Elemental: War of Magic - v1.08 Patch

skavenhorde

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Elemental v1.08 is released. There are a few interesting changes like an improved AI for enemy sovereigns, spells have been tweaked and some new sovereign abilities. There are too many to list. If you want to see all of the changes made in this version just click the v1.08 link. I haven't had time to try it out yet, but it sounds like they are fixing some of the more annoying bugs a lot faster than I anticipated.
Multiplayer has also been implemented, but it's been designated as "beta" because they disabled playing the AI in multiplayer mode until next week. You'll also have to set impulse to show pre-release version. I don't really care about the multiplayer version of this game, but if you do here is a snip on what they said about it:
For those who want to play v1.08 in multiplayer mode, you will need to set Impulse to show Pre-release versions:

We designated multiplayer as "beta" because we disabled playing against AI until next week. I had written a lot of AI code this week that is in the single player version but had not been adequately tested for MP. We didn't want to give players the impression that was considered the feature set in multiplayer as being all that's coming.
They plan on releasing v1.09 next week. They'll be focusing on enemy AI and MP for that one:
Next week we anticipate releasing v1.09 which will continue to address issues that were not found in the initial release, improve computer AI further and provide it and other new MP features. After that, we will begin focusing on v1.1 which will be the first post-release update that is designed specifically to extending game play.
More information.
 
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Is anyone playing this currently? I'm curious how the patches are going. Anyone have any thoughts on how playable/enjoyable the game is post these patches? I wanted to get this one but have held off after the apparently rough start.

P.S. I don't really care about multiplayer.
 
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I'm currently playing at a round per patch since they're coming out at almost weekly frequency.

At this point I still couldn't recommend the game even though I'm enjoying it. I couldn't recommend it because there is still some glaring gameplay issues that when Elemental is stacked up against other 4X it just doesn't make it worth it.

That said.

The patches have fixed up a lot of bugs and changed the game play up a bit.

The lastest patch (1.08b) has changed the game quite a bit - making the start of the game a bit more grueling (resources are more scarce, spread apart, upped teleport mana rate, removed some boarder-line cheat abilities for the sovereigns), made the enemy a tad smarter (doesn't rush you with their sovereign anymore (if their sovereign is killed in your influence it auto-defeats their whole faction/kingdom).

I never play the strategic battles so can't comment on that at all.

It's not a hugely different game to what launched although it is far more stable and runs better - if you had being following patch to patch you can actually see the performance improve which is nice (not sure if this is true for all people but it is for me! :p )

But as I said, I couldn't recommend it (unless you can find it for half price somewhere, that is) in it's current state. Maybe once they roll out 1.1 which apparently is going to change up a few things (mana use for one).
 
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Thanks for your thoughts, Duff. I've been considering buying Civ V, but I like the idea of Elemental better. Still not sure. =P

Two Worlds II is coming soon, too. I'm sure I'm getting that one. Fired up the first Two Worlds again in anticipation. I guess they've "improved" the voice acting in the sequel. Going to be kind of shame, really. I still like the protagonist's observations, like, "Unhappy customers..." when I cut down a couple orcs. =P
 
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Capt., there are way too many better games coming out. Play those first while they finish this game :) That's what I'm doing. I haven't even touched it with the new patch. I figure I'll give it another shot after Christmas. I have or soon will have a lot of games to keep me busy until then like Venetica, Grotesque Evil Heroes, Fallout NV, Civ 5, Tron Evolution, maybe even Two Worlds 2 and Gothic 4 if they don't mess it up like the last time. That's at least three months of entertainment right there and you won't have as many headaches as you would with Elemental.

If they haven't fixed it by next year well then there is always Dues Ex, Dragon Age 2, The Sims Medieval (really want to see what they do with this one) and maybe Hunted by Beth to tide me over till they fix it.
 
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Judging from the changes and comments Brad has mentioned for the upcoming patches, this game will never be fixed, beyond technically.

Except, perhaps, by the community.

I'd stay FAR away for months.

I think the only way to "fix" this for Stardock, is to take the engine and art assets, and start all over with a proper design document, and a competent designer at the helm.
 
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They fixed most (if not all) of the technical problems and they fixed some of the gameplay problems while completely breaking others.

For instance, they changed archery so that it doesn't appear early in the tech tree. This is an odd choice given that bows are fairly simple. I assume this was a balance thing because bows used to be quite powerful.

They seem to have completely broken them, however. I had 4 archer hero units in a combat and after each of them shooting 4 times all against units with lower defense numbers than their attack numbers not one of the archers did any damage. Not a single point.

Also despite it telling me I could now create archery units they were never listed in the available units in any of my cities.

This also seems to have affected spell damage too. I had a stone golem (or earth elemental, I forget which) which can do a spell attack that hits multiple units. Except it does not damage at all in many attempts. I was also attacked by a sovereign with one of these and his also did no damage either.

They toned down the numbers of adventure locations and wandering monsters A LOT. There used to be a veritable flood of them but in the game I am playing spotting one is an unusual occurrence. There don't seem to be any tough monsters any more either. Even late in the game.

They tweaked the whole character creation system. About half the previous options are gone and replaced with others. Not sure if these are good or bad yet.

I was playing a melee based sovereign so I don't know how they changed the spell system other than they got rid of the old teleport spell and replaced it with a much more expensive version that you had to research.
 
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Thanks for the details, guys. Think I will steer clear for some time. Sounds like the rules are going to change frequently for a while to come. I've already given up playing MMOs. =P

Looks like Civ V may be in my future, although I'm annoyed there's only one ruler per civilization now. =P
 
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Thanks for the details, guys. Think I will steer clear for some time. Sounds like the rules are going to change frequently for a while to come. I've already given up playing MMOs. =P

Looks like Civ V may be in my future, although I'm annoyed there's only one ruler per civilization now. =P
I'd actually prefer if the rulers were totally random.
 
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Thinking about whether to buy Civ V or not, I reinstalled Civ IV + Warlords + BotS, fired up Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations and… well, after 4 hours (and I wanted to play just a minute or two, you know) I'm not so sure I need a new strategy game at all :D
 
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Alas, Civ4 has severe performance problems late during large map/long games which are my favorite to play. The various mods (which are what REALLY make civ4 GREAT!) seem to just make that worse. Otherwise, yeah, Civ4 could probably last me forever.
 
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Did you try the latest patch? (3.19?) I remember I also encountered performance issues (some memory leak, supposedly), but on my machine they vanished after one of the early patches; perhaps 1.61 or something like that.
 
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Yes, I am patched all up to date and using the latest versions of the mods. The problem starts when the AI generates a lot of units. It tends to shuffle them around to no good purpose and then everything slows to a crawl. The AI generating too many units seems to be a fundamental flaw in the AI for Civ4.
 
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