Channeler Customization: Part 3

Looking better...... one small nitpick though: ugliness should decrease the liklihood that somebody will want to marry the soverign in the first place, not how often (s)he will procreate.

that does sound quite nice. I like the attribute trade offs and the % benefits. Not sure about the traits... more of them and more magic related ones. I also liked master of magic's traits that required other picks to be enabled. Perhaps each trait could have a stat requirement?

maybe both... afterall there would be less activity in general... just a thought

Nice list, although the Strength etc. system doesn't really look original.

Very nice to get more traits/perks in-game.

Hunter seems weird. Game food resources are probably the first thing men used for food in history. Requiring a channeler to be a hunter for his civ to harness game looks strange to me.

Diplomatic == shrewd? What's the difference?

Naturalist looks bad as it doesn't provide any benefit in the long term.

Stubborn: If you provide a checkbox for not dying in battle, this will be picked all the time by the check-box-checkers.

Ugly won't get you less children. Particularly if you're rich and powerful.

Inefficient and other city related penalties aren't going to work unless you need your Channeler to remain in a city for a long time for some other reason. If one plans to make a warrior Channeler, he'll never be in a city and will pick all the negative city weaknesses to become hyper powerful.

Outcast: Same remark as Naturalist. However, the name is interesting. If you're outcast, probably you've got one neighbour or nearby civilisation/city/whatever who dislikes you, which can translate as negative relationship from the start with a neighbour, which would have long term effects.

Base Attributes looks better altough I always have this thing with close combat and ranged combat...

The Stubborn could renamed to Reckless. Or even be Overconfident depending of the tone you want to give to it.

Ugly shouldn't have to do with fewer children. The possibility of marriage with a Sovereign and give him children, should be something very serious for any woman (if the Sovereign is a he). It could affect some diplomacy tough. In any case, if you include Ugly, then you must include Beauty. And it should be opposite.

Weaknesses that only work when the Sovereign is in the city... If you plan to have him in the city you don't pick them. If you don't plan to leave him there, you pick them. Therefore, bad. Better avoid those. Or give them some kind of benefit so it's a mixed blessing.

It worries me a bit that idea of a "slighty worse" starting position. HOw can it be worse? No farm tile maybe? He might not start close to one but find one one or two turns later of exploration.

I know we are talking Sovereigns here but I must say that this same system could be used with the offspring. As Heroes, they deserve same Base Attributes options (in fact, normal troops too) and could make some good use of History and Talents/Weaknesses (not normal troops too... not in the smae way, not the same ones). The player could select the "History" for the child (Sovereign: "You will be Warrior, my son." Child: "But... but... I like ballet." Sovereign: *facepalm*) while the Talents/Weaknesses would/could be random within a limit.

Real reason for last paragraph was: Sovereign: "Why don' you want to marry Resolin's daughter, my son?" Son: "Maybe because whenever I talk with her I get the feeling of being talking to my horse???!!!" Sovereign: "Yeah, I noticed some resemblance too."

Ten Thousand Huzzahs for the weaknesses! (the concept, not the specifics)

Putting history, talents, and weaknesses together in different ways looks like it might be able to yield vast tracts of replayability, almost like the soverign is a 'second map' with swell customization options.

Interesting, yet this fails in one important point: general governance. Your channeler is the king/emperor, therefore he must have general administrative/diplomatic/military skills showing how good he is at managing three important aspects of his nation. Again, I'm ripping Europa Universalis III off, but I think its star system can be used as a base for Elemental. Each star can add general bonuses related-to-area to your nation.

Administration gives improved production, better merchant revenues, better building costs, so on. Diplomacy gives improved relations with neighbors, diminished costs of diplomats, an ease to befriend magic entities, improved options in dialog, so on. Military gives you improved morale, reduced costs of maintenance for armies, less attrition in foreign lands, so on.

Also, under this system each faction can have unique general advantages given by stars, for example the King of Sparta can add more and more unique bonuses to Military than say, other areas.

FrogBoy, a suggestion;

Rather than default all starting attributes to 10, I propose starting attirbutes (before you distribute bonus points) be a standard member of your tribe.

For example, you give your tribe the faction adjustments you want (or create your own custom faction). In those choices maybe you give your race as a whole a +1 to intelligence and a -1 to strength (and lots of other things, this is just a simple example).

Then when you go to your channeler customization, I suggest that your adjusted race be used as the baseline for creating your channeler. So rather than all attributes at 10, your base stats would be, from the above example, intelligence 11 and strength 9.

People are going to complain that this is going to open the door to game unbalancing combinations, I say I HOPE SO discovering those combinations is fun!

