For a lot of users, Beta 2-B is going to feel like several steps backwards in terms of playability and fun. We apologize in advance for that.

I myself have found the pre-beta 2b builds to be really painful and unfun so you have been warned.

The beta should be up tonight for those users already in the beta group.

Here are some of the things we’re looking for from the beta group:

1. Suggestions and ideas on how you would like to manage spells. We’re working on this internally but we’ve love to hear your ideas.
2. Suggestions and ideas on how you would like magical spells that stay in effect (do you want to require a mana cost or just have it be free? I’d rather see it be free otherwise players will have to run around dispelling things and that’s just tedious).
3. Requests for types of quests you would like to see.
4. Any other feedback you’d like to provide is welcome, particularly on things that make Magic and Adventuring a viable alternative to “mundane” strategies.

 

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----------------- Beta 2B Change Log  -------------

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****************

* Gameplay Tweaks *

+ Changed all improvements to start with a sensor range of 1, to be updated on completion to whatever value the improvement type uses

+ New map for beta 2B
+ Beta 2A map renamed Dragon
+ New spells added
+ New resource: Wild Garden
+ More balance to units

+ Added a player ability A_SpellPointCapBonus that gives a bonus to the max spell point cap of a faction

+ Added Administrative bonus to the city cost (primarily for the Civilized bonus)
+ Implemented the "StartingCity" tech for civilized (will cast the ground spell and create a city)

+ Added the "StartingCity" tech for Civilized

+ Changed RestoreGarden to place a wild garden instead of a fertile land resource hoard

+ Automatically unlocking resource hoard types is now data-driven, instead of listing resource types in CWorld::CreatePlayer to get them to be available off the bat 
+ New Realm descriptions for Empires/Kingdoms from the Hiergamenon
+ Fixed references to Telescope in Wild Goose Chase quest
+ Changed IceSpellbook to WaterSpellbook for consistency

- in NewCity(), commented out the code that was giving cities a starting population of 10.  The city hub changes its tile design based  on certain population thresholds, and by setting it to 10 right from the get-go, some of them were getting skipped
+ Created new Magic Resources
+ Hooked up Temples to Technologies 
+ Uncommented Basic Garden, renamed Display name to Basic Garden
+ Can now put defending unit game modifiers in tile design xmls, and if that tile design is used for a world prop, when a unit is on top of that world prop they will get the stat bonuses specified in the modifier

+ NPC's ability stats more properly balanced.

+ Lots of new goodie huts and question destinations
+ Lots of new quests
+ Several new monster units
+ New Spell: Summon Imp
+ New Spell: Summon Familiar
+ New Spell: Summon Wilding
+ New Spell: Summon Minor Elemental (earth, air, fire, water)
+ New Spell: Summon flowers (cosmetic spell)
+ New Spell: Summon mushrooms (cosmetic)
+ New Spell: Summon meadow (cosmetic)
+ New Spell: Beautify Land (cosmetic)
+ New Spell Book: Book of Restoration
+ New Spell Book: Book of Summoning
+ New Tech: Spell Control
+ New Tech: Technologies can give player access to spell books
+ Several new magical items players can get during higher level quests

+ Beta map is now sprinkled with bits of revived land
+ Normal size on units is now slightly smaller
+ Wolf is nerfed
+ New Spell: Brilliance. +1 to all research buildings and is part of the base spellbook
+ New Spell: Productive. +1 to all material producing buildings and is part of the base spellbook

+ Added UnlockAchievement(pPlayer->GetPlayerID(), ELEMENTAL_ACHIEVEMENT_ID_CAPTURED_A_CITY);
+ Added UnlockAchievement(ulKillerPlayerID, ELEMENTAL_ACHIEVEMENT_ID_MONSTER_KILLER);
+ Added UnlockAchievement(ulKillerPlayerID, ELEMENTAL_ACHIEVEMENT_ID_DEFEATED_ARMY);

+ Changed Iron(WeaponName) internal names to just (WeaponName) for consistency

+ Hooked up new Icons to Ancient Ruin Quest Tiles
+ Created Experienced Unit Quality Type
+ Fixed some NPC Backstory/Quote spelling errors

+ Spawn System Changed. There are now spawn levels for:
- The world's monster spawn level.
- The world's goodie hut spawn level.
- The world's NPC spawn level.
- The world's quest spawn level.
- The player's individual goodie hut level
- The player's individual NPC recruiting ability
- The player's individual quest level
+ When a player researches a technology that increases goodie hut or quest spawn level, it now checks to see if their level is equal to the world's. If it isn't, then it doesn't increment the world's spawn level.
+ Several new quests added
+ Adventure technologies updated to support the new spawn rating system.

+  Fixed the hedge wall, fort wall and fortress wall to provide +2, +4 and +8 defense respectively.

+ Created Stronger versions of existing potions
+ Renamed InternalNames for Book Of Experience for consistency
+ Created Archivist unit unlocked through Archiving technology

+ Moved all the improvement tiles that were in the core tiles directory into the improvements sub-directory
+ Moved all the quest tiles that were in core tiles to the quests sub-directory
+ Updated the beta map to have a lot more resources and goodie huts. WIP.
+ New resources added:
- Old Growth Forest. Build a lumber mill on this and you can get lots of materials. WIP.
- Pumpkin Patch. Build a farm on this to get food out of it. WIP.
- Enriched Land. Build a farm on this to get 500% more food.
+ AI updated to be more effective at building cities.
+ Familiar now uses bandit animation
+ Core Tiles loading now takes place in the XMLData load thread to speed up initial loading.

