Stardock's new game -- Elemental: War of Magic

[Martok]

Well either Brad deliberately misled us about the date so as to surprise us, or someone let the cat out of the bag a day early, because Gamespy has released an (apparently) exclusive first look at Stardock's new PC title.


A fairly interesting feature is your leader/avatar, known as a "channeler". He's an immensely powerful character, but you can -- if you so choose -- to portion away some of this power to hero generals (whom you can hire as wandering NPC's), and also to grow your empire in the founding of new cities and whatnot. It sounds like it should be an interesting balance between having an individually strong leader, or sharing out his abilities so as to expand your realm.


There's five schools of magic: Life, Earth, Air, Water, & Fire. Of course, each school imparts its own bonuses and penalties. Your leader will also have a choice about being a positive or negative channeler -- apparently positive channelers will create verdant, lush land around their cities, while the empires of negative channelers will see something along the lines of Mordor-like terrain. Also (to directly quote the article): "Each type will receive various military bonuses or penalties based on the kind of terrain they're fighting on and which school of magic it's most connected to."


I have to admit, this part sounds particularly cool:

The world map also plays a significant role in the way the game plays out. One of the design team's mantras is that everything the player sees should be "real." That is, everything in the game should represent a real strategic factor the player must take into consideration. Cities aren't just single-tile icons. Instead players can grow their cities according to specific strategic dictates. As cities expand, players can choose how to spread their cities across the map and can locate individual city elements within those tiles. This can lead to cities being used as fortresses to block specific mountain paths or a situation like the classical Greek cities of Athens and Piraeus in which the Greek city-state's naval power was extremely dependent on maintaining a thin, vulnerable strip of land that let them control the port city of Piraeus.

I suspect I'm going to have a lot of fun with this aspect of the game.


There's some excellent news for modders as well:

Elemental will also mark Stardock's entry into the realm of Spore-style game broadcasting. The game will do much more than offer support for modders, as the company is developing a back-end infrastructure through its proprietary Impulse service that will let players seamlessly integrate new races, units, spells, technologies, buildings and much more into their game. Every time a player starts a game of Elemental, they'll have the opportunity to seamlessly incorporate new content straight from the fertile minds of the game's biggest fans.

Can't wait to see what people come up with.


Finally, the bad news:

Elemental: War of Magic is currently scheduled for a February 2010 release.

Gah! Over a year. I may very well go mad before then.

[Xiahou]

Gah! Over a year. I may very well go mad before then.

Well, they usually allow pre-orders to beta well before release. So that may be your best hope for sanity.

Demigod isn't being released til Feb and I've been playing the beta for over a month now.

[Togakure]

Cool beans . Thanks for the heads-up, Martok.

[seireikhaan]

Seems interesting. I wonder if I'll be able to play it on my current rig when it comes out.

Either way, I'm fine with the late release date. Better to play it safe than haphazardly release it as fast as possible regardless of its state.

[Martok]

Well, they usually allow pre-orders to beta well before release. So that may be your best hope for sanity.

I know. Problem is, I'm no more patient when it comes to beta-testing than I am with waiting. That, and I just like the idea of purchasing a game without knowing beforehand what the experience is really like -- I enjoy that "fresh and new" feeling.

Seems interesting. I wonder if I'll be able to play it on my current rig when it comes out.

I'd say it's very likely you'll have no problem on that score. One of Stardock's selling points is that they optimize their games so that it can run reasonably well on a wide variety of machines. (It's one of the reasons both GalCiv2 and Sins of a Solar Empire have sold so relatively well, despite both titles having very modest budgets.)

If you check out the two screenshots on the Gamespy preview, I think any concerns you have will be quickly mollified.

Either way, I'm fine with the late release date. Better to play it safe than haphazardly release it as fast as possible regardless of its state.

Oh, I know. The fact that they take their time and don't rush their games out the door is another reason I'm such a Stardock fanboy.

That doesn't change the fact, however, that a year can still be a long time to wait.

[Martok]

By the by, here's the link to the game's home page. There's some more articles and previews linked under their News section as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go read up on the game more while I try to stop myself from salivating.

[Veho Nex]

2010... Ohh man how am i going to wait...

[Martok]

Links to a couple more previews:


Edge-Online

Gamasutra



Some excerpts I found particularly interesting and/or cool:

Elemental, which has been described by Wardell as a "franchise," will feature random map generation, integrated modding, city building, unit design, tactical combat, multiplayer and most of all, magic.

