Starting new game and weirdness

from Elemental Forums

Hey all,

I just got Limited Edition version of Elemental. I got the box and the download option from Stardock, using the special weekend buy option a couple weeks ago just after X-mas. I finally got around to installing and giving the game a try. I patched the game to 1.11.

I ran into a couple weird issues. I went to "New Game" since I want to try to learn the ropes of the game, plus I love epic and huge games like the Civ series and GalCiv. So far so good. Then the map options was a little whacked because for some reason I can't get "Huge" maps to show up. Only have Tiny - Small - Medium - Large, and thats it. Also, there's no further map customization like landmasses or resources or whatever. I referred to the instruction manual in the box, and it says that there *is* Huge setting and landmass and other map settings.

Likewise, when I go to the "Load map", all I see are Tiny / Small maps with only one Medium map. Where are the Large / Huge ones?

I installed the game from the Stardock download site after ordering the game (but didn't get around to playing until tonight), but I do have the CD's from the box, along with all the Limited Edition bonus items and stuff in the box. Do I have to uninstall, then re-install using the CD's instead of the online download? Or did I do something wrong? Or is there a way to correct these two issues? I want to have random huge size maps with, say, islands or continents, like map settings in the Civ series or Galaxy settings in GalCiv.

Can someone shed some light on this? I'd like to start playing Elemental tonight. :)

elemental
8,289 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The manual is shit. And so is the box.  Large is the biggest, and as of right now, there are very little options.  My favorite is the minor factions options.  This is pretty fucking pathetic, there is only one minor faction, no matter the size of the map you use.  But, you are starting at 1.11 and that is a pretty good place to be really, the game has improved a lot since launch, but it doesn't have much in the way of options yet, and the manual will be of no help at all.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

At the moment, there are no huge maps available except some modded ones. Huge maps will be included in future iterations of the game. They are excluded for now until OOM issues are resolved. You may not see it listed as such, but if you choose to play on a large map, a large generic one within the game will be spawned. I play on this large map all the time. There is nothing wrong with your game - the instruction manual was printed before huge maps were temporarily set aside while OOM issues are being addressed. The large maps are still pretty epic and with the 1.11 patch that you have, you will easily reach 1200 turns or more depending on how you want to win the game. Have fun and don't worry - the huge maps will be included in the near future.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The game does not have a random map generator (in the sense you are expecting) included.

However, there is a solution:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/395529

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Xia is spot on in all stated regards...

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

There is a manual 1.1 version in the files.  It covers alot of the basics and should be useful.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Xia is right, he's secretly the love child of my first encounter with my wife before we got married, he's  my 200 lb gorilla bundle of joy.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks guys, I appreciate you getting back to me and saving me from a "uh oh" moment.

To clarify, if I just generate random world name, select Large map, and check the Epic, Minors, and Monsters boxes, then will the map be a flat grassland, or will it have random lakes, rivers, oceans, islands, etc? Just totally random map stuff?

I'll check out the map generator. Does it work with version 1.1, or are there compatibility issues?

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Veristek, reply 7
Thanks guys, I appreciate you getting back to me and saving me from a "uh oh" moment.

To clarify, if I just generate random world name, select Large map, and check the Epic, Minors, and Monsters boxes, then will the map be a flat grassland, or will it have random lakes, rivers, oceans, islands, etc? Just totally random map stuff?

I'll check out the map generator. Does it work with version 1.1, or are there compatibility issues?

The "random" maps in-game are just a small set of "seed maps" with random resource placement - they are not randomly generated landmasses.

Elementerra maps work with 1.11 no problem.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for pointing the link to Elementerra - I'll have to try that out as I like to play with random maps.