+ Added environment type short name to the terrain and environment draggable info card in the main game wnd

**********

* Bug Fixes *

+ Fixed bug where if game was saved while unit was playing an attack animation, it would play attack animation when game was loaded even though attack wasn't happening

+ Added call to UpdateFOW in StartConstruction
+ Added code to update sensor range to be same as improvement type's sensor range upon completion, with a min of 1

+ Fixed bug where Improvement was not updating FOW after being placed
+ Added check in DestroyImprovement which prevents the walls from being re-calculated unless the destruction leaves a tile completely empty
+ Added code in DestroyImprovemetn to mark the ZOC as dirty

+ Fixed GetBuildTownHallEssenceCost to actually get the essence cost from the spells instead of just setting it to 1

+ Fixed bug where IsActionAvailableToUnit would never let the negotiate action be available, because it would skip the logic for it

+ If no death flyback animations, units will play a regular death animation

+ In ApplyGameModifier_Map, fixed a crash if a CreateResourceHoard was given a non-existent resource type for a resource hoard, from a missing null pointer check

+ Fixed bug from the forums where experience books would not give experience points, but would instead adjust the experience stat of the unit that used them
+ Checked in elite catapult that Paul gave me before with the basic catapult, but that I didn't add at the same time

+  Found the inconsistency between how loaded improvements were built and how loaded "under construction" improvements were built.  The under construction ones would upgrade correctly but the built ones would not. Changed the code in City.cpp::LoadImprovementAndCreate() to fix the problem. Also updated the savegame version to 135 in Elemental.cpp.

+ BuildAllowedSubtileList() function wasn't taking into account the fact that resource hoards can now be created with spells and thus wasn't allowing improvements to be built on them.  Fixed.

+ Made IsTileEmpty more efficient

+  If an improvement requires a resource hoard, we no longer test for correct terrain after finding the hoard since the terrain is irrelevant.  
+  If an improvement requires that another improvement already be built we do not list it in the improvement list since we've no way to express to the user why it's greyed out.  (Example, the granary, which you can only build after building a farm, wheat farm, apiary or orchard.)

+ Fixed FindPath bug where the server wouldn't send the path if it was already calculated

+ Fixed bug where path tiles were not being saved in CEventData_UnitBuildTownHall

+ Fixed bug where resources would remain hidden if you uncovered them while in cloth map

+ Fixed bug where the riders on mounted units would always use their idle animation in a unit cutscene, no matter what the unit's animation was set/changed to

+  Made the city radius system check the actual XML to determine the build radius and made it more flexible. 

+ Improved the EndTurn function so that it does not iterate through the player list multiple times
- Combined similar code for calculating the population changes
+  Restored improvements showing up greyed out if the city is not of the appropriate level yet.
+  Fixed a case where a pointer to an improvement might be null before it is used, causig a crash.

+ Added     CImprovement* GetImprovementUnderConstructionByID( ULONG ulID );
+ Fixes to DestroyImprovement
    + Added call to apCopiedImprovements.reserve to optimize allocation time
    + Changed calls to apCopiedImprovements.insert to insert at end instead of beginning, which will use less copying
    + Changed loop that was adding other improvements not in same list as pImprovementToDestroy to use a call to std::find_if to find the improvement, and then used iterator arithmetic to do inserts, thus eliminating the need to do another find
    + Eliminated extra loop to search for improvement that we've already found

+  Found the inconsistency between how loaded improvements were built and how
   loaded "under construction" improvements were built.  The under construction
   ones would upgrade correctly but the built ones would not.

+ Missing Horse quest will now give a mounted unit that can be equipped (i.e. horse riding).

*****

* UI *

+ Flags in city and city wall gfx now display the correct team color
+ Fixed bug where if you equip/unequip items on champions in an army, the army's gfx wouldn't update
+ Improved the path and position of the "arrow" effect when using archers or other ranged units

+ Edge scroll speed now goes from 0 - 400, with 5 notches.  Max value + num notches are stored in prefs so that users can knock themselves out

+ Fixed color of flags (they were using the smart colors)
+ Added "No Scaling" unit scale option

+ Added call in SetOwner to update stats that go on the subwnd and tooltips (otherwise you have to end the turn to take effect
+ Added some new text for the spellbook
+ Added an entry on the page for the spell type

+ Added code to SetOwner to update EmpireTree
+ Added code in UpdateStats to update FOW if current sensor range has changed
+ Fixed bug where city wasn't updating empire tree if it wasn't the capital

+ Updated ImpulseReactor and overlay binaries, including new achievements screen
+ Checked in changes to catapult, adding annotations so elite catapults and both fallen catapults can launch projectiles when attacking
+ Added cooldown time and range to the spell info card

+ Made the "Mana:" text disappear when Mana is 0
+ Changed the "Cost" icon to the Spellbook (as is used elsewhere). Changed "Spellbook" icon to the wisdom icon to avoid confusion
+ Updated intro lore book text
+  A few changes to the build list - improvements will no longer show up if the city is not of the appropriate level.  They also won't show up in the list if the improvement requires a previous improvement that isn't built yet.