As for multiplayer, Wardell said that there will be two modes: standard skirmish with simultaneous turns and a "Wars of Magic" mode. The latter is a persistent mode hosted on Stardock's Impulse Cloud servers, and offers a "variety of different game types."

On the technical side, the game runs on an internally-developed 3D engine that’s been in the works for “a couple of years,” according to Wardell. It’s made specifically for strategy games. In Elemental, gamers will be able to zoom out and view the world as a cloth map that strategists can play on or zoom in for greater detail.

“If you like Civilization or are a Master of Magic fan, this is a must-get," he claimed. "I’m zealot of those games, so I’m kind of a target audience for it."

As with all of Stardock's games, it is targeting low system requirements, but also features an engine that dynamically scales performance to the number of CPU cores on a given machine.

As more cores are available, says Wardell, "the world just becomes richer. In the most extreme sense, this engine's been designed as such that at the lowest end with a really old machine, you can play almost with icons. But at the high end, you can zoom in and see squirrels running around in the trees. It all depends on your hardware."

Gah! I know I'm fawning over this bloody game like some idiotic love-struck teenager, but I can't seem to help myself. There's just so much good stuff to get excited over.

[seireikhaan]

So...

Its going to be like a cross between Civilization and Might and Magic? Interesting, very interesting...

[Martok]

Yeah, looks like it. Should be a fun combination!



IGN now has a preview up as well (along with more screenshots). A couple excerpts:

You can capture and control cities on the map, and the game lets you zoom from the world map down close enough that you can see tiny people walking around your streets. Cities are built on tiles, and what's neat is that when the city grows and expands you can select which tile you want it to expand to. That way, you can create cities that mold the terrain, like rivers, instead of having sprawled out blobs of cities that are common in strategy games.

And while things such as the map look like they were hand drawn, the cool thing is that the maps are randomly generated or user-created. Not only that, but most of the content in the game like units and buildings can be modified or replaced by users. The random map generator ensures that no two games are exactly the same, but users can type in their own names for major geographical features, such as forests, to make the map look like something straight out of Tolkien.

There's so much coolness in these two passages that my head just might explode.

[Zenicetus]

Gah! I know I'm fawning over this bloody game like some idiotic love-struck teenager, but I can't seem to help myself. There's just so much good stuff to get excited over.

Well, you're not alone at least. It helps that this is the company with GalCiv2 under its belt, so we have some idea of what to expect in terms of turn-based strategy goodness.

Also, they know how to do a good public/pre-order beta, with the TA expansion for GalCiv as the model. I.e.... don't release the beta until it's fairly solid and fun to play, and keep the beta period interesting by dribbling out the new features (like race tech trees) over time. If they follow that model with Elemental, I'm jumping right on the pre-order beta. I was a little nervous about doing that with the GalCiv2 TA expansion, but it worked out fine. These are complicated games, and the beta period is a good time to learn the new rules and strategies.

So where's that beta, Stardock!

[drone]

Me likey!

[Martok]

So where's that beta, Stardock!

Sounds like you'll have to wait til spring, possibly June.


Incidentally, I wonder how big the campaign maps are. They look pretty sizable, but it of course it's hard to tell when there's no scale to compare it to.

[ElectricEel]

Very, very interesting. This sounds like the kind of game I'd like to make if I was in the business of designing games, heh. I'll be keeping an eye on this one for sure.

[Zenicetus]

Incidentally, I wonder how big the campaign maps are. They look pretty sizable, but it of course it's hard to tell when there's no scale to compare it to.

It would be neat if they followed the GalCiv2 model for the non-campaign, randomly-generated sandbox version of the game. The player can select different sizes of gameworld, from tiny to immense. That's not easy to balance well, but it does give a range of options. You can have intense games that finish quickly on small maps (because all the factions are crammed together), all the way to huge campaigns that take weeks to finish, because there is plenty of time to explore and develop before you have any major conflicts, and it takes a long time to dominate those huge maps.

[ElectricEel]

It would be neat if they followed the GalCiv2 model ... [where] you can have intense games that finish quickly on small maps (because all the factions are crammed together), all the way to huge campaigns that take weeks to finish, because there is plenty of time to explore and develop before you have any major conflicts, and it takes a long time to dominate those huge maps.

