Elemental 1.05 Impressions

My thoughts on Elemental so far, as of 1.05.  I would wait for 1.06, but the patch logs don't indicate that any of my issues have been resolved yet.  So here goes:

I can't think of any game in years that I have wanted to suceed as badly as Elemental.  I suppose that it has done just that.  I've been a Stardock fan since Galactic Civilizations 2.  On OS/2.  When GC1 came out, I snapped it up, I've probably put more hours into GC2 and its expansions than any other game (which is saying something) and there is no game from any company that I would rather see more than Elemental from Stardock.  Okay, with the possible exception of Firaxis remaking Alpha Centauri. 

For better or worse, Elemental has to deal with the legacies of three games:  the Civilization series, Master of Magic, and Galactic Civilizations 2. 

I bought MoM at retail when it came out.  Until my wife threw it away, I had the original box and manual.  I played it, unpatched, for years.  I think I had it five years before I obtained the 1.3 patch.  It was buggy as heck, the AI was not worthy of the name - but it was still amazing fun.  And we all know, what is Elemental but Stardock's reimagining of MoM?

I have also played Civ since Civ I came out.  I probably could have chosen to play piano and become good enough to play at Carnegie Hall with all of the hours that I played Civ.  And in my mind, Civ has always been inferior to GC2 because it always seems like Civ is an exercise in mathematical computation.  And in Civ, screw up once - hit the wrong key and move your unit in the wrong direction, miss the fact that you just built the Pyramids and you can change your civics on that turn, and you are pretty much screwed for the game.  Whereas GC2 if you happen to make a mistake, you can still recover. 

And of course, Galactic Civilizations 2 and its expansions.  In my mind, these games represent the pinnacle of 4X gaming.  The latest patch of Twilight of the Arnor is probably the most complete and polished 4X strategy game ever.  It is a home run, a game so good it even overshadows the legendary Master of Orion 2. 

Look, I'm sorry, but everything that Stardock makes in-house is going to be compared to GC2.  I realize that isn't fair, that GC2 when it first came out wasn't quite as polished, and that the later sequels added features which in hindsight were really quite necessary.  But you guys created the situation by making such a good game, and you are going to have to deal with the heightened expectations created by it.

Outside of people having a financial and/or creative interest in Elemental, I don't think there are many people who hope that Elemental suceeds more than I do.  I preordered it almost as soon as it was available, and I have been one of the earliest beta-testers from the preorder.  I have played every version of it that was available to me.  In hindsight, I regret not having been a more active participant - but the nature of the beta, which explicitly limited the availability of certain features, led me to adopt a mindset such that I kept quiet in the belief that missing or desired features and bug fixes would be taken care of in later versions.  In many cases, this belief was correct.  Nevertheless, throughout the beta I had a sense of creeping doom, as the developer journals kept praising how great the various changes were, and how complete the game would be on release.  I never had that feeling, but I figured that they had a bigger picture and were playing a more complete version of the game which was in line with what they were saying.  I'm not accusing them of lying, rather I think that this is such a labor of love that they didn't see the same problems that I did. 

When 1.0 came out, I was one of the people staying up for the release.  In fact, I have averaged four hours of sleep every night this week because I've been waiting for the daily patches to come out so that I could have some sweet sweet playtime with it.

At this point, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot recommend this game to anyone other than a true fan of the genre.  It isn't a bad game - quite the opposite - and it is already much more fun than any of the other games of its type.  But it is much buggier than what most people are used to these days (I remember Microprose, so I've seen much worse) and in my opinion, it is not complete.

I'm sure that some of the things I expected in the game, and are not there, are either set for release at a later date (such as the Quest Pack) and others are features which are apparently expected to be handled by modders.  I'll give modding a try once the game is stable enough that I feel comfortable trying to mod it - but c'mon - modders shouldn't have to put in features which should have been there in the first place. 

Problems and things which need to be fixed:

Let's start with the quest system.  How do I put this nicely, and without offending the developers whose work I have greatly appreciated?  I don't know, so I'll say it straight:  The quests suck.  I had heard during the beta that the quests (which were admitted to have sucked at the time) would be greatly improved by release.  I don't know.  I'm still doing the old Wild Goose Chase, and the Escort My Kid Somewhere quest, where there are no obstacles and no challenges or anything.  Just go from Point A to Point B.  Whee.  I do like the quest where I get the horse, and the quests where I fight some monster and get some armor are fine enough.  But there isn't anything imaginative at all about the quests. 