+ World prop bonuses will show up in the terrain info box, below any terrain bonuses

+ Added ability to set faction config metal color with <UnitMetalColor> tag, and added a metal color entry to the customize faction wnd
+ In the create sovereign wnd, the color swatch lets you set the metal color instead of the clothing colors
+ Removed metal color overrides from base sovereign and soldier unit types so that new units made during the game will be affected by the metal color of the faction

+ Updated Research Wnd

- Updated the OnBreakthroughSelected function to handle the new page format
- Updated the MSG_CUSTOM_LISTBOX_ENTRY_HIGHLIGHTED Callback to deal with now having 2 listbox's with highlighting
- Removed functions FillTechUnlockIconList and FillTechLeadsToIconList for FillTechPossibleList responsible for everything+ Gave new unit types in the create sovereign screen a default metal color of light grey, instead of black

+ Fixed bug where when you cast the create garden spell, the garden would not show up until FOW update
+ Overlay Fixes
- When in windowed mode having an overlay dialog open no longer stops you using the titlebar buttons or moving the window using the titlebar.
- The achievements option is back in the main menu (now that we have achievements)
- The achievements which have yet to be achieved now have grey text to better match the greyed out icons
- The mouse wheel is working again in the achievements window. 

+  Changed citybuilding so that you can no longer destroy an improvement that would
   make your city non-contiguous.  This shoud fix all of our city weirdness,
   including broken walls.
   +  Improvement.h/.cpp - removed the internal check for contiguity since this needed
      to be done at the city level.
   +  Added a new function CheckImprovementContiguityList() that takes a list of improvement
      pointers and checks to see if the defined city is contiguous.
   +  Changed DestroyImprovement() to build a improvement list without the improvement to
      be destroyed and to check if the city would still be contiguous.  If not, a message
      box pops up telling the user that they cannot destroy the improvement.
   +  Elemental.str - added strings for the new messagebox popup.

* MISC *

+ Added a spawn rating to CGoodieHutType, which defaults to -1. Currently, there is no spawn rating data set for any of the
  goodie huts.

+ Can now place random goodie huts in the map editor. As with NPCs, creatures and quests, you can specify if these random goodie
  huts are spawned at the start of the game, or when the goodie hut spawn rating level hits the appropriate value. A Spawn
  rating between 1 and 10 must be selected. When the map is loaded into a new game, it randomly selected which huts are placed
  at those locations. Only a goodie hut with a corresponding spawn rating will be placed; if one cannot be found, nothing will
  appear at that tile.

  The random selection is weighted using the rarity value  in the goodie hut type; a value between 0 and 100, it determines how
  likely it is that any given goodie hut will be chosen. A higher value makes a goodie hut more likely to be selected, while a
  rarity of 0 means it will never been selected.

  Goodie huts with the “spawn on level reached” option set get placed on the map when the goodie hut spawn rating reaches that
  level. As with the NPC, creature and quest spawn rating, this value is incremented with an “update spawn rating” game modifier
  is applied. These modifiers are identical to the NPC, creature and quest update spawn rating modifiers, only with the StrVal
  set to GOODIEHUT. Currently, there are no update spawn rating modifiers for goodie huts in any of the XML data.

- Cities start with population of 2 instead of 10.

+ Added game modifier for placing a world prop at a given tile (and here's an example):
    <GameModifier InternalName="Fortify">
              <ModType>Map</ModType>
              <Attribute>CreateWorldProp</Attribute>
              <StrVal>P_Fortify_01</StrVal>
        </GameModifier>

+ Automatically unlocking resource hoard types is now data-driven, instead of listing resource types in CWorld::CreatePlayer to get them to be available off the bat
    + Setting <NeedsToBeUnlocked> to 0 in the resource type xml will make it show up at the start of the game without needing a tech or anything to see it
    + To keep the same behavior as before, resource types default to TRUE for NeedsToBeUnlocked, so put <NeedsToBeUnlocked>0</NeedsToBeUnlocked> in any new resource hoard that you don't want the player to need a tech to see.

+ Can now permanently block off tiles from movement in the map editor using the “Blocked Tile” tool. Tiles blocked off appear
  with a red ‘X’ graphic. Once blocked off, no units will be able to enter that tile for the duration of the game.

+ Added the ability to specify a wander radius for NPCs and creatures in the map editor. When set to the default value, NPCs and
  creatures behave normally, but when overridden with a wander radius, that NPC/creature will patrol around their tile of origin
  within that radius. If set to 0, the NPC/creature will not move from their spawn tile.

+ If you turn down a quest after being offered one from a quest location, it removes it from the map.

 

NEXT WEEK

Next week begins the Beta 3 series!

With that all the technology trees get enabled, the Imperial factions get enabled, the minor factions get enabled, tactical battles will get enabled (beta 3A), and tons of other stuff get enabled.

We’re getting close

Elemental will be released on August 24th. Our “gold” date is August 4th. Our goal is to have the "game” basically done by July 16th.  The remaining time will be spent polishing, balancing, tweaking and adding player suggested feedback.  We’ll categorize that feedback on things that we think are fun or interesting enough to get into the “gold” version (the version that comes in the box) and then things we’ll make available on release date (the August 24th edition).

A game vs. a piece of software

What makes a game different from a piece of software is of course, the fun factor. So when I talk about things being “done” I am speaking of the software program known as Elemental. But that doesn’t make it a game. That just makes it a piece of software capable of performing the features of the game. Turning it into a game requires a lot of balancing, usability tweaking, polish and the injection of fun. 

Our beta programs have focused largely on deciding what features and directions we need to take on the software so that the final game will be “fun”.

The transition from software to a game

Of course, beta testers, particularly ones who haven’t been involved in Stardock betas previously, are stuck in the situation of not knowing whether we “realize” the areas of the software that need to be changed in order to make it a “good game”. So this post is a partial tour of just some of the big issues that have to be addressed for the software to be a good game.

Below are some of the things on our list:

ITEM #1: Making the sovereigns distinct from one another

Making it so that each sovereign is very distinct in how they play is very important.  The way we are going to do this is to make the Professions available and the Talents have far reaching (i.e. not simply “stat boosts”) effects. Thus far, we’ve struggled over which professions to have in the first place.