Stardock is even toying with the idea of taking advantage of 64-bit machines, which allow in excess of 2 gigabytes of RAM, to support "huge, epic maps -- I mean, truly epic," Wardell noted.

"People play campaigns in Dungeons & Dragons in the real world that last for years. We could do that with 64-bit. We couldn't do it with 32-bit because you can't make the landmass that big -- that's been a big memory limitation," he claimed. "If someone wants to play a game that lasts for three years, who are we to stop them?"

Gamasutra

[Martok]

I read that too, although I confess I don't understand the significance (of 32-bit and 64-bit machines). How is the latter so much better than the former?

And incidentally, how do I know whether my PC is a 32-bit or 64-bit? I'd sure like to know whether my computer could support "epic" maps.

[Martok]

Gamespot has a preview up:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Elemental: War of Magic is one part Master of Magic, one part Civilization, and one part Total War, with a dash of The Lord of the Rings fiction sprinkled in for good measure. And from our brief first look at the game, Elemental is also one of the more promising fantasy strategy entries to surface in a long while.

The powers of darkness continually encroach upon the land of men in Elemental.

That said, Elemental has no relation to Master of Magic, though rumors swirled in 2007 that publisher Stardock was attempting to secure the license. That didn't pan out, but the rumors of a new Stardock fantasy strategy game are a reality. Elemental takes place in the world of, um, Elemental. A great war ravaged the land, destroying almost all life. Powerful crystals that harnessed the power of the elements were shattered and scattered across the land. As life has slowly returned, beings known as "channelers" have arisen, able to access the magic of these crystal shards.

As the population of Elemental slowly gains in numbers, the world is being divided into two sides: men and the fallen. Men embrace farming, technology, and are generally good. The fallen embrace dark magic, combat, and adhere to a hierarchy of power. Naturally, men and the fallen don't care for each other.

In Elemental, you take on the role of one of the magical channelers and gather men or the fallen to your cause. You begin with one city and are charged with growing your kingdom. Much like in Civilization, you gather resources and grow your population. Unlike in Civ, you can grow your cities how you like, attaching a new land tile adjacent to any existing city tile. Should you want to grow a city in a long, straight line along a coastline for additional resources, you can. If your city is in a war-torn region, you may be better off surrounding your city hall with new tiles. Cities are only captured when city hall is taken, and these additional tiles add a defense bonus against invading armies.

Your kingdom can also be stylized however you like. In a separate Creator mode, you can edit city buildings to resemble medieval castles, like something out of a fairy tale, or crystalline structures that resemble Superman's Fortress of Solitude. As you gather resources, your population will grow and increase your military might, which can be used to further expand your kingdom.

There are several ways to achieve victory, such as simply defeating all your enemies in the world. You could also achieve a diplomatic victory by gathering all to your cause (sometimes under threat of force). If you are able to collect all the shards of magic hidden throughout the world, you will earn a magical victory. Finally, you can recruit enough heroes to your banner to complete a campaign called the Quest of Mastery.

Heroes, in fact, are everywhere in Elemental and range from classical knights to ultrapowerful dragons. By using skills of diplomacy, you can convince these heroes to fight for your cause, giving you great bonuses in battle. And because you are a channeler, you can imbue these heroes with magical abilities. There's one catch: You are not only a sovereign overlord with a handy top-down view of the world; you're also a character in the game, capable of moving to other areas and joining in every battle. If you die, it's game over. As a channeler, you have a large amount of magic to disperse among your cities and population. You even have to use a bit on the countryside if you want to build a new city there. Your heroes will be able to recover powerful magical artifacts from dangerous spots in the world, but you still have a finite amount of magic.

Armies are moved about on an overworld map before zooming in for massive battles.

Much of Elemental is played on a large overworld map. Zoomed all the way out, it resembles the hand-drawn maps of Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings. If you zoom in closer, you'll notice a battle line where the darkness of the fallen's territory encroaches on the sunny and green territory of man. Sooner or later, these opposing forces will collide.

Battles play out similar to those in the Total War series. You'll move armies across the overworld map and then zoom into a 3D battle map. Battles do not play out in real time per se but are continually turn-based. You could pause the game to queue up various attacks or let the battles play out, issuing orders on the fly and playing the battles out as if they were in real time. Stardock is hoping the battles are as large as those in Total War as well. Company president Brad Wardell envisions thousands of units onscreen at once, ranging from infantry to archers, with dragons soaring overhead. If your channeler has sufficient magic and weapons, he will be able to cut through the opposing armies like a knife through butter, knocking dozens of foot soldiers to their doom with a single blow. The inspiration for these battles is none other than the prologue in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when Sauron dons the One Ring then attacks the armies of elves and men. If that's too hectic for you and you prefer to manage your kingdom from afar, you could also choose to auto-resolve your conflicts.

