Lord Xia Lord Xia

Lord Xia's thoughts and ideas for improving Elemental

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Lord Xia's thoughts and ideas for improving Elemental

from Elemental Forums

I have played a lot of tactical games, starting from a kid playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and a lot of RPGs with Dragon Warrior and Zelda.  I've been playing this game and I think I have a few ideas that could be battled around.  This is all I have for now, but I will come up with more.

 

Nation modding:

First, I would like more options on changing the looks of my people.  Skin color and hair would be a good start. 

The options we do have are a bit buggy, the description of what they are differs from what they say at the bottom. 

Would it be unbalanced to have Empire weapons and armor options on a Kingdom, and vise versa? 

Do the bonus hit points that some national abilities provide actually work?  Or do they only work in a stack of units? 

 

Soveriegn:

Some of the jobs are pretty crappy, or lose their benefit soon.  Warlord is nice at the beginning, but the sentinels become useless soon.  And could they at least be of the same race as either my soverign or the people he rules?  Also, since all my male children have exactly the same traits as me, they will have Warlord which gives them absolutely nothing.

Does Hardy do anything? 

Spending points on crappy equipment?  Thats a lot of points for padded armor and a pointy stick.  The Sovereigns are already pretty weak, maybe we can have the option of ability points AND gold to spend at creation for equipment?  And maybe something better than padded and pointed sticks.

 

Gameplay:

The AI is silly.  I had another nations sovereign stand in my territory in a corner for an entire game.  Just sitting there.  I also ran into one in the wild, and thought about just killing him and his little weak group he had with him, but that seemed so cheap I couldn't bare to do it.  Maybe at some point the Sovereigns should stop wandering the wilds? 

No heroes that are Fallen?  Really?  Maybe they exist, and I have yet sen them, but its seems that the only ones I do see are children of sovereigns.

Heroes die too easily.  My group of heroes all died to some bug creature casting a single spell.  Once larger monsters and stacked units come into play, the heroes are a liability.  Who cares about having a magic user when the only thing that really needs protection are your heroes, best not bring them at all into a fight. 

The combat reminds me a lot of the early days of GalCiv II, where the best idea was to make a 1hp cargo ship with nothing but weapons and attack first.  This game is mace and hammer heavy, there is little point about putting armor on units when the most I could have is 40 and they are fighting a troll with an attack of 156. 

Instead of dying, the heroes should be captured, and held for ransom, either by the monsters or by an enemy state, like in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Put them in jail, maybe they can escape on their own, maybe if they have Thief ability, they have an increased chance to escape.  The prisoner could be traded on the diplomacy screen.

How about a city revolt?  The game would be more dynamic if you had to worry about heroes being traitors or cities becoming independent of your rule.  New nations could rise and fall.

Dynasties:

Need the ability to remarry if a spouse is killed.  If this is already in the game, I would like someone to help me do it.

Children should be more random on abilities than just being exactly like the parent of the same gender.  Some are completely useless.  Warlord for your child is meaningless. 

Children's stats make little sense.  Had one with 660 mana one time, when everyone else in the kingdom had maybe 40.  They all seem to be born with only a 1 attack speed and thats a stat thats a pain to increase.  My kids are also were all had 10 int with parents that both had over 18.

 

 

17,773 views 33 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

I realized today that I could rename AI units.  That seems...strange.  I was renaming AI Sov children, Poopface and stuff(I'm immature).

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Dude...  If you still pay attention to this thread, keep doing it.  I'm loving the endless rant of Lord Xia.  It's not only entertaining, it's even enlightening a little.  I never knew you could re-name AI Sov Kids...  Gonna have to try that.

A lot of these ideas are pure win btw.  Particularly the bastard child thing.  It shouldn't be limited to your Sov.  What if you're playing Altar with Resoln as a neighbor, and a couple of your kids had a bastard child?  Depending on which side it choose to be on when coming of age, it could really affect diplomatic relations.  Or not.  Who knows, it'd be totally random, because that's what would make that cool, methinks.

Have you ever noticed how every...  Single...  Freaking...  Empire unit seems to have a unique name?  Why?  Why oh why do I have to attempt to differentiate between 9 guys who, in reality, are all the same but are making me think they're somehow different because one's named Urquaxalan and the other is named Kuumojiuuuuu and the other is named....  (You get my point.)  It might be this way with Kingdom units too, but if it is, I haven't noticed...  Gonna have to check that out.

Speaking of, what is with the randomly generated names?  They're not terrible...  Well, okay, linguistically they're not terrible, but aesthetically...  HOLY CRAP...  Enough with the double-letters already...  And while you're at it, remove some of the double-syllables.  Linguistically, that actually is a little unappealing, at least in massive repetition like that...  And they should make the names actually pronouncable too...  Well, more-so than it is now at least.  Eckhooiliman is way too hard to pronounce...  And no, that's not just a random string of letters.  I actually took the time to write that one down because it was so utterly ridiculous.  THREE CONSECUTIVE VOWELS?!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?  What, are we using Mandarin Chinese mixed with some obscure African dialect as a basis for our city names here?

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Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

The tactical battles in this game are terrible.  No, let me take that back, that isn't fair to the word terrible.  Horrifuckingterrible, that's better.  We'll see what 1.1 brings before I start trying to fix it with my brilliant ideas.  Shut up, some of them are alright.  The tactical maps are shit.  Games made a decade ago had meaningful tactical maps, this game lacks them.  They are tiny, everything has near unlimited range, Shining force on my Genesis had better tactical battles than this.  Range, terrain, and meaningful unit differences.  That's the basis of tactical combat.  I will return to bitch more if 1.1 doesn't do a much better job.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

I'll take this point by point.. my responses in BOLD


I have played a lot of tactical games, starting from a kid playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and a lot of RPGs with Dragon Warrior and Zelda.  I've been playing this game and I think I have a few ideas that could be battled around.  This is all I have for now, but I will come up with more.