For instance, the Warlord starts the player off with 2 sentinels.  But right now, the Bard only starts you with a stat boost to hero cost. Boring. The Adventurer gives you an extra move. A okay start but still boooring. This will be an area that we will be spending time on after the public beta endsd.

ITEM #2: Making the factions distinct

In a nutshell, The Kingdoms and The Empires are fighting over how the world should be organized. The Kingdoms are (by default) all races of MEN. The Empires are mostly Races of FALLEN. The Fallen are made up of many distinct races.

However, we must make sure each of these races plays differently enough and looks different enough that it is meaningful.  This is an area we’re going to spend a lot of time on.

ITEM #3: Usability

There are all kinds of annoying UI issues that get in the way or make the game less intuitive than it should be. 

For instance…

Clicking outside the book should close it. There’s a ton of stuff like that.  Beta 2-B users will get to see a LOT more stuff that is extremely annoying such as the way spells are managed in beta 2-B. The spell management will get overhauled during the public beta. It’s incredibly obnoxious.

 

ITEM #4: The Environment is Boring

Based on the plot, the world is decimated. Thus, the lands are barren. However, we are finding this to be oppressive. 

Instead, what we are going to be moving towards is a system where the land is spotted with bits of grassland and Fallen land that players can build on without having to sacrifice essence.

In addition, building cities is going to require a Pioneer pack. The player will start with one and it is consumed on building a city. Additional cities will require building pioneers (who can only  build on non-forsaken ground) or champions can buy pioneer packs in the shops (giving another early benefit to recruited NPCs).

This makes city building require a little more thought than presently and allows us to address the issue of why can only sovereigns found cities?

Moreover, the art and development teams are both working on a significant increase in the number of environments for the world (we haven’t enabled rivers  in the public builds yet because they are cosmetically ugly still). The goal is to make sure the world is an interesting and exciting place.

ITEM #5 DETAILS AND EQUIPPING

In the public beta, the details and equipment screens are combined into a single horrible, usability nightmare.

“The best shareware game UI of 1997!”

During the polish phase, the equipping screen and the details screen will be different (you’ll be able to easily switch between them).  This way, equipping units will be straight forward and efficient and the history of the unit and their details can be more easily handled. Plus, it’ll be a lot more intuitive to play.

 

ITEM #6: Battle Animations and effects

In the beta, all the battle stuff is really basic and dull.  During the polish phase, we’ll be adding many many different combat animations, effects, etc. to make battles a lot more interesting.

ITEM #7: NOTIFICATIONS AND UI

This is going to be a big issue in Beta 2-B now that magic is enabled. Players can lose a lot of time because they filled up their spell points inventory and weren’t prompted to do anything about it.

ITEM #8: WHAT IS GOING ON?

This covers a whole lot of areas of the game. But basically there’s a huge lack of UI-driven explanation of what is happening or why something is the way it is. This is an area we will be concentrating a great deal on during the polish phase.

ITEMS #9: COSTS AND BENEFITS ARE CRAZY

How much an item should cost or how tough a monster should be or how hard a certain tech should be to get and so on, these are things that we are aware of and will be focusing a great deal on. Right now, a lot of the values in the “software” were put in by programmers. During the polish stage, the designers (myself included) get to take a crack at it.

Beta 2-A, for instance, changed the game from Beta 2 quite a bit by simply allowing a designer (me in this case) an afternoon to tweak the values.

ITEM #10: TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH UI

The research mechanism is so crummy that it deserves its own item. It’s something we’re very aware of and it’s on our list. I did ask it to be improved some during the public beta phase so that beta testers could at least have a decent idea of what’s going on.

Look at all these screens that tell you nothing about what you picked. HORRIBLE.

ITEM #11: QUESTS

The quests in the game will get better and better during the polish portion.

ITEM #12: Other Player interaction

The AI players still don’t do much. Without the challenge of other players, the game loses much of its potency in the beta. With the Imperial factions disabled, you only have 5 default players and we haven’t enabled creation your own factions yet the worlds tend to be relatively devoid of action.

ITEM #13: Diplomacy

Diplomacy is going to be a major element in the game. It shows up in Beta 3 but it’ll be pretty basic since the AI isn’t particularly intelligent yet.

ITEM #14: NPC and MONSTER AI

The monsters and NPCs just kind of randomly move around right now. This is an area we are going to be heavily polishing to make them be a lot more “alive” than they currently are.

The team has hooked in the ability for me to have these creatures (at least the sentient ones) pop up conversations with the players. This is something that we can have a lot of fun with.

 

BETA TESTER IMPACT

We very much welcome constructive feedback from players. We can’t promise that every idea will make it into the retail gold or even the day 0 release but if we like it, we can put it on our post-release update schedule.  So definitely keep posting your ideas or suggestions.

The Limited Edition of Elemental comes with a lot of cool stuff including a big canvas map, a poster, a fairly good sized dragon pewter piece. But it also comes with something particularly special: The Hiergamenon. This is a kind of encyclopedia to the world but told from the point of view of a collection of historical figures from Elemental’s past.

To get an idea of what it is like, here are some pictures of the pages. The paperback book comes with the Limited Edition and is around 160 pages.

If you’re already in the beta, you can upgrade to this from the link above.  Because of how expensive the Limited Edition is to produce, we will only guarantee enough units to provide to users who pre-order it.

(4 random pages from The Hiergamenon)

 

 

Elemental is the most expensive game Stardock’s made. Which isn’t saying much since Galactic Civilizations II had a budget of around $800,000. 

Elemental’s total budget is probably less than Civ V’s cutscene budget (which based on what I’ve seen was well spent). 