I disagree, in EWOM I think the sole ability that sets your channeler apart and as worthy to rule is his ability to channel essence. We need not have displayed an ability to govern/administrate or be a diplomat. You and you alone can heal the land and or whatever else channeling entails. So I don;t think it fails in regards to the point you are trying to make.

Let us assume you or I get elected to become King of Swaziland or some other god-forsaken land. Aren't we going to rule the joint completely? If we are to rule that place, our inherent characteristics will play out on how we organize the Kingdom in a nation-state or on a feudal level. These governing characteristics are the ones I cited above and will impact the whole land. If we are utterly incompetent in all the branches, we will have zero stars and the Kingdom will probably be governed by someone else having we only as figure-heads. Now, things could be different: suppose you discover yourself to be a decent military tactician. You will add two stars out of five to the military and that would give bonus to your armies and your nation's ability to wage war. I, instead, discover myself to be a poor but functional diplomat, giving me a star in that field and allowing me to dialog with South Africa about whatever stupidity they are requiring from me.

If this little example works for me and for you, it works for channelers. The ability to add stars could be pooled out of a point base, the same you use to add base attributes, making things somewhat balanced. Or you can make a pool just for the stars, let's say, six or seven, allowing you to dispose them as you wish (want a military genius with poor abilities in dealing with all the rest or a balanced ruler?). You can even add negative bonus to zero stars, making a downside to becoming a super-specialist. Also, stars could be random and generated automatically when you creating your King (die rolls from Baldur's Gate come to my mind).

I believe this to be utterly necessary to create the Government head instead of just the hero who pushes his country with his belly.

Is the only difference between the star system and the trait system that the star system allows for gradations? Also, if I haven't made this point to you before, your writing is impenetrable. 

Dude I really cant think of anything to add in... This is really good feedback.

When my final projects and exams are done early next week, more time for Elemental!

That looks really good. I would like to see more magic related history/talents/weaknesses, since our channeler is supposed to be a superpowerful magic user who can eliminate entire armies.

Just as important to me as the actual in-game effects of a choice is the flavor of the attributes. If it is just "plus to fertility" it is reduced to a statistic in a spreadsheet in optimising gameplay. If there is flavor text, like what the backgrounds in Tropico or Arcanum were like, it engages me a lot more and helps me in creating a personality for the character. It's encouraging that you all have mentioned taking a biogaraphical approach to character design. A bunch of radio buttons with a line of text might be efficient in getting through the screen (which some might prefer, in maybe a quickstart screen) but having either an option for more flavor text or even a "personality test" type deal like in Daggerfall or Ultima 4 would be a lot of fun. Just my two cents worth.

I would like to see a trait/tallent for Wider / Narrower spell tree  and tech trees.   Open minded, or some such. 


Having more spells to choose from makes a late game and mid late game spell caster more versitle and also allows the possiblity of double buffing (stone skin, and wind armour deflecting arrows)

nowwower could be a negative trait, or could be breadth vrs depth.


Also something to deal with the abilities of the soverin  WRT:
holding and impressing Hero's,  more hero's apply less,  Inspiring loyalty, if hero's can defect.
some trait for spying / infromation gathering, and general secretivness. 
and something for how famous or impressive the person is, so that people imigrate to the towns he controls faster.


I would also want some traits to be both positive and negative.
For exampel the secretiveness trait

Stealings spells from you is harder, but hero's are more likely to betray you because they feal left out of the proccess.

Them's be my thoughts

take care

Not exactly. The trait system so far adds more flavor and pinpointed applications, nothing else. Star is more fixed a system and would grant global attributes to governance - a whole pack of goodies.

One star in military for the Empire of Zork could give, for example: 0.1 increase in troop morale, 5% faster recruitment, -3% of attrition damage, so on.

One star in military for the Kingdom of Zark could give: 0.1 damage increase for archers, 5% increased discipline, -3% cost of archers, so on.

Different nations ruled by different monarchs could favor different star properties.

And yes, you made your point already. I'm trying to control myself or else I would be thrice more verbose.

Given one of the main choices in the game is whether to divest your essence or keep it, I'd like to see some powers/traits related to that. Something like "innate wizard", where you have some incentive to keep your essence. Or "life synergy" where you get bonuses related to divesting your essence.

Perhaps traits that aren't purely for or against, but have tradeoffs. Something like "willpower domination", where it costs you extra essence to create a new follower, but their loyalty is higher or they have a little more power or can be used as a focal point for spells that have to be cast with X spaces of your channeler.

I would STRONGLY recommend staying away from unique tech/resources/weapons for leaders. It is very very difficult to balance versus stat bonuses (will the resource be useless in late game? overpowered in early game?). Plus it can just be frustrating (Umm, so their leader lets them build long pikes and we're doggedly stuck with short spears?) and not very fun.

