT - Provides a global bonus\penalty to kingdom research (+- 5% per point)
CHA – Provides a global bonus\penalty to kingdom prestige (+- 5% per point)
2) The spells don't seem particularly balanced with regard to low-intelligence sovereigns. Instead of providing a flat +1 prestige\food\movement speed, why not make it INT\10, rounded down? That way, a sovereign who intends to use such spells should not lower their INT below 10, and a sovereign who specialises in magic should have more benefits accrue once they hit INT 20 and INT 30.
Note: it may be more balanced to have it as INT\12.
3) Heroes are strictly better than normal units, as they can be re-equipped in an instant. That's actually a good thing, as Elemental seems focused on heroes, not units. However, there should be a place for normal units as well - as city defense forces. This ties into point four:
4) A settlement should have a defense rating that translates into the forces (free units) that will arise to defend it. For example,
A level 3 city will have four units representing the town militia arise to defend it. It has a forge, a mage tower, and an archery range. Mage tower provides one mage, archery range provides one archer on defense. The other two units will be default militia. The forge provides them with weapons and armor (so all units will be using leather armor, for example).
These units get added to whatever built units\heroes are standing in the city on defense.
What this gives is:
* More difficult to attack cities; thus, more difficult to roll over an enemy kingdom - similiar to Master of Orion's planetary bases, which upgrade automatically; this gives the game more of a strategy aspect, as taking enemy cities will require planning in advance
* Can have more monsters on the map for sovereign to fight with, without them overrunning the towns
* Squads and other training can give different bonuses to city defense forces (squads tech tree can give +25% force size, walls can give better defense)
* The buildings' presence in town affects the troops that arise to defend it
5) The early game seems to have a lack of options in combat. Basically, with ranged weapons being far away, pretty much everybody gets the best armor available and a pointy stick. What can be done to differentiate:
* Allow an early tech to give Mage Staff (weak magical attack, INT versus defender's CHA) to users
* Depending on the hero's job\specialty, allow them to only use light armor (e.g. archers, mages)
* Depending on the hero's job\specialty, allow\do not allow them to use magic items (e.g. knights can have heavy armor, but do not use magic at all)
6) The late-game adventurers\people that show up are boring. When you are earning 70 gildars per season, why should you recruit someone who gives another one? Instead, let's have them be out there, but not have a specialty (job). Once the player hires these people, they can then assign a specialty to them. The available specialties are based on what the player researched\built.
For example, if I build Knight Order, I get 1 Knight job to assign to any of my new people.
The job specifics are: can wear heavy armor, can use martial weapons, cannot use magic items. Special: Fights on horseback.
On the other hand, if I build Assassins' Guild, I get 1 Assassin job: can wear light armor, can use martial and expert weapons, can use magic items. Special: Assassin strike (first attack of combat deals double damage).
Or War College: 1 General, heavy armor, martial weapons, no magic items - special ability of Great Leadership (provides a bonus to all allied units on the field).
The idea is that the jobs are limited in number (a building will provide one, and most such buildings are one per kingdom), so the player needs to develop the cities to gain new jobs for their heroes. It also gives a clear progression, as later jobs are more powerful than earlier ones. It allows a variety of heroes with special powers to make them unique. It also allows specialization of your kingdom (a martial one has a Knight, Horse Archer and General; a magic one has Sorcerer, Swordmage and Hexhammer; a merchant one has Rogue, Assassin and Bard).
We could also consider changing between jobs (probably will cost some gold). Sovereign should have a job too - changing his job should be a lot of fun for the player!
7) Not enough buildings! Essentially, from mid-game onwards, when I have a sufficient income, my settlements are spamming studies and arcane labs, since there's nothing else to build.
8) Why the split between arm guards, torso and leg guards? They come together on the tech line, they all provide similiar bonuses\penalties; the only reason why I'd buy armor partially is because I don't have enough money. Instead, merge all these into "Armor". It's just extra mouse-clicking to buy all of these for the hero.
This also allows better differentiation between armors, for example: light armor (leather, studded leather) can provide a +1 move in combat.
9) Heroes should not wear helmets. Common units should all wear helmets, if possible. This would allow easier differentiation between heroes and non-heroes.
Bugs:
1) Most armor in XML files has the following supported unit types:
<GameItemType InternalName="ClothHelmet">
<DisplayName>Padded Cap</DisplayName>
<Description>A tight leather cap, lined and padded, to give the wearer some rudimentary defense.</Description>
<Type>Head</Type>
<SupportedUnitModelType>AmarianMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>EmpireMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>IroneerMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>KingdomMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>MancerMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>TarthanMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>WraithMale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>AmarianFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>EmpireFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>FallenFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>IroneerFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>KingdomFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>MancerFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>QuendarFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>TarthanFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>UrxenFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
<SupportedUnitModelType>WraithFemale</SupportedUnitModelType>
So an Urxen female can wear a padded cap, but a male can't? The whole approach seems strange - why list the types explicitly? If this is due to model size reasons, then have:
<RequiredUnitProperty>SizeMedium</RequiredUnitProperty>
Similiarly, then additional properties can be added, for example:
<RequiredUnitProperty>CanWearHeavyArmor</RequiredUnitProperty>
<RequiredUnitProperty>CanUseMagicItems</RequiredUnitProperty>
2) If I queue several caravans in a settlement, then every time one is built, the game tells me it's reached the maximum number allowed (presumably because the remaining limit is zero); this is somewhat misleading, as I do have more caravans in the queue.
3) If a settlement finishes both training and building a house, I get two pop-ups about it being idle. If I also happen to finish a tech or a spell this turn, then the game jumps to tech selection screen as soon as I click to build something else there.
Thanks!
