So what is this game?

Here you go https://www.elementalgame.com/gameplay

Thanks for the link, but even after reading that i still have no idea what the game is?

Gal Civ and Elemental have a lot of game play that feel the same. If you enjoyed the gameplay and game style of the Gal Civ games, you will enjoy Elemental.

Mix 1 part HoMM 1 part civ and 1 part MoM. shake vigorously till its a giant mash of stuff. Play.

In all seriousness though, its a fantasy 4x game. It has modest city building, questing, and tactical (sorta) combat. Throw in a dash of RPG elements with heroes and sovereigns leveling up and gaining stats etc. Then of course there are the tech trees and the magic spells. For a more complete idea of what the game is though. I would maybe head over to Youtube and do a search for elemental gameplay. That should get you a few vids of the game in action.

Or you could buy Civ 5 next week. After all you were in our Civ thread also. Or you could do like me and buy both. Elemental is far from perfect but its getting better. I figure by the time I get bored of Civ 5, Elemental should have had 3-6 more patches. Assuming Civ 5 is as good as the PC gamer review claims it is. I will still have to see for myself.

Thanks Dave.. and Drago..

As for civ5, i probably won't be buying it  - i have enough of those already and also the call to power series and alpha centauri! And in all honesty, if all you did was throw in a much better AI, Alpha Centauri and call to power (Yes the AI in call to power is pretty much a lame duck) as old as they are, would still be better games by far than anything yet to date in the civilization series.

Anyway, i'm still trying to wrap my head around what elemental is?

I see it has co-operative multiplayer is that correct? I am a huge fan of co operative multilayer games - ever since Quake1 (later Quake games dumped the idea much to my displeasure and did not get purchased by me). Then there is Battlezone 2 combat commander, Lionheart and Dungeonsiege2 which all mesmorized me with co-operative multiplayer ... i crave that feature in a game! I dunno if Neverwinter nights 2 has that? it refused to allow networking with only 1 game copy so i never had access to that capability if it was there?

Hmm, well i have never been disappointed with a Stardock game before, so i guess i should just buy it and play it?

It's a 4X game with RPG elements.

Elemental has a great future and while the start is rocky...  the end result will be terrific.  The free expansion would be worth buying the game even now.

The multiplayer is not functional at the moment - so a bit hard to say how it will be - expected fairly soon though.

Oh, and NWN2 now allows network play with 1 copy of the game, lots of fun.

This logic made sense to me too. Unfortunately it is the wrong way to go about this choice.

It has the tactical battles that remind me of Heros of might and Magic, the economic system reminds me of Total War, The strategic system reminds me of CiV III, and the user interface is from SoaSE.  The spell system is kind of like MoM, the graphics are a bit like CIV IV, You can create dynasties a bit like in Total War, and champions a bit like MoM.  You can design units like in Gal Civ II (but a bit more basic).  It has some well documented stability issues, but has some great modding capability.

Anything else?

Thanks for the advice guys,

trcanberra, thanks for the heads up on NWN2!

Right now i'm in the middle of playing a new DA game- looks like i finally got the game i have been looking for all these years! That is, i managed to get a fairly well balanced game going into the later stages of the game where i am not dominating or bogged down under a huge pile of enemy ships which are the usual choices! I am playing Arcean with super abilities on and the Drengin are set on Godlike, other races on Ingenious. Usually the Drengin flop over and die in my games even when several difficulty levels ahead like that because they take on too much, but this time they are going ok and i am savoring them till last!! Being Arcean i am going to see if i can take on the Drengin at the peak of their strength and massacre them because the first strike super ability in my opinion is supreme at maximum tech level provided the speed limit event stays away.  plowing through masses of invincible Drengin flets will be fun! FUN!!

it is Civilization+heroes

Mystikmind, this sort of take would only really apply if you have low-to-no concern for a game having a story layer that establishes fundamental (cosmological/metaphysical) parameters. Lots of the mechanics still seem roughly analogous to GC2, but if you were hoping to find a game with distinctly different metaphysics, you might be disappointed. So far, the 'magic' in Elemental seems perilously close to being an afterthought for a rushed-to-market medieval TBS game.

I'm really getting too old for this : I might be trapped in a bad episode of Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going by what people are saying here and also I have been nosing through a number of other threads...

seems like there is a general feeling that Elemental might have lifted off the beta runway too soon and attempted to fly without gaining enough airspeed first? Would that be a reasonable analogy?

That would be accurate.  The game is currently unplayable.

It might, one day, in four to six months, be a game that offers a reasonable amount of enjoyment.  Currently, and I think I speak for the majority of Elemental owners, the game is rubbish with a slight chance of redemption.

I would wait and see what it looks like next year.

As I comprehend it to your analogy, they tried to invent a new plane (game engine) for a new airline (game), ran a few in state test flights (divided beta tests) to check the areodynamics, advertised a lot of content that isn't installed on the plane yet (I would say meals, some would go as far as say seats), then got caught with premature opening politics and are now trying to fly international with paying passangers.

But then, this wouldn't be the internet.

Well, empirical data tend to disappear together with locked threads and deleted posts (polite ones included).

I understand even the developers' reasons and I've not given up all hopes in the game, but I'm not sure I agree with the current moderation policy.

Moderation policies... well, considering the tendecies of people to twist any kind of data (empirical or not) for their own agendas, I can understand the low tolerance. And innocent people always end paying too because of that. But consdering all those threads and posts with constructive criticism that are in the forums, the "censorship" cannot be so bad (possible collateral damages aside).

Far as I can tell there's actually no co-op play right now.

How can you prove what you think?

The games is playable for me.  I am running on a system with way more ram and such than required so I can use the out of memory fix to run without crashes though.  Otherwise it is a bit annoying crashing every 50-100 turns.  The game has some positive qualities and is enjoyable (to me) but it also has some major issues.  The balance still needs a lot of work and the AI players are extremely predictable.  It is also a bit hard to see exactly where it is going at the moment because major game mechanics changes are supposed to occur in the next few patches.  To me the game was worth buying in it's current state with the idea that it will be improved over time.  I can enjoy a few games after each patch to see what has changed and check out various mods that come out.  There is a mod that corrects bugs in each new patch (which i would suggest using if you do buy the game) so it isn't as buggy as people seem to think if you are willing to grab a mod or 2.  The biggest issue for me is that you are forced to play a very aggressive game to succeed but if you do, then the game is too easy. Hope this helps.  Also remember that players who buy the game before version 1.1 (1.08 now) will get the first 2 expansions free.  Players who buy after 1.1 will only get expansion 1 free.

There was a poll recently, which showed that half the buyers were disappointed by Elemental; and that poll was answered to by people who cared enough about the game to come to the forums, so it ended up being more positive than what the general feeling actually is if you read other video game forums. Also, look at the current state of the forums and the content of the threads. Read reviews (56 on Metacritic) and user feedback on sites such as gamespot or IGN. 

I mean, on the forums that I go to, most people - who where initially willing to give a chance to the game even after the disastrous release based on Stardock's reputation - have just given up on the game, especially since Civ V is close enough to Elemental (if you forget the dysfunctional tactical battles) that they have a common pool of buyers. So tonight, as Civ V is released, for many people, Elemental will fade from their memories for good. Only the most dedicated will stay here, because I don't know many people who have a lot of time to spend on a not-yet-game.

So yes, my experience, probably biased by the lack of rigor but based on a large enough sample to be statistically significant, is that most people who bought this game to think it is either terrible or plainly fails at being a game to start with, and has only a small chance of redemption. It may sound harsh, but that's the voice you'll find on the forums.