So how does Stardock make a game like Elemental with so few resources? How do we hope to have a successful game in what is considered a “niche” genre?

The answer is in two parts: First, you guys. Seriously. Word of mouth is the only realistic way that independent game studios can still release games like this. 

Second: The tools  Beta 4 will go into great detail on this but since this week has involved us spending a lot of time cranking out content for the Magic and Adventure categories we’ve had a lot of time to spend with the bundled tools.

This is what you see when you click workshop

 

So if I want to make, say, a goodie hut, the first thing I need to do is go to the tile editor.

Let’s say I want to make a tomb. I’m no artist but I know how to play with legos…

Now, let’s add some “stuff”

Then some effects (these need icons still)

Then save it:

 

Then with Impulse::Reactor,  share it with the world if you want and they can choose to add it all within the game:

 

Other things you would then do is give users an item that already exists in the game or go to the item editor and make your own items.

Over the next several months, we’ll be enhancing these further in free updates to keep making it easier and easier to make and share cool stuff with other players. 

I must admit, it’s pretty darn fun.

But this is how we can make a game like Elemental. It’s so easy for us to add “stuff” to the game to make each experience fun and different. 

Then wait till you’re able to add your creations to your own maps complete with their own quests:

(the above is the beta 2-B map btw, after the beta 2 series, we move to the random maps).

In Beta 2 and Beta 2-A, we disabled the Adventure, Diplomacy, and Magic technology trees and enabled Civilization and Warfare.

In Beta 2-B, we are disabling Civilization and Warfare and enabling Adventure and magic.

But wait! How will wars be conducted? It is just going to be a mob of NPC recruits? How do we get food? How do we design better units? How do we better equip our sovereign and our champions?

The answer: Magic and Adventuring.  Summon units. Get rare items. Enchant the land. Enchant your cities. Go on better quests to get much better stuff. Get access to far more powerful heroes.

I don’t even have a city and I am already summoning units such as this Imp.

 

Update:

Another instance:

I left my iPad up at the cottage and I’m bummed.

 

It has been exactly one week since we released Beta 2.  Below is what’s new since last week:

Overview: Lots of fixes to how the game plays out and the overall pacing.

+ Faction ability "Egalitarian" implemented, players with this ability will get female soldiers interspersed with the male soldiers when randomizing a unit type in the unit design window. [Note that in Beta 2A, custom factions are disabled but Tarth is egalitarian).

+ Fortify unit action now unlocked with the "Training" tech in the kingdom tech tree and the "Armies" tech in the fallen tech tree, no longer available for units off the bat
-  Added "UnlockAction" player game modifier to support this

+ Right-clicking on an NPC now talks to them by default instead of attacks them, and right-clicking on a friendly unit talks to their leader rather than attacks them (though, because negociations are disabled for Beta 2, this doesn't actually do anything right now)

+ Only Sovereigns can create cities under any circumstances.
+ Core Items overahaul to be more balanced, more of them.
+ Core Items have better descriptions
+ UnitStats updated to support damage and defense types (cutting, piercing, blunt, crushing, fire, etc.)
+ Overhaul of City Hubs to require fewer houses and such to upgrade.
+ Modified rarity and handling of rarity on map generation
+ Revamped CoreGoodieHuts similarly to CoreItems
+ Revamped CoreResources similarly to CoreItems
+ Rebalanced CoreMonsters
+ Only can build one lumber mill per town
+ Rebalancing and cleanup of various "claimed" improvements.

+ Cost to recruit an NPC doubles for every tech missing by the player that would be required to spawn that NPC on their own (so, if there is a spawn level 3 NPC and the player has no recruiting techs, they would cost 4x as much)

+ Added A_NPCSpawnRating player ability [modding]

+ Added A_CityDefense player ability, granting a hit points bonus to units stationed in any city owned by the player, City Defense tech gives a 25% bonus to the player
- Unit context for stationed units shows the city HP bonuses in the base HP display now
+ Siege tech now unlocks the siege action for units owned by the player, keeps the action from showing up otherwise
+ Added "UnlockSpellbook" player game modifier, for the Spellbooks tech [modding]

+ New Tiny Seed Map
+ Tweaks to Resourcefulness faction ability (only 25 resources)
+ ALERT: GameXMLLoaded and CoreXMLLoaded are now multithreaded (ALERT: Keep an eye for unintended consequences)
+ Faster loading on multi-core systems.
+ Crimon Ring increases HP by 5, not 20.
+ General Reduction of armor and weapons available for sovereign customization.
+ General nerfing of monsters that are running around.
+ NPCs are generally worth a LOT less XP (10 XP versus 50) if you kill them.
+ Revive Land now costs 3 essence
+ On Level Up, player gets 1 point (not 10) with leveling up incrementing a trait typically by 1.
+ Increasing sovereign base abilities on sovereign design now costs 3 instead of 1.
+ Research Pacing increased by default to counter fewer studies being able to be built
+ Cities require less housing to go up levels but have higher population caps.
+ Most improvements are now only 1 per city
+ Tracking ability costs 15 intead of 10
+ Critical Section added around Tile Designer

+ Added support for "TrainingResourceCostDiscount" city modifier, whose value represents the percentage discount on resource costs for training any unit in that city
+ In the interest of making player abilities that provide a multiplier to resource production across the whole kingdom less dependent on code changes, I've made it so that
city production of a resource always looks for the player ability "A_<ResourceTypeName>", and uses that as the multiplier from a player ability, instead of having a bunch of hard-coded cases for different resource types
+ Added a bunch of player ability types for resource production bonuses to CorePlayerAbilities.xml for various techs to use
+ Added player ability "A_SpellRange", where each point adds a tile of range to any spell cast by the sovereign