We didn't have much time with Elemental, but we did learn that Stardock is planning at least two multiplayer modes, including a skirmish battle mode in addition to a full competitive campaign mode in which empire building is also a focus. There are a set number of maps in addition to a random map generator, ensuring you never fight the same war of good versus evil twice, if you so choose. Also, Stardock is encouraging user-created content in the vein of Spore, allowing you to use a creator tool to build structures, races, maps, technology, and magical items to insert into the game.

Much could change between now and the estimated release date, but the lofty goals of Elemental should be enough to intrigue any fan of fantasy strategy. Elemental is currently slated for release in February 2010.

Also, Brad has released additional details about Elemental here (on the game's official forums). I loved his tongue-in-cheek response to the question about what kind of copy protection the game would include:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most important question: what version of SecuROM will be used?

It's using a combination of SecuROM and Starforce so that the game will require a CD in the drive, a USB key to be inserted and the reading of a particular word on a particular page of the user manual (which won't be hard since it'll only have a 2 page manual naturally).

The docs, which we expect to be written by fans, will be online only which will be fine since the game will require players to be on-line at all times due to the by-the-hour activation checks the game makes to the single player mode.

Also, the game won't work if you have any CD-ROM burning software including the built in media player software (users will naturally need to uninstall any media players including iTunes in order to play).

All of this will be integrated into the game by our eastern-european CD manufacturer (the copy we send there will be completely clean of course) so we're confident that no pirates will get it...
















(incidentally, this Q and A was a joke)

[Zenicetus]

I read that too, although I confess I don't understand the significance (of 32-bit and 64-bit machines). How is the latter so much better than the former?

It's probably related to the amount of RAM that can be accessed. A 32-bit system has a ceiling of 4 gigs (IIRC), and the theoretical ceiling on 64-bit is something ridiculous like 16 million terabytes. Practically speaking, it just means you can get past the 4 gig ceiling, if people are willing to install more physical RAM. If you have 8 gigs of RAM in a 64-bit system, a game can use all of it (less the OS overhead, natch).

So here's why you'd want that in a strategy game. With something like a FPS game, local terrain can be loaded off the hard drive in chunks (often transparently, in the background) as the player moves around the game world. The world can be immense (WoW, for example), but the game never has to show more than what the player can see in the immediate surroundings.

A strategy game though, has to calculate all the actions and movements of every faction spread across the entire game map, on every turn... not just what the player can see for his or her own faction. It would slow down the time each turn takes, if the map had to be split up and loaded in pieces off the hard drive. So, a humongous strategy gameworld with multiple AI opponents requires humongous RAM.

I'm making assumptions here, but I think that's the relation to 32-bit vs. 64-bit systems. And it's the OS that has to support 64 bit too, not just the machine. I'm not up on current PC hardware and OS limits, so maybe someone else can jump in on that question.

[Quirinus]

Also, Brad has released additional details about Elemental here (on the game's official forums). I loved his tongue-in-cheek response to the question about what kind of copy protection the game would include:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's using a combination of SecuROM and Starforce so that the game will require a CD in the drive, a USB key to be inserted and the reading of a particular word on a particular page of the user manual (which won't be hard since it'll only have a 2 page manual naturally).

The docs, which we expect to be written by fans, will be online only which will be fine since the game will require players to be on-line at all times due to the by-the-hour activation checks the game makes to the single player mode.

Also, the game won't work if you have any CD-ROM burning software including the built in media player software (users will naturally need to uninstall any media players including iTunes in order to play).

All of this will be integrated into the game by our eastern-european CD manufacturer (the copy we send there will be completely clean of course) so we're confident that no pirates will get it...

For a moment there I thought he was serious.....

[seireikhaan]

"Elemental: War of Magic is one part Master of Magic, one part Civilization, and one part Total War, with a dash of The Lord of the Rings fiction sprinkled in for good measure"

Pinch me...

[Martok]

@Zenicetus: Ah, okay. I more or less see what you're getting at. Thanks for the explanation.

