Sovs Founding Cities

from Elemental Forums

hello,

given that we're now encouraged to give ideas for improving the game, here's my biggest complaint from the time I've spent playing Elemental (note: I've barely touched the game, as I'm waiting for v1.1 which should be more fun to play, so I haven't touched on most of the "broken" game elements discussed elsewhere. I simply started a game, played it for 30 mins, then decided to stop and wait for the patches):

 

Why can my all powerful leader only found the initial city? This doesn't make sense. I guess it's a gameplay mechanic to stop city spread? But it just feels like it's been bolted on. I quite liked the idea of the channellers sacrificing their essence to allow for city growth. That model seems a) to be more distinct from Civ's settlers and b) it creates a very obvious and interesting trade-off.... grow your empire/kingdom at the expense of your hero. 

 

This would also facilitate a natural change from rpg-y hero based gameplay into empire building as a game progressed (assuming you went down the multi-city route). Surely this would help give the game character and more emergent narrative? Towards the end of a game, your Sov would be little more than a  figurehead, sitting in his/her castle commanding armies from afar.

Alternatively, you could just create the one city, and protect it with a hugely powerful wizard... essentially Saruman in his tower with a group of followers.

 

And if we are going to stick with the settlers/pioneers solution, could we not be given a unit of pioneers right from the first turn (like in Civ), and then remove city building abilities from the Channeller completely. Rather than the current artificial "your sov can found a city, but only one, other cities are build in a different way" rule.

elemental
5,209 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The other alternatives are worse.

 

Option 1 - First city is located in start position.

That might work with other games, but not in Elemental where the start location of the city is crucial.

 

Option 2 - Start with a pioneer unit

That's a possibility, but it's very possible that a random wondering monster in the first rounds will kill him by accident, while the sovereign at least has a chance.

 

Option 3 - Sovereign can build cities (instead of pioneers)

That will limit the actions of a player, forcing him to focus on cities instead of things like adventures and special locations.

As for your suggestion of giving essence for growth, it's a nice idea, but as things are now the sovereign is already relatively weak (as well as heroes in general), so why make him even weaker?

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

i don't think it would be to much to ask of a player to protect their initial pioneer unit at the start of the game (or just keep monsters away until a city is founded, much as in Civ4). It would be fairly trivial... monsters start spawning if average number of cities per player > x

 

As for option, 3, well, that's just a balance issue (just!)/ Surely your other heroes can be allowed to quest and investigate special locations? Or  your Sov does it, and hence we have an effective and interesting cap on city growth/spam. The player has to sacrifice one for the other. That to me is an interesting trade-off. This would allow players to player their game more like a RPG or 4x depending on their choices.

 

 

 

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