One other issue with multiplayer- that really was a big problem in Age of Wonders.

How will Stardock balance out units that are much stronger in tactical combat then fast combat?

This WILL happen, and might also be a concern for single player.

Well one possibility is that auto-combat actually simulates the full combat, all AI controlled and then reports the results. I recall this being mentioned by a dev a while back, but whether I'm remembering correctly or even if that'll make it into the final version, who knows. The upsides are it largely eliminates this problem (except when the AI has poor utilization for certain units) and lets you watch a replay of the actual fight if you want; the downside is it might take too long to calculate.

If that's not the case, don't expect an answer to your question. What kind of answer would you expect? We don't know if units will have special abilities, we don't know exactly what stats and such there will be, or traits. They can't answer that question without telling us nearly everything there is about the combat system, and even then I think balance is often just a matter of fiddling around.

I'm certainly not a purist, and like when developers succeed on pushing a game genre forward. I saw a possibility with multiplayer, that's all, and I hope to see an innovative spirit with Elemental in one way or another. If not... I'm sure that we'll still have a good game to play.

The problem is there are two layers to Elemental. There's the strategic campaign map, and there's the tactical battle map. You can have different engines for these, but it's somewhat difficult to have 2 engines for the same thing, which is what I'm trying to get at. Multiplayer and single player are not different games, ultimately they still run on the same game engine. Doing an option for turn based and another for real-time is essentially developing 2 engines with AI that can work under either.

I understand your point, though I was thinking more on a modding perspective.

By introducing a "cheat" in the movement cap (I've done that for fun in Civ IV and Gal Civ II) with a limited number of elements in play and mod-like changes, in theory a "real-time" result could be obtained for a new form of multiplayer experience.

EDIT: further clarification.

I guess the main problems lie with tactical combat. But if they are solved with hotseat without requiring to change too many times users, PBEM should be workable

A nice update to be sure.

Anyway, I think it would be nice to play against friends for this title however such a feature would surely be an x-pack thing in my mind.

Uhh... Spartan, multiplayer has been planned for Elemental from the get-go, and even with the Demigod fiasco they haven't threatened to remove it...

That's common to happen at this stage, unless you go and read all the previous journals. It happened to me as well. Having that in mind, I'd say to just point people in the right direction, since what would be obvious to some isn't for others.

I know it was; I was happy it was removed to be honest. I agree with Frogboy that this type of game should a single player game first -  hense my x-pack comment. I figure a well polished SP system with a MP added on would be the best situation for the community in the long run.

Nope I did not miss anything that I know of.

Maybe I simply was not clear enough in my prior post. I hope this post has cleared things up. 

OK, the surrealism is increasing.  Elemental has never had MP removed from it; all they've done is decided 100% to avoid anything even remotely P2P or end-user hosting for internet play.

We need a hibernation chamber for Spartan, stat!

Look around you, are there hot bear cavalry chicks around?

Mmmmm... hibernation.

Making a demo for a game like Demogod shouldn't take so long, I've almost lost interest in the game at this point. Demos in my opinion should come out before the game is released everything else be damned. I wonder if Elemental is going to have a Demo pre-release? Either way Elemental's multiple game modes sound very interesting. I'm hoping for a king of the hill type game mode where you have to capture and hold some city or location for X amount of time. 

I am pretty sure that Elemental demo will be after release. It is always the case with Stardock published games.

Just don't make multiplayer so important that the game loses it's solo player fizz. This is what Triumph did to AOW:SM it is so multiplayer oriented the AI is pitiful and the solo game both campaign and random suks royally. The only players left for that game on the forum are the multiplayers as they ruined the game so much for all the solo players. The community made mods (they call them patches haha) are so multiplayer oriented it's sickening 1.04 and soon 1.05 all geared toward what the multiplayers want on Gamespy.

Personally I could care less if you make a multiplayer addition or element to the game or not. The only one I would ever be interested in playing would be hotseat. I liked, no in fact I LOVED the way you LEFT IT OUT in GC and GC2 and applaud you for it. You could leave it out in this game and I'd be just as happy an elated.

Multiplayer games seem to draw away from the solo fun of the game because of whinners about BALANCE in the multiplayer aspects. Then as developers try to stop the crying of the whinners about BALANCE they ruin the solo playing game. You can't win and there's only 2% of the people out there that actually play everything multiplayer anyways. There's been polls after polls to prove that solo content is the MAIN reason players buy games. So, keep that in mind when the multiplayers start crying for BALANCE.

The other great aspect about MOM is it wasn't balanced for multiplayer because it didn't have a multiplayer feature. At least that way solo players could have challenging games playing a lesser race over the more powerful ones. Gnolls come to mind here. MOM is the greatest fantasy turn based game made so far. If you want that title for this one then you better take a hard look at what MOM offered and made it the best over the rest.

Brad has already stated that he isn't willing to sacrifice even the tiniest bit of the single-player experience for multiplayer, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

HOMM5 had multiplayer implemented on a patch after the game was shipped. This is no big issue as long as the dev team have time to work on both sides, one at a time.

Excited about all of this.  I know this game is aimed at SP, but I'm really 99% excited about it for MP. 

Teams of friends is good.  Strong online is good.  Short game options is good.  One worry about many options is... will that make it harder to find a game online because so many variants?

I can echo what someone else said.. how to balance units that are much better in tactical combat vs. in automated combat, as in age of wonders.  Also from Age of Wonders, I thought the simultaneous turns in a turn based game (as well as optional turn time limit) was awesome.  I just dont see how MP can work without rediculously long times unless turns are simultaneous.  It's especially a huge speedup in larger games. 

Excited!

Why? The same number of games would still be there (assuming the same number of people would play MP). You just look for a game with settings you like and join. Or host your own.