Not sure what I think of talents/skills. As an immortal they would have plenty of time to developm new talents and skills and lose old ones. Plus I think their "History" gives them enough talents to start with. More bonuses could certainly be developed with gameplay. It sounds fun to develop the "fireproof" ability as a result of surviving direct 1 on 1 combat with a dragon for instance.

So here is a counter proposal. How about a society "Values" system similar to Alpha Centauri or the advantages granted by political parties in Galciv? Only that every so often (100 turns?) you can change it to something else. Because it takes time for even an immortal sovereign to restructure society. Maybe have a chance of changing society faster but becoming subject to cultural unrest as a result?

What sounds more fun to you?

P.S. - The talent system as detailed is what I'd like to see for heros on a side note.

Congrats! This is definitely getting better & better!!  This should helps improve replayability a lot.

A few suggestions, hopefully I've Frogboy's ear.

Does "Base Attributes" apply to just to the Sovereign himself or all troops that will be produced?  I hope you meant the troops.   Choosing +10% Strength should enhance all troops you control.   This is competitive advantage you hold for this game, gamers are meant to exploit it as best he can.

"Base Attributes" should be integrated to the "Pick" system.   

In the pre-game option, all players should determine the number of  "Sovereign Picks" they will have.   If we  want to play a game with powerful Sovereigns, they may choose to start a game with 5 Sovereign Picks; or -2 Sovereign Picks if otherwise.

For example, in a game where everyone has a -2 Sovereign Picks, I'll need to carefully choose what I'll sacrifice.  For example, I'll pick -10% Charisma, Stubborn, Blunt and Warlord for this -2 game.

I am more intend to give the Sovereign a specific Occupation (hence a very "specific" long term bonus) than the 'History' in OP.  For example:
Time traveler:  reduce cost of time traveling spells by 50%
Diviner: drastically reduce spell rarity of Divination spells
Sorcerer: double direct spells damage, while rarity of all other spells is increased
Paladin: cost for all calvary unit halved
Miner: produce way more mineral from mines
Druids: drastically increase # of summoned animal units
Demonologist: reduce cost & spell rarity to summon demons
Economist: reduce research cost in the "Civic" tech tree by 50%

(Some Occupation costs more than 1 pick, depending on how they should be balanced.)

I can see currently the "History" is more generic than I want, but there is potential to make it great!

My simple response to finneglot.

Being an administrator isn't fun, being a hero that pushes his country with his belly IS fun.

In master of orion 2 you could onnly get -1 "points" from weaknesses, and that was a good idea to help balancing.

I see that HP and strength are separate ? I thougth you would like to stay with strength = HP. I lik ethe fact that they are separate caracteritics, but ... what would be nice would be that a wounded unit will have lessened values.

For instance if you're at 100% HP, then you get a 120% efficiency in attack and defence. The first point of hp lost will let you with only 100% efficiency. Then if you fall under 75% HP you only get 90% efficiency, with 50% HP you only get 70%, with less than 25% HP you get 50%.

Some traits like "hero" could lessen the penalty from wounds.

Anyway, all of this is getting better and better.

EDIT : some ideas

. Medic : all units stacked with the sov will recover 1 HP per turn. The sov will recover 1 HP per 2 turns.

. Teacher : all units stacked with the sov will gain 1 XP each turn (or 1 every 2 turns, etc.)

. Farmer : get +10% HP, +5% food harvesting in cities he is in, +10% bonus in research in earth spells

. Lone kid : diplomatic malus, hard to die (a little more HP, a better evade bonus, a special roll when he should die : a constitution roll with a %malus of HP lost in excedent. Roll succeded wil let him live with 1 hp)

Now I got a great idea.  · Infertile/Sterile. No offspring. - Think like the Mule in the Foundation Triology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_(Foundation) . A huge drawback but on the other hand he was incredibly powerful. So it should free up a bunchload of points for positive traits (talents).

Sounds good to me... The more custimization options we have, the better...

Well, as the focus off the game is single-player, I wouldn't mind to have some more powerfull, or even overpowered options. If the play-style could change a lot depending on the options you choose, it would certainly extend the longevity of the game and playing now and then with (or against) a really powerfull opponent can be a fun way to play the game.

Why should be unique tech/resources/weapons for leaders be overpowered? Unique <> Overpowered. They should add alternative ways to do things but no need to overpower anything.

I hope not. This is Channeler's customisation, not faction customisation. The faction should be customisable too, but it's something different.

Regarding non numerical/unbalanced options. They aren't really an issue in MP as everyone will just pick the best options. They are a balance in Single Player if the ai can't handle them well.