+ only champions can trigger quest locations, with all other units (whose players can see the quest location) being blocked by the tile
+ Champions need to set a quest trigger as their destination now to trigger the quest, instead of happening to walk over it, and units that can't trigger that quest location won't accidentally trigger it
+ Fixed bug where visited quests were set to block all units, meaning that if the questing unit needed to return there as an objective, they were unable to
+ Witch's Hut goodie hut added
+ Harvesting technology added
+ Improvements generally are somewhat less expensive to compensate for fewer repeatable buildings
+ Weeds tile design added
+ Roads upgrade to better roads at a much slower rate
+ Ship movement increased from 1 to 4.
+ Beta map tweaked
+ Dragons made a high level spawn.
+ Fixed typo of referring to a rat as the innkeeper's daughter.
+ Further balancing of creatures (PLEASE BE CAREFUL ABOUT CHECKING IN CREATURES)
+ New rare resource: VentiOre - provides 1.5X metal
+ New rare resource: Elementium - required for some very rare equipment
+ Removed Ale from the game (thanks ESRB...)
+ Added telescope item (needs graphic)
+ Traveling boots now available at shop to make units faster
+ Further nerfing of creatures (who checked in horses with 23 attack?)
+ New shop item: Recruiting shirt. Adds +1 Charisma.
+ Clean up of sovereign design customization costs

+ Ranged Attack Improved
- If a unit with ranged attack is in an army, at least one ranged attack unit will show up in the army's gfx
- If you use a ranged attack with an army, only the ranged attack unit that is displayed will fire whether or not he is the leader of the army
- Target will play an on-hit animation when the projectile hits the target
- New CUnitSetAnimationStatusProcess implemented
- Added new animation status UNIT_ANIMATION_STATUS_RANGED_ATTACK_ONCE 
- Fixed bug where after attacking with a ranged attack, and then taking a unit out of an army, the left-over unit would play an attack animation
- Fixed warning message
- Changed annotation system to work with ranged attack units
+ New Quest: The lost HOrse
+ New Quest: The Terrorize Village
+ New Quest: Darklings in the Workshop
+ New Improvement: Basic Garden
+ New (and first) Royal Achievement: Hosten's Library
+ New Quest Tile: Inn2
+ New Tile: Witch's Hut
+ Cleaned up Breakthrough Window
+ Updated New Technology window to not be redundant
+ Updated Beta map
+ Libraries require Civics
+ Markets require Civics
+ General trending in Tech balancing: Fewer techs that do more.
+ Removed legacy extraneous improvements
+ Relias re-designed
+ Training quality significantly more powerful
+ Unit training times reduced
+ Spell book cost reduced from 5 to 3 in custom sovereign
+ Default research pacing increased

***************

* AI Improvements *

Overview: AI now plays a smarter game.

+ Added many new AI definitions for managing relations

+ Improved AI's ability to find new places for cities
+ Sovereign will now take out targets of opportunity

+ AI will Call for reinforcements if a given city is in trouble

+ AI difficulty levels partially added
+ AI slightly smarter about deciding when to go to war.

*****************

* Sovereign Abilities * 

Overview: Hooked up the various abilities that you can use to customize your sovereign.

+ Hooked up "Resourceful" ability
+ Hooked up "Influential" ability
+ Added code to handle the "Daring" ability
+ Added code so that ability techs wouldn't show up in the list (ability techs given a rarity of 0 so they can't be researched)
+ Added PlayerAbilityType Influence (range of influence modifier) and Learning (cost of learning new spells)
+ Modified rarity of ability techs
+ Added techs Organized and Daring for abilities
+ Created functions GetAbility_Influence() and GetAbility_Learning() to handle the new abilities

+ Hooked up abilities Diplomatic, Organized, Stupid and Daring

+ Modified GetLearnCost to read in a player for the Learning abilities
+ Modified IsMissingRequirements to return the correct value

+ Removed deprecated function GetResearchPointsNeededForSpell
+ Modified calls to SpellDef::GetLearnCost to include the player data (needed for the Learning abilities

**********

* Bug Fixes *

+ Fixed bug where if unit was removed from the moveable list (like from being stationed in a city after a battle) the turn could not progress

+ Fixed crash for completed improvements built by a pioneer without a city

+ Changing NO_GFX and NO_AUDIO checks in ElementalData.cpp in order to prevent asserts on the server.
+ When the game ends the player should no longer get a message about their sovereign being gravely wounded.
+ The empire tree should now properly clear its entries.
+ Game Within a Game Fix: Tile Designs now clear out their cached scene nodes so that tile designs now get recreated and show up in new games
+ Fixed bug where unit gfx would appear to stand on top of cities, if you equip or unequip items on a unit while it was stationed in a city
+  Can no longer build on inns and other quest locations.

+  Offset single-tile improvements appearing when cities update have now been fixed.  Once and for all.  For all time.  To never break again.

+ Modified how the mouse detects what object the mouse is at by grabbing the nearest object in the tile (fixes Improvement tooltips)
+ Modified how the screen offset is saved to prevent the "meandering window" issue people have been having when closing/loading a lot

+ Removed code that disabled tooltips when an object was selected
+ Hide the proper controls when a spell had no requirements
+ Hide proper controls when the user owned no shards

+ Fixed some places where you could still bring up the negotiation screen for Beta 2
+ Units removed from an army at the same time are able to set a target unit destination now, would only set the tile destination before
- This gives nicer attack action behavior when splitting up an army

+ when a caravan establishes a trade route, the dirt road graphic now shows up to give some feedback that a road has been created
- However, there are 4 road levels but only 2 sets of graphics, so after the second road level all the roads look the same until more graphics get added
+ Fixed an issue that was preventing water environment colors from working after loading a saved game.

