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My opinion on the state of the game and suggestions

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My opinion on the state of the game and suggestions

from Elemental Forums

I want to just make a point that maybe the developers will take note on.  I play a game called Medieval II: Total War.  I love that game.  And I want to make a comparison on some aspects of both of them.  No they aren't the same exact game yet theres something I want to make a point of.

I love building games and empire/city managing games.  So I thought I would love Elemental Beta 3 with all its latest improvements and such.  But there's something just not right about it yet.  When you first start out the cities growth crawls like molasses.  Now you might be saying, WELL OF COURSE....IT IS THE BEGINNING.  Well it doesn't really matter.  The pace and growth of the game is just way too slow Brad, way too slow.

When I play medieval II Total War.  Let's say I pick Scotland.  Scotland starts off with ONE province or state.  Yet the growth of the cities and the time it takes to build armies is drastically different then Elemental.  In elemental I have to wait TEN TURNS to build one settler.  SEVEN turns if i remember correctly to build one peasant unit.  It's horrific.  In medieval II I can build agents in one turn, and 3 cards of units per city or castle per turn.

In Medieval II: Total War hitting the end turn button is dramatic.  This loud gong sounds off and then trails off.  You got ALOT done in one turn.  And it keeps up like that and every turn becomes more and more meaningful and LONGER.  You have to deal with 5 different battles in one turn.  Managing 23+ settlements and so on.  That game has done well with the pacing of itself.

If you could redesign your game so that the pacing is vastly different, cities grow faster, developement has a tree to help you better build your cities in a balanced way rather then spamming huts or spamming tax collectors in your town which could gimp your city.

In Medieval you only build 1 city hall and get the max benefit and instead of building more you can just upgrade to the next level.  In elemental you build 6 or 7 and then have no room to build anything else and you have to demolish and start over.  That is kind of annoying.

And could you improve the cities from the inside?  Like snake some roads or something to connect the buildings to each other.  It looks weird as it is right now.

And its strange that you have to build a 4 grid building just to make your walls a hedge wall or higher.

I'm surprised you are releasing in August.  The game isn't very enjoyable to me right now.  And unless you make some big changes to the way the game's pace is I don't think I will be playing it in August or thereafter at all.  And you might be thinking "So what"?  Well I'm just giving you my opinion on the game thus far, I don't enjoy it.  It's too slow.  Probably some other potential customers who feel somewhat the same way, your choice.

elemental
23,215 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 25

Well, it's a different representation of basically the same mechanic, though. The fixed cities are the representation of the province, which is as static as the city. The difference is this allows you to actually move around the province and have interactions with other objects in it. How movement is handled is also just a different representation. Movement in something like HoI is abstract, there's no geography or anything, you just select your stack and make them move from province to province. E:TW just has a more graphical representation of the same thing, allowing you to actually dictate your army's movement path around the geography. Essentially, Risk-style province hopping is just an abstract E:TW style province hopping, but they're essentially the same system.
End of Annatar11's quote

It's a massively different mechanic. In risk (and the old TW games) everything in the same province is in the same location. If two units are in the same location they fight. The moment opposing armies enter a province it's ownership is likely to change soon.

The way total war does it means that you (largely) might as well not be in a province unless you're attacking a structure. If you can only be attacked by crossing a bridge and you block the bridge you can prevent yourself being attacked, in a similar way that you might in, say, command and conquer. you could automatically generate borders a certain distance from cities or planets in elemental or gal civ and it would basically be the same system.

i'd really rather not contest this any further though, as i feel we are getting too far from the topic.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

I am unsure if the speed increases as your skills/city increases in size (like civ games) But it really isn't that slow. To me this game is just a fancier version of Civ (which isn't bad) but if you do not like civ games at all, this could easily be a pass for you.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

To me the pacing does feel a bit off but it isn't too far off.  It just needs some tweaking.  I play TW and Civ and enjoy both for different reasons.  Elemental just wouldn't work in the TW mold without some large changes so expecting that is unrealistic, especially at this point.  Still it could use less dead time and more excitement from turn to turn.  It should get better as we approach release date but it will probably feel pretty similar to Civ in terms of pacing so it probably just isn't the game for the original poster.  Still he has some valid points and shouldn't just be disregarded.  More upgrades, faster expansion and more help on building requirements would probably all help.

Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm surprised you are releasing in August. The game isn't very enjoyable to me right now. And unless you make some big changes to the way the game's pace is I don't think I will be playing it in August or thereafter at all.
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beta is fun for about 30 minutes then you want to wish you were playing it when its finished. this is more of a alpha build then a beta since you can get a blue screen ;)

And its strange that you have to build a 4 grid building just to make your walls a hedge wall or higher.
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trying having a castle with out a Keep.

Like snake some roads or something to connect the buildings to each other. It looks weird as it is right now.
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it does but u can use pioneers to take places if you don't like snaking out.

The pace and growth of the game is just way too slow Brad, way too slow.
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it is they are working on speeding the start up some what.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting KillzEmAllGod, reply 30
this is more of a alpha build then a beta since you can get a blue screen
End of KillzEmAllGod's quote

 

I'm not trying to sound mean, but you obviously don't know how alpha/beta cycles work. Alpha is basically testing systems as they're being made, sometimes with little to no graphics or UI except what you need to test that system. Basically think about what they were testing internally before we even had the Beta1 cloth map, which is the closest to an alpha I've seen a game. Beta is usually reserved for when your technology/game engine are mature enough to actually start making a game out of them and testing these systems in the context of the over all game play. The current build we have is definitely beta. It has almost nothing to do with how stable the game is, or whether or not you get a blue screen, because these problems exist in every game even after launch.

 

I only say this to educate you, and perhaps be educated if I have it wrong, but in my experience as a beta tester this is what I've learned. You may have played other "betas", but most modern betas are glorified demos and marketing schemes.