The quest system was a great way to break from the old goodie hut paradigm of Civ, and I had high hopes for it.  I still do.  But the content promised in the Quest Pack should have been ready and included on the original release. 

Building cities:  I've already complained elsewhere about how the resources count against your free tiles on the city and so a savvy player ends up designing the city so that none of the resource tiles are touched.  This detracts from the fun and keeps the player from feeling immersed in the game.

In addition, I like the Kingdom Report to a certain extent, but there is absolutely no screen which gives me an overview of all of my cities and what they are building.  C'mon.  Even Master of Magic had such a screen.  So did GC2.  I'm sure it can be modded, eventually.  But this is a common feature of 4X games.  It's Stardock's responsibility to put it in. 

Likewise, all of the buildings look the same.  I know if I get close enough, I can figure out which they are, or if I mouse over them, I can get them identified.  But that's way too much work for a player if you want to have an intuitive AI.  I'd really like some report, ideally, that tells me what buildings I have in my city and what effect they are having - are they increasing my research, arcane knowledge, what are they costing me every turn, etc.  I hate the overly mathematical approach that Civ uses, but building cities in Elemental makes me feel like I'm trying to trace over architectural diagrams with crayons while wearing nice warm woolen mittens, stolen from kittens.  Covered in pie.

Also, when my cities level up, I have absolutely no idea of what options I've picked earlier (unless I happen to remember), and I can't pull up my city report and see how I am specializing it.  It's like crap, Liten just leveled up, was that my tech city or my arcane research city?  Not that guessing wrong appears to have that much of an effect.

Units:  When designing units, I don't have any idea of how much maintenance they are going to cost.  Imagine my surprise when I went from 80+ GP per turn to -10 because I built one super unit of 8 dragons.  Not that I'm saying the price was out of line; what I am saying is that I didn't know beforehand. 

Tactical Battles:  Slow and unwieldy.  I'm guessing that graphically, they are loaded in two parts.  It seems that the units and the terrain are loaded first, and then an overlay is put over them.  It's a heck of a long delay, waiting for that overlay. 

Unit Special Abilities in Tactical Combat:  For the most part, completely worthless.  I get adventurers to join my party, and I use them, and they have some special ability like Dominate.  I've never used it.  The only units whose special abilities I have used are the Fire Giant and the Dragon.  And while the Familiar has some spellcasting ability, it's dependent upon intelligence for damage and he has none, so why even bother?  And most of my units, until I get top of the line equipment feel like eggshells armed with eggshells.  Particularly champions, who are generally the weakest.  8 - 20 HP, 6 ATK, 4 DEF, lucky to do an average of one point of damage a turn - I'd rather recruit the Brigand who is kicking my tail.  My "champions" would lose at armwrestling to Urkel and die in the process.  Tactical battles consist of moving my champions away from danger while my Fire Giant does all the work by himself.

The Familiar:  Described as being able to grow into a powerful unit.  Hardly.  Actually, the familiar is only useful in the beginning, when all of the monsters are weak and he adds necessary punch to my sovereign.  But later in the game, and I've had him up to 6th level where I expect he'd at least be able to do something, and he's completely useless. I end up moving him around so that he doesn't get killed along with my "champions."  He can't wear armor or wield weapons, can't cast spells worth anything, doesn't do that much damage, and might as well be voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.  That's it, in my next game, I'm renaming him Iago.  Polly want a cracker?

Spells:  Generally suck.  Okay, in theory they are cool, I've just researched Medusa's Whatevertheheck, and it says that I'm going to do 120 damage in a 3x3 square, which is totally appropriate given that it's filled with hordes of Kraxis spearmen with 300+ HP, and I cast it, and . . . 

. . .  wait for it . . .

. . . It misses the units on half the squares and does like nine damage total to the rest.  I should mod it, and call it "I fart in your general direction."  But that would fool you into believing that it does more damage than it actually does.  And it's only what, seventh level? 

Okay, not all spells suck.  My 8-pack of dragons was down to like 5, and I cast heal on them three times during the same turn and resurrected all of them at full health.   I don't think that was what was intended, but I'll take it. 

At the very least, when I choose the spell and mouse over the target, have the UI display the chance of hit and the probable damage.

As much as I hate to say it, the tactical combat in Age of Wonders and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic was much, much better. 

I don't care for the 3d anyway in the tactical combat.  To me, it seems like eye-candy that slows down the game.  I'd rather have 2d isometric with sprites than than the ability to flip the camera around while everything moves slowly. 