+ Made it so that you can't delete pre-made sovereigns from the choose sovereign list.
+ Added another check to model batch code to prevent an obscure crash

+ Fixed ALT-ESC "Invalid Call" crash
- Water graphics were not releasing a dynamic texture (dynamic textures must be freed or D3D device cannot be reset)

+ Fixed possilbe crashes in AutoResolveBattle (for loops iterating backwaurds using a ULONG counter)

+ Fixed bug where cities without a multiplier bonus to stationed unit stats would still display "x0" for that stat (which isn't even what it was doing, it just wasn't applying a multiplier at all)
+ Fixed memory leak with sound code in tactical units
- We had made a similar change in regular units, applied same change to tactical units

+ Fixed memory leak in main game window's event list.  CReportItems were not getting deallocated.  (Saved over 100MB when pressing CTRL+R key)

+ Fixed bug where a player ability to summon units would summon the units every time the game was loaded

+ Fixed crash/bug where tile designs would not load their XML before tile designs were used
- Added critical section around tile design vector code in tile design manager

+ CUnitType’s default spawn rating is now set to -1 rather than 1, which will prevent units with undefined spawn ratings from being placed on the map.

+ Fixed bug where after killing an NPC, when you right-clicked to move into the tile where the NPC used to be, you were prompted to talk to the NPC to recruit it

+ Fixed bug where, if any unit of a particular unit grouping type was killed or hurt in a battle, all units with that unit grouping type would have their troop counts affected, basically screwing up that grouping type for the rest of the game and giving too few troops to everyone
+ Fixed bug where loading a game with armies or any units stacked in the same tile would cause them to get placed in the same army multiple times when they auto-joined while being created, now only spawn unit events auto-join friendly units, keeping loaded games from trying to as well as they recreate everyone

+ Building/destroying improvements now applies/cancels any player modifiers in that improvement type's xml, also applies/cancels player modifiers if the improvement changes ownership

+ Fixed problems with quests not popping up condition completion messages, choice result messages, displaying incorrect pop-ups multiple times in a row, and not setting images in the quest choice pop-up.

*****

* UI *

+ hooked up new icons for spell details: spell cost, spell radius, spell range, and spell cooldown
+ changed the entry for displaying which spellbook a spell comes from to use the short entry instead of the long one.

+ Added additional text for the labels on the ResearchSubWnd (now shows upcoming techs and such)

+ "Death Fly Back" is now supported in both tactical and quick battles
- If a unit's combat rating is 10 or more higher than its opponent, when it deals the death blow, it will cause the opponent's units to go flying into the air

+  Improvements that have had their per-city limit reached will no longer appear in the improvement build list.

+ Build list wnd now shows the city level requirement for an improvement instead of the placement number restrictions
+ Added city level icon to build list and city context wnd
+ Mousing-over the entries in the build list now brings up the info card for that improvement type

+ Pre-Made Custom Sovereign Descriptions
- If the sovereign picks a new history, and custom text hasn't been entered into the backstory wnd, update the random backstory
- Parses out tags to fill players info correctly
- selecting MALE and FEMALE instantly setting those values in the unit type (fixes bug where every description used the female gender strings)

+ Spell Info Card uses the proper Essence Icon
+ Combined the best of the build list and train list resizing and placement functions to make them more robust, less hard-coded, and in the case of the train unit wnd, change width for a scroll bar, and in the case of the build list wnd, use all the available vertical space instead of arbitrarily limiting it

+ added new code in GetTooltipBreakdownOfBattleBonuses() so that it would use army values if the unit was in an army. Fixes bug where the tooltip of selected armys stats would only be for the leader.

+ Can now specify a background image for the quest choice window using the ChoiceBackground tag in the quest XML. If this isn’t specified, it uses the choice medallion image instead. Updated the Damsel in Distress quest to feature this as an example.

Next Week: BETA 2-B (Custom Factions turned on, more balance, tweaking, quests, city improvements, royal achievements, and much more). (Next week we’ll have even more).

Screeenshots:

Introduction

Elemental is a turn-based strategy game set in a fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, quests, and danger.  The player takes on the role of a Sorcerer (or Sorceress) who can “channel” magic and perform increasingly powerful spells as they level up.

The setting of the game is approximately a century after a great war between the Titans. They are gone but the land was decimated. Life has started to return to the world and people are scraping by. The more ambitious have taken to exploring the world looking for signs of civilization to join their cause to. The less ambitious have, sadly, gathered in refugee camps or fallen into lawlessness.

The great gift that the player has is that they can bring the world back to life by sacrificing some of their very finite life essence. Known as the spell “Revive Land”, it is, at first, the only spell the player knows. It will bring the land back to life enough that it can support a small settlement. Fear not, once the spark of life is reignited, it tends to spread out.

This walkthrough will hopefully help you understand the game and how to play it.

The Campaign

New players are recommend to play the Campaign (Elemental: War of Magic – Book 1). The campaign isn’t available in the beta so we’ll skip to the “sand box mode” which is where most people will play the game.

Setting up a new game

The World

When you begin a new game, you can choose how large you want your world to be (Micro, Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) as well as the Land Mass (Single continent, Multiple Continents, Islands).

This screen also allows players to determine what victory conditions are present:

• Conquest. The traditional method of victory – destroy them all.
• Diplomatic. Ally with all the players in the game.
• Master Quest. Complete the exceptionally challenging master quest and win the game.
• Spell of Making. Gather the resources necessary to cast the ultimate spell and win.

