I suspect that Stardock's idea of game balance is to remove everything that is fun.  They certainly have managed to remove most of the things I found to be most fun: the Sovereign General Corrodius, the Aura of Commerce Spell, free developments early in the game, 3-move units, large armies early.  Strength, Dexterity and Constitution are things I can relate to; the replacement values I have no intuitive feel for them.

This is exactly the comment that I received, after some of my feedback.  It's the ostrich's head in the sand way out, and not good enough.  If we have stuck with the franchise for this long, you know that we ARE the king of people who enjoy this game - or would if someone could get a grip of it properly.  There have been some good strides forward, with the details that were missing before.  But the same fundamental problems are still evident.  The dodgy cursors from day 1 of E:WoM are STILL there!  Simplification = degradation of the fine things that made the first game stand out from the pack.  I know that the AI is struggling, and some great improvements have been made here, but after a short while, the game stops being fun.  I ended up running from one city to the next with my sovereign and two champions, in defence of an invading army that seemed to have no rhyme or reason.  It became a farce, not a war of strategies.  I really don't know what more to say, because I've said it all already.

Attack, Dodge, Hit points!!!!  How dare they try to reinvent the RPG genre's stats mid-flight!

See if you can close your forum account as well. That will do the trick.

I complain a lot ! Well, its because 99% of games don't use earth magic as I want it ! I love 4x and loved MOM dearly... I loved AOW shadow magic and both are still on my computer.

I think FE is clearly getting way better than WOM in many ways even if I miss researching spells... But hey, I love to get them the easier way by leveling my sovereign !!! avoid some tedious research and time spent on the game getting bored !

My complain with earth magic is that if you think about it (play the pnp ars magicka) earth can do anything, you're just using the ground dirt and shaping it in order to make an attack... What would you do if it were you ? Put a prison on your enemy ? Creating a wall to protect yourself ? Petrifying your enemy ? Making your enemy fall in a hole or block his way by it ? Creating a hand that just pop from the ground to immobilize your enemy or crush him ? Shake the earth ? Making spikes impale your enemy from below ? I mean it's earth, there are so much great thing you can do, same with ice actually ! Please introduce some of those stuff in tactical and strategical spells !!!

But now I read the post of Hemmy and those of Frogboy and some other complaints and I think some people are going too far ! I think Frogboy was right to react that way, you know treat your client as if they were signing your paycheck because they actually do !!! But that doesn't mean that you have to take abuse from them ! And that kind of thing happens to me at my work ! I greatly respect star dock and appreciate what they're trying to do for us ! They listen and take time and try to make the best of it ! How many companies do that ? Certainly not EA or blizzard... Oh ya blizzard listen, fan screams for the Zerg lurker... Let's give them another unit !!! Uh ? Let's forget about fans and make Starcraft 2 the best competition game ever ! Who cares if people don't like it ? We're rich, we're blizzard and there will always be millions to buy our games ! Even worse with EA !

Its unfair to criticize the game you work so hard for when real improvement was made at every levels ! Sure it's not perfect yet but I have great confidence in star dock ! And it's even more unfair to attack star dock and particularly Frogboy because he's the one coming on the forums.

Im 100 percent with Frogboy and telling off jerks who abuse them and want to see a product that will change the game so much that it won't be FE anymore ! I like the game as it stands, it needs some race modifications, some magical creatures for each faction because that's a world more bathed in magic (Spiders as mounts for example and some faction specific spells maybe) some improvements of the tactical UI and city combats if possible... Well, just stuff to make tactical combat less simple with obstacles ! That would make it so much more interesting with walls and fire walls and stuff that the player can do modify the battle field just like you modify the strategical map. And well, more and more spells but in no case is the AI wrong or the general UI or the research trees... I tried the AI at different level and I'm satisfied with it ! It plays well for me, it's not a human but it's already impressive. And of course some bugs here and there to fix (like infinite spells duration).

Well, just to say I'm happy with FE, star dock is doing great and the game will get better in the next month for sure.

Written with an IPhone.

*pulls up a comfy couch and a bowl of popcorn.*

I didn't know you wrote reality TV scripts!

Ah yes, the internet, how I love you.  Home to the best drama queens ever to walk the earth.

