Played Elemental for the first time!

Glad you like it.  I thought the same thing when I first played, but you know, I've been playing it every day since the day it was released.  So I'm going 1 month strong with no signs of slowing down.  So I definitely see this as a great game.

I can already see how the modding is helping this game to extend its life.  I check the forums every day for new mods and have a blast playing with them in each of my new games.  Because of this, each of my games have been a slightly different experience.

I like this game a lot more than GalCiv 2.  First of all, I like fantasy a lot more in general so I'm a little biased there.  Secondly, the Role-play and customization mechanics add a lot of replay value for me.  It's fun to roll up a new character and try him out with a new faction on a new map.  Finally, like I said, the frequency of updates and mods coming into the game keeps me coming back for more.

I hope you don't judge the game based on the campaign. It isn't a good representation of what the game is capable of.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I Have liked this game non stop since it came out, its addicting as hell and it gets better and better with each update.

It has some issues (AI could be better, Magik could be improved), but no game is perfect, atleast stardock is doing lots of updates and stayign true.

But I like the gameplay, combat and art/graphics alot. I have had more fun with Elemental then 99% of games the last 10 years personally.

The editor is also very fun, making your own maps and making your own buildings, love it.

I wish i had a dollar for every time i have heard similar to this about a game! hehehe, and then simple minded me always loves the 'crappy' campaign. To tell the truth, I have never disliked a campaign in any game i have ever played except Starcraft, and only because the Starcraft campaign tried to force me to play the bad guys I'm trying to defeat - Perhaps not necessarily a 'bad' idea and not the only game that has done it, but just did not suit my personality and i refused to continue and to this very day i have not had the slightest interest to go back and finish that campaign.

Thanks for the replies GaelicVigil and Katalist, duely noted.

I'm normally someone who enjoys campaigns as well, I even bough SC2 for the campaign only pretty much. I love a good story, or sometimes, even not such a good one, heh.

The reason I made the statement above is that the elemental campaign disabled a lot of the game functions and thus doesn't really "play" like a real game of elemental, so I'd suggest giving the sandbox mode a spin as well.

some further detail about my first experiences with the game...

I did notice the city construction options are limited - but i have just spent a couple of months playing Medieval Total War and anyone who knows that game will understand why i might be a little tired of dealing with city improvements for a while!!! Elemental city improvements or lack thereof is kind of 'liberating'. Most other things relating to cities are also limited, the only noteworthy thing being the relatively fixed locations for cities. I am not sure fixed city locations is necessarily a good thing?

I had one problem with terrain improvements in the game.... my second city expanded its boarder enough to encompass the terrain bonuses near the other city. That other city had no influence boarder? could be a bug? anyway, i improved those terrain bonuses and it said they are 'not connected'. I tried to build houses over to them to connect but it won't allow in that direction?

The game has a very irritating 'jump and build' trick. When i try to click in the spot i want it to build, it 'jumps' to a different spot and builds there instead. Even in the times it does not 'jump' i can see the screen bounce the instant i click to build in an attempt to jump me somewhere else.

Combat: Definitely too 'small scale'. Especially for someone who has just come from playing Medieval Total War!

I got to the stage of tracking the refugees, but i encountered a problem in the next battle after that - Previously i did battle with a Dragon and my archers could only 'miss' Lucky Relican (whatever his name is) had enough fire balls or i would have been massacred. Now comes the big problem... next battle and there is a little dude who puts all my archers and swordsmen to the 'miss', he runs around and starts killing all my men, i can do nothing about it except hit 'auto calc'! So my question is this... if we are going to have dudes that cannot be hit in combat, then i as a player have no option but to use auto calc, and this should not be??

Ah yea, they do that in campaigns don't they! But don't they allow all things by the end of the campaign, that is the usual thing to do? Pretty strange if not??