 

Nation modding:

First, I would like more options on changing the looks of my people.  Skin color and hair would be a good start. 

The options we do have are a bit buggy, the description of what they are differs from what they say at the bottom. 

Would it be unbalanced to have Empire weapons and armor options on a Kingdom, and vise versa? 

Do the bonus hit points that some national abilities provide actually work?  Or do they only work in a stack of units? 

 Agreed.. more bonus options as well would be nice. I saw unique techs in the XML.. are we going to ever see these or is this legacy code from beta?

Soveriegn:

Some of the jobs are pretty crappy, or lose their benefit soon.  Warlord is nice at the beginning, but the sentinels become useless soon.  And could they at least be of the same race as either my soverign or the people he rules?  Also, since all my male children have exactly the same traits as me, they will have Warlord which gives them absolutely nothing.

Does Hardy do anything? 

Spending points on crappy equipment?  Thats a lot of points for padded armor and a pointy stick.  The Sovereigns are already pretty weak, maybe we can have the option of ability points AND gold to spend at creation for equipment?  And maybe something better than padded and pointed sticks.

 Again agreed.. 8 points to start with a staff? i mean wtf lol

Gameplay:

The AI is silly.  I had another nations sovereign stand in my territory in a corner for an entire game.  Just sitting there.  I also ran into one in the wild, and thought about just killing him and his little weak group he had with him, but that seemed so cheap I couldn't bare to do it.  Maybe at some point the Sovereigns should stop wandering the wilds? 

The amount of factions I have wiped out simply because the soveriengn decides its a good idea to attack me himself rather than send an army is staggering.. not exactly the same point but on the same train of thought.

No heroes that are Fallen?  Really?  Maybe they exist, and I have yet sen them, but its seems that the only ones I do see are children of sovereigns.

Nothing to add here.. more variety is always better


Heroes die too easily.  My group of heroes all died to some bug creature casting a single spell.  Once larger monsters and stacked units come into play, the heroes are a liability.  Who cares about having a magic user when the only thing that really needs protection are your heroes, best not bring them at all into a fight. 

Only heros i tend to use for combat is adventurers as the rest are best left in town safe providing their benefit. As for those they do well if equipped well i tend to go the melee path for them.. better weapons armor and beefed up combat stats.

The combat reminds me a lot of the early days of GalCiv II, where the best idea was to make a 1hp cargo ship with nothing but weapons and attack first.  This game is mace and hammer heavy, there is little point about putting armor on units when the most I could have is 40 and they are fighting a troll with an attack of 156. 

High armor seems to effect hit rate.. Many times my well geared melee heros dodge most of the attacks and counterattack for tons of damage.


Instead of dying, the heroes should be captured, and held for ransom, either by the monsters or by an enemy state, like in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Put them in jail, maybe they can escape on their own, maybe if they have Thief ability, they have an increased chance to escape.  The prisoner could be traded on the diplomacy screen.

Ransom system would be nice.. option to kill them off or capture in ransom...

How about a city revolt?  The game would be more dynamic if you had to worry about heroes being traitors or cities becoming independent of your rule.  New nations could rise and fall.

Torn on this one.. while i like the idea of the dynamic what determines loyalty? There isn't a happiness or loyalty rating at this point.. with the right implementation i could see it working.


Dynasties:

Need the ability to remarry if a spouse is killed.  If this is already in the game, I would like someone to help me do it.

Agreed.. although in its current system it makes you think twice about sending your wife to the front lines.. atleast before she gives you an heir.

Children should be more random on abilities than just being exactly like the parent of the same gender.  Some are completely useless.  Warlord for your child is meaningless. 

I think fixing the bonuses would fix this.. i'm fine with it either way tbh.

Children's stats make little sense.  Had one with 660 mana one time, when everyone else in the kingdom had maybe 40.  They all seem to be born with only a 1 attack speed and thats a stat thats a pain to increase.  My kids are also were all had 10 int with parents that both had over 18.

 
No idea about this ill have to pay better attention to my kids stats and edit my post on this one later.
 

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Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

many, many, many good ideas.  So many that i have to step back and think about all these.  wow!

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

What I've noticed in the Beta, is that there are still some of the same old problems.  If you have a big race in your dynasty and you are kingdom, they still have a hard time getting armor.  Not as hard, now some armor shows up, but not all.  Also, my children had terrible accuracies.  Most level 1 champions have something like 18 or 21 I believe, while my children had 7.  Also, there parents had stats between 16 and 22 and again, they are mostly born with stats of 10 and they were not imbued with magic.  So they were even less useful than a random farmer champion.  Monsters stopped appearing pretty early on, they just stopped popping.  None of the quest have been updated that I have seen yet.  I am really liking the new population as a resource implementation.  Not as sure about the global mana, going to nee dot play more I think.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Also, there parents had stats between 16 and 22 and again, they are mostly born with stats of 10 and they were not imbued with magic. So they were even less useful than a random farmer champion. Monsters stopped appearing pretty early on, they just stopped popping.
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Lol, I have the same problems. Unfortunately these issues haven't been recognized by the developers yet, although they are probably just busy. When I married off one of my useless sons I got back a daughter-in-law in full plate, carrying a sword of wrath! Pretty good deal.

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Using a large race(Trogg for example) as Sov for a small race(Men for example) Kingdom still causes problems in that you can't get gear better than padded.  Lame as shit.