This is my first post and probably last. I have watched Elemental grow into the game it is today and will continue to do so. I decided to post because i think a lot of the posters here are missing the point. To start with I ask myself a simple question. Why was I attracted to Elemental? The answer is simply - Civilization and fantasy. Before I elaborate, I should give a bit of information about myself. First, I've been a gamer for 45 years - so I'm old. I loved Ultima, Civ since its inception, Heroes except for the latest, and most recently the King's Bounty series, including the Red Sands mod, which are excellent. Secondly, I'm a fantasy buff. I've read everything from Shakespeare to Tolkien, Borges, Marquez and Calvino. I even search today's fringes in Brett, Weeks, Rothfuss (2nd book is unfortunately an empty shell), Abercrombie and Tchaikovsky. I'm also a myth advocate, majoring in university at all kinds of myth from the wild west, baseball, European legends as well as asian. I'm well-read, I guess. I use this to actually write fantasy -kid's stuff for now. So I'm a writer as well. Thirdly, I've lived in Japan for 18 years and owned my own teaching company so I understand quite well what Brad feels, and I also understand what happens when one fails to meet the customer eye-to-eye, or ignore feedback. An owner can never win.That's a little about me. Perhaps too much. But it's essential for why I'm writing this post. I love Civ, and fantasy.

So what do I make of this game? Does it fit its original and only premise? Is it a fantasy game in the Civ mold? Well, first of all, the staff at Stardock love Civ as well so the roots to Civ are clearly everywhere. However I do see one flaw which I'll get to in a bit. Is it a fantasy game? Let's take faction differentiation. Beta 3, and I've played quite a bit of it, is an improvement over the previous ones. However, if you look at Tolkien, how would he deal with this dilemma? The answer is obvious. The hobbits everyone understands who they are. They are distinctly small, hardy and live in buroows in hilltops. Tolkien emphasized each of his 'factions' by where they came from and where they lived. In Elemental, the Gikden are hammer people and relate to dwarves, so they'd be mountain people. Stick them in the mountains and if they come out they lose their bonuses for gold and mining. Their cities would have to be distinct from other factions. Then there's the Tarth. Don't they reek of elves? Put them in the tops of trees, where they learn forest lore, and their allies are Ents, unicorns and the like. Jungle Tarth would never leave their homes for they are rich and sustainable whereas northern Tarth would be nomads bound to move to find food within their sparse and barren lands. Next, take the Kraxis. they remind me of the desert people in Brett's books with their spears and hunger to die by killing the demons they hunt. The list could go on and on. The seas, the skies, the pits of hell, and the ice fields. A faction for each environment. And that's the key to faction differentiation. They are shaped by their environment, their habitats that dominate these factions. That's the core of fantasy. I leave it to you to discuss whether you've met fantasy's rigid standards.And one other point about random monsters. Do you really think that these beasts would be found outside of their natural habitats - ie- roaming the wild lands - not likely. Dragons are extremely rare - live in caves and you have to search for them to find them Golems live in deserts, natural allies to the desert Kraxis. Fiends would only be found in hell. unless of course there was a reason for leaving their environs.

About the Civ flaw. I loved Fall from Heaven, and the new ideas in Civ 5. but I still think the standard so far has been Beyond the Sword. Maybe the new expansion will change that. Sid Meier says one thing in all his videos about why Civ is successful, and that is where does it all start - with a very ordinary explorer, pioneer, person. Then the imagination takes over. And you can't stop playing. Elemental strives to do the same, and that's great. But have you forgotten who this person is? An adventurer, someone about to partake in an adventure of fun, not a finished product. Imagine your sovereign starting out with a special ability, the ability to learn. She/he travels the world, learns from the Tarth in their forests, the Gilden in their mountains, the Kraxis in their deserts, the plainsmen with their horse lore and native magics. S/he doesn't always fight. They explore and learn and gain real experience. It isn't just given to them.That is an adventure!

My viewing angle is different from most. I look at the fantasy side and for now, Elemental has promise but whether it will become a true cross between fantasy and civ is as yet undiscovered. I realize that what I've written involves a paradigm shift and likely will not happen. But perhaps the discourse will alter a little, or not at all. I like the open aspect of these forums and hope you can keep them open-minded and objective. It's a hard thing when love and money are on the line. And about those graphics. Kids today play the handhelds, from Sony and Nintendo - the games are bright, colorful and attractive. Check out King's Bounty, and Crossworlds - truly they are limited in size - the worlds, but within them, what a breath of fresh air, and when you get to the middle of the game, after working for hours and hours, the game shifts, and even if you have played the game over and over, the shift always surprises - the heroine and you get to fly! Suddenly everything changes and it's a new game. Wonderful gaming. Something for all of us to aspire to.