[In beta 2, only conquest is enabled]

Who are you?

Players can choose amongst the 5 Kingdom sovereigns or the 5 Imperial sovereigns or you can make your own.

When designing your sovereign, you get a limited number of character points. If you’ve ever played a role playing game, it’s very similar.

When you are done designing your sovereign, you can design his/her “Info Card”. This will allow you to easily identify your sovereign at a galnce on the map and gives him a bit more uniqueness.

Choose your Faction

You can then choose among the 5 pre-made Kingdoms and 5 pre-made Empires or you can create your own.  The factions you create you can later play against.

[In beta 2, you cannot create your own faction].

The Early Game

Turn 1:

On Turn 1 your Kingdom’s population = 1 = You.

As a rule, Elemental tries to avoid too much abstraction. This is your kingdom. These are your people. You are building it from scratch.

SUGGESTION: Hit Control-G to turn on the grid.

SUGGESTION: Use the LEFT mouse button (press it down) to grab the map and move it around rather than using edge scrolling.

SUGGESTION: Use the middle mouse button to rotate the map around.

Walking over to the female on the map, we discover her name is Lejadiri. To build a kingdom, we will need all the help we can get.

Walking over to the crates next to Lejadiri is a potion left by some long lost wizard which, if drank, will increase my combat speed by 0.25 points.

Combat speed determines who many actions you get per battle turn. In tactical combat, it’s a very important number as it determines how many “moves” you get in tactical combat. In quick battles, combat speed is simulated and equally deadly there as well.

Founding my first city

Each city is more expensive than the last to build so make them count. I am building my first city here because it’s reasonably close to the scenic view and to a nearby beach.

Because the land is forsaken, I must sacrifice 3 of my life essence into the land itself. Players only start out with 15 essence total so every point is precious. Essence determines the maximum amount of spell mana a unit can hold.

We must sacrifice our essence to revive the land.

 

With the land revived, we can build our city and begin improving it immediately.

 

I’d like to build a study so I can start researching technology. Unfortunately, I need 2 materials.

This warehouse would let me build faster but I  need a level 3 city.

To raise my city level, I need more people. But to do that, I need food. The land, while revived, is not good enough for farming. However, with 2 materials, the city is capable of growing a small amount of food in a garden.

TURN 2

My First Quest

Oh the rats in the basement quest…

Meanwhile, Xander (my sovereign) is exploring as well.

He has found a weapon.

When you find a weapon, you will want to equip it. To do that, click on your player portrait.

Then click on the item you want to equip.

Researching

Once you have begun to gather knowledge, you can start researching technology

Kingdoms get 5 categories of knowledge:

1. Civilization
2. Warfare
3. Magic
4. Adventure
5. Diplomacy

[In Beta 2, Magic, Adventure, and Diplomacy are disabled]

Civilization allows you to improve your Kingdom via mundane means.

Warfare allows you to train better combat units.

Magic allows you to improve your Kingdom via magical means.

Adventure gives you access to better quests and more useful recruitable characters.

Diplomacy provides you with options for dealing with other kingdoms and empires.

Through research, your kingdom’s capabilities will grow.

Caravans

Caravans are a crucial part of your kingdom.

Once researched, a player can train one (if the city has a command post) and send it to a target destination. Upon reaching that destination, a road is built. Over time, this road will get better and better.

A caravan will deliver to your kingdom a fractional amount of what a city produces each turn based on the quality of the road and the distance between cities.

[In beta 2 this has not been balanced].

 

MID GAME

[In the public beta 2 series, because there’s no diplomacy, magic, or adventure, the mid game is somewhat sparce]

Luckily for the player, the AI in the beta 2 series is still relatively weak. So the AI isn’t exactly catching the world on fire with its uint design (i.e. it builds a lot of cheap units).

The mid game in beta 2 largely consists of acquiring the technologies necessary to conquer. 

More to come…

This is what my level 4 city looks like in Beta 2-A with the HUD turned off (the HUD will let me see at a glance what a city is producing but that won’t be in until beta 3).

Generally speaking, we’ve been cleaning through city improvements that had been lurking around for a long time that had been marked for deletion for awhile but we hadn’t gotten to it.  You can still build some pretty hefty cities but they’re a lot less redundant and as you get to know the game, you can, at a glance, tell what is what.

In Elemental BETA 2, the strategic objectives are strictly limited because the player does not have access to magic. The goal is to see what the strategic strengths and weaknesses of Elemental’s mechanics are when magic has been restricted.  Elemental Beta 2 is Elemental: Mundania.

In Elemental: Mundania, food is the critical resource. Materials are fairly easy to come by and metal can be found. But ultimately, food is the key strategic element. Food allows for larger populations which in turn allows for more city specialization which allows for larger armies and so forth.

But Magic changes everything.

The Power of Sorcery

A few points to consider:

• Magic is already needed to revive the land enough to build on. With an even greater essence sacrifice Sorcerers can revive the land to become fertile.
• Citizens default to only 5 hit points. Far too few points to bother spending money equipping such fragile beings. Spells, Shards, and Essence sacrifices can vastly change this. In The Silmarillion, Morgoth sacrificed much of his inherent strength into his minions. Players can choose to do this as well via Sorcery.
• Potential Champions wander the world. What makes them special? What makes an Adventurer or Loremaster worthy to stand out from the average peasant? The difference is that they have the rare gift of being potential Sorcerers. You can imbue them with some of your essence and then they too can start to contribute to your Kingdom of Magic.

The Strategic Elements

Food is important in a mundane world. The shards, however, are the most important resource in a magical world.

These things and more you will see during the Beta 3 series. Stay tuned!