Also, I'd really like to have a Run Away button.  Brigands have attacked my pioneer!  Wait for the tactical combat to load, wait for the brigands to move, move my pioneer two spaces towards the flee glow, repeat until we get to the flee glow, ran away.  But wait!  Brigands have two moves!  They attack my pioneer again!  I'm almost tempted to autoresolve and lose the unit (he's apparently too dumb to run away) than go through this again.

Spells:

Problems aren't confined to just the tactical combat.  The summoning spells serve like the Familiar does, but only for the early middle of the game.  Once you've moved to the middle of the game, all summoned creatures are pretty much outclassed.  I'd like to see some way for a summoning path to be a viable way to win the game.

Buffing spells for cities seem to be too weak.  I've got a level 4 city focused on tech, and all Brilliance does is add one tech point per turn?  I don't know how this works.  Where does it add it?  At the base, before all the calculations from buildings such as the school are done?  That might make it worthwhile.  But I have no way to tell.  Can I add more mana - I'm sorry, essence - and make it more powerful?

And the selection of spells is pretty sparse.  I hope that like the Quest Pack, a Spell Pack is planned soon.  I'd love some randomization in it too, so that on one game play I get Fondren's Rage which has a 90% chance of hitting and doing 50 damage adjusted for armor, and the next game play I get Bellfort's Blade which has a 100% chance of hitting but does between 15 and 25 damage regardless of armor.  Something like that.  I'm sure that modders are already on it - but this is really something that was Stardock's responsibility.  I have never had the feeling that magic was a significant part of the game.

Also, not being able to research Ice or Earth or Fire later in the game if I didn't pick them at the start really, really, sucks.  If I picked the wrong type and found shards of a different type, I'm disadvantaged.  Looks like Procipinee is the only safe choice.

Units:

I really have no feel for how my units attributes affect how I can use them.  When I'm creating my sovereign, I don't know and can't tell whether it would be a good idea to increase strength or dexterity or whatever.  I usually end up putting a lot in essence and intelligence because it takes a lot of spells missing half the time and doing five damage despite advertising much more to whittle down your average enemy.

And when I'm designing units, it would be nice to be able to modify my unit's attributes, with a corresponding change in initial cost and maintenance. 

Items:

Okay, this is HUGE.  Absolutely ENORMOUS.  As far as I can tell, there is no way for me to design my own magical items in the game.  Modding tools?  Sure, they are there.  But do you mean to tell me that my soveriegn can't decide to custom-make her own magic items in the game?  Really?  MoM got that one right, and it was an essential part of the game.  I'm sorry, but I don't consider the game complete without some type of ability to custom forge a magic item in the game.  Especially from a Stardock game, which got the whole custom-build thing amazingly right in Gal Civ 2. 

Errata: 

The transport is bugged and generally worthless.  The harbor, which only makes transports, is correspondingly worthless.  And I'm boggled that I can only make one kind of sea vessel. 

Maybe I haven't found it yet, but where are the fantastical mounts?  Okay, we've got wargs - but what about other magic creatures?  I've got dragons; why I can't I ride them?  Flying horses, flying carpets, maybe a giant snake with tunneling abilities, etc.  Fairly sparse without fantastical mounts.  Why can't I ride a slig?  For that matter, why isn't there a spell where I can tame the things?  Perhaps I haven't found it yet.

Enough.  I realize I've come across as a whole barrel of negative.  I'm enjoying playing the game. I like it a lot. 

I have faith that you all will fix the save game CTD that has been slaughtering me, that a solution will be found to the whole memory leak issue (I'm running Nvidia by the way, not ATI, and I'm getting it) and that eventually a polished version will be made which will have most of what I'd like to see. 

I know that eventually modders will make all of the things that I think should be in the game but Stardock doesn't.  I hope that this game is successful enough that you can make expansions which will result in it being as awesomely complete a game as Twilight of the Arnor.  And sequels!

And I'm terrified that this game will get bad reviews; because I hate to say it but with the bugs, missing features, and confusing gameplay, it probably will get them.  And this game is fun.  It is more fun than MoMv1.3  I want it to sell well.   I want it to be reviewed well.  This is my absolute favorite type of game, from my absolute favorite developer, and nothing would make me happier than for it to be a smashing success.  But I'm not seeing it happening, and I'm crushed. 

Anyway, I know that the Stardock guys are working hard - one patch a night proves that - and it'll get there in time.  I appreciate your hard work and I can't wait to see the changes over the next few months.