Playing Lord Markin.  Same thing happened to me last night.  Just took over Relias, after a somewhat short war.  Just to the north of his capital was the fire wild land.  I wandered in killed an ogre, and holy crap, the Ashwake Dragon and Delin came charging after me.  I ran back into Relias' former city that had its ZOC right up against the wild land territory.  Delin charged into the city after me.  Delin is kind of weird though.  You don't fight a big monster, he breaks up into a whole bunch of fire elementals and ignys.  I think he is a little easier because of that.  I did find a bug though.  After killing Delin, I felt pretty good about myself and charged in to kill the Ashwake and everything else, which I did.  However, I could never put an outpost to build on the fire shard.  I could not find anything left in the wild land area so I couldn't take it over.

Anyway, going to finish the game tonight.  Karavox is boxed in pretty good and looks like he is going to fold pretty easily, and I finally found Ceresa.  She is hidden by a small land bridge on the other side of Karavox.  She either has no land to work with and is going to be completely worthless, or there is all kinds of land on the other side and is going to be a nightmare.  Her power ranking is pretty high so I am thinking it is the later.  The weird thing is that both of them keep telling me to give them tribute or they will go to war.  My power is 300 and something and Karavox is around 75.  I think I should be able to threaten war and he should give me stuff.  Ceresa who is in the 200s at least is close enough that I don't completely laugh at her emmisary.  Karavox though, I want an option where I can kill the emmisary and send his head back on a platter.

Which brings me back to just wandering around with your Sovereign.  I started this game the night before.  There was a mountain range directly to my north and the coastline to the south.  I travelled east and started to battle some monsters and low and behold I ran into fire drake nest with its three little helpers x3.  Stopped my progress going that way.  Tried to go around them to the south when I ran into the coastline with a Ogre army down there.  So I stopped and started back west of the city.  Oh what do I find over there, two slags, and a forest drake.  I snuck by one of the slags, which there is no way I could have even fought, and I ran into the Imperium Ruins.  How the hell do all of you just wander around at will?  Every where I go, I run into monsters that there is no way I can defeat.  The northwest had a Giant Hoarder Spider with 4 or 5 groups of little spiders.

I do have a suggestion on heroes.  After much work and and turtling and sneaking in quests and etc. I was able to build up my Capital.  I do think there are too many champions in this game though.  I think I have 10 of them now.  I think it would be better if there were not as many.  I think there should be a limit on how many are out in the world.  Small map, maybe have 4 for each side (kingdom/empire), and 2 as the maps get bigger.  If you only have a couple you will be more likely to take care of them.  Especially with how powerful they become now.  Lord Markin is level 20 and rides with two others that are level 17.  I can roll things pretty well right now, but it took several hours to get where I am at.

One of the few posts I bothered to read properly on this thread, nice post to try and pull the game in the direction for more of an.. "great adventure" feel...

+1...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Interesting idea, but it would be more interesting if it wasn't just an automatic popup. You should need to cast a spell "Divine Source" to find out who cast the spell. If you didn't know the spell you wouldn't know who was doing this to you. It makes it more interesting to decide to target an opponent's city if your target may find out and even more interesting if you don't know if they have the ability to find out or not. Then there could be spells that could make it dangerous to cast this type city enchantment. "Backfeed" could push some kind of energy back to the caster and either reflect the effect to one of the original caster's cities or damage the caster in some way. "Mana Tap" could use the feed of the hostile spell to disrupt the spell drain mana from the original caster. This could continue until the other caster manages to dispel the tap.

I've only played a bit, but this new version is heading in the right direction as far as I am concerned.

Last time I voted Poor, I hadn't seen any real development in the areas I felt were important. This time I voted Fair since the game is starting to move in the right direction IMO. I'm waiting to see what the new city system is going to be, that's an area that could use a lot of help and hopefully it will be an improvement.

I still think the early game is too slow, there's far too much end turn bashing. Starting with clubs and rags works for civilization, but not here IMO. I really think all the basic weapons and armors should be available on turn 1 (even with vastly reduce power), then the researched stuff should be replaced with more exciting upgrades. Spending like 200 turns to learn how to make basic chainmail is not exciting, but spending 200 turns to learn like "Dragon Forged Mythril Chainmail" would be nice. That way we could also starting building units for specific purposes right from the start, like a basic defender unit and basic archers, rather than sitting around hitting end turn for an eternity to open those options up. I'd honestly never want to make a peasant with a club in a game like this, and I certainly don't like being stuck with them for over a hundred turns (other research trees have much more important upgrades early on).

I think with that, some better resource management, completed faction differentiation, and hopefully improved cities, this game could finally reach "Good" for me. I'm not sure I could ever consider it "Excellent," there's far too many little things I don't like that I doubt you have any intention of changing, but I'd be happy with "Good" considering the lack of games in this genre.