Empire Territorial Control Graphic

from Elemental Forums

The graphic the ground changes to when it's within your sphere of influence.

What do you guys think about it?

I like that it happens, and I get that the Empires are supposed to be "evil"....but doesn't it honestly look WORSE than the land supposedly destroyed by the cataclysm? Are the Empire intent on making the world an even more unpleasant place to live, even for themselves? The world under the Empire looks more like what I expect the cataclysm to look like.

Aesthetically, it just doesn't compare to the pleasure of seeing all the green lushness of the Kingdom. The dark brown and white ovals...I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to think of that as. Mud and dried mud?

If feel like it could use a few tweaks, in color settings or maybe some tile redesigns, so that it looks "evil" without looking like totally unattractive.

For example, there could still be grass, just grass of a strange color...grey, blue, red, crimson.

Trees with strange foliage. Strange unnatural rock formations. Mountains that look like obsidian. The reddening effect that happens over water could be be applied to the land as well, sort of like a haze.

Empire control of the world just looks....unpleasant. And while that was probably the art goal in general, I think it was taken a little bit too literally. I should enjoy seeing the spread of my faction across the world, not feel a twinge of regret that it looks less interesting or so much uglier.

elemental
6,489 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Or better yet you could probably take it one step further and give each faction it's own look. The wraiths could be in a colder climate with more snow. Kraxis could have the same kind of land kingdoms get except tweaked to look a bit more depressing/evil since they're an empire of men. Maybe late autumn grasslands instead of lush spring green. The defualt look could stay for those magma/golem looking people I forgot the name of.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I feel that Autumn is underrepresented in games as a whole. Give us some crimson leaves, some browner grass!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

It does look odd; I get that they're suppose to be a sort of rigidly authoritarian society... but that doesn't necessarily make them MUAHAHAHA evil and such. I don't see it in their own interests to screw the world over. Even the Titans didn't want that; they wanted control of the shards. Destroying the planet doesn't help with that at all.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

It's sometimes hard to get into my head that this is a Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy 4X TBS (that's a mouthful).  I think, unfortunately, that the landscape in Elemental doesn't have the same feel as in Fallout (1,2, and 3), so it's just open and boring instead of desolate and lifeless.  I think maybe ruins of entire cities would help the atmosphere (only put 1 goody hut in there, but it can be a multi-tile ruin).  And I'm not completely sure on WHAT actually did the destruction: was it fire, or just pure magic?  Maybe some kind of "singed" graphic would be good, too.

 

Edit: Sorry I forgot to address the original question: it's definitely a Mordor-esque feel, so I'm fine with the Empire look.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I rather like the effect - and Ahroo is quite right: let each faction have its own style, that would be grand!

(Aaaaaaand... if they would start looking rather more different facewise than they're doing now... would be even better!)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

i don't like it that much, but i can't really imagine how to improve it. maybe if the buildings looked a little less ramshackle and more orderly (maybe nazi, rigid neoclassical influenced arachitecture?). although it's possible my settlements will look better once i get proper walls.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I think they just need to change the color and hue of the ground tile, and maybe revisit how some assets (trees) look under the Empire. At a later date they could try making a new tile entirely. It's just fugly now and...doesn't really make good sense to me. Why bother having that many Empire factions if they're all just little Mordors. You don't usually end up with more than one "psycho death race who wants all of the earth to die muwhahahaha."