For a moment there I thought he was serious.....

Sorry. I forgot to add in the line (which Brad deliberately posted after a long blank space) where he specifically says he's joking.

Yeah, he's said Elemental will come with no copy protection, just like GalCiv2 and Sins of a Solar Empire did. You only need to enter your serial number, and that's only in order to receive patches and updates.

Pinch me...

It does almost sound too good to be true, doesn't it? Still, I have faith in Stardock -- they can pull it off, if anyone can.

[Martok]

Incidentally, for anyone concerned about the game's visuals: Brad has also said that the screenshots are from a very early build, and that they'll look "100 times" better than they do right now. While even I take that statement with mountainous piles of salt, it's still makes me look forward to what the end product will look like.

[Veho Nex]

Man I really love stardock... They know how to treat their gamers... I make from this day a solemn vow never to illegally obtain any of stardocks software and games. EA on the other hand isnt even worth the bandwith or time.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:
Most important question: what version of SecuROM will be used?
It's using a combination of SecuROM and Starforce so that the game will require a CD in the drive, a USB key to be inserted and the reading of a particular word on a particular page of the user manual (which won't be hard since it'll only have a 2 page manual naturally).

The docs, which we expect to be written by fans, will be online only which will be fine since the game will require players to be on-line at all times due to the by-the-hour activation checks the game makes to the single player mode.

Also, the game won't work if you have any CD-ROM burning software including the built in media player software (users will naturally need to uninstall any media players including iTunes in order to play).

All of this will be integrated into the game by our eastern-european CD manufacturer (the copy we send there will be completely clean of course) so we're confident that no pirates will get it...

I think he forgot about the random generated key code that they need to ask for and pay for every few days, and the limit of half of an install per computer with the full install coming only after you have 4 signed copies of proof of purchase

[Martok]

Some more info (all from EWOM's forums):



There will be multiplayer co-op campaigns:

Co-Op campaigns are one of the things we'll have.

One thing to remember is that this design is being made for the long-haul. So we envision settings where a group of friends could play together against the Fallen on maps so large and so many techs and spells that it would take months of weekend get togethers to finish if they want (or they coudl play a smaller map and be done in an afternoon).

While there's only two playable races (Humans and Fallen), there will be 12 playable civilizations:

While Elemental comes with two races -- Men and Fallen, each of these races are split into 6 factions each (12 total). Each of these factions has its own technology tree and own spell book to make each faction play very very differently.

The thing to remember here, these are groups that have been split off from each other for a long time now and they have evolved in very different directions.

Brad also talks about at some length his vision for how economics and troop production will work in Elemental:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Re-thinking 4X economics


One of the things in Elemental we've been thinking hard on is how the economic system in the game should work. Elemental is, first and foremost, about building a civilization that happens to exist in a world filled with magic.

So when it comes to building things, we are trying to get away from the classic "N production units". There are, for instance, no factories in Elemental. We want players to really understand just how big of a deal it is for a civilization to be able to produce mounted warriors who have metal armor and metal weapons. It's not just knowing how to build such a unit, it's being able to put together the infrastructure to produce such a unit.

Players don't research types of units, they research technologies. Players then design their own units and those designs require certain resources. A basic soldier with a club is pretty easy. You take a guy, arm him with a big stick. A better soldier might involve same guy, armed with same stick but trained. Now he's much much better but it will obviously take longer to get that unit. It's not about production then, it's about time.

A still better soldier might be equipped a bronze sword instead of the stick. But that bronze sword didn't just come out of nowhere. The metal had to be mined and then forged and then delivered. Of course, the challenge from a game-design point of view is that you don't want players to be forced to micro-manage such things. It's supposed to be a strategy game, not an inventory management game. And so, you make that issue something for your civilization to deal with - not the player.

A given land tile may have a metal resource on it. The player builds a mine on it. That mine then produces N units of metal per turn. That metal then flows to the keep's inventory (in the city). When the keep's inventory gets filled, it then starts getting sent out to other cities (little caravans start appearing on the map delivering this stuff). All of this is automated but evidence of a growing civilization. Players can build warehouses to store more inventory of a resource. A player can also build an armory which produces weapons which flow again into the keep's inventory and then into warehouses if built and then out to the country side to other cities. Players can build roads to increase the speed in which these resources make it (and incidentally, these caravans only go out sporadically so the map isn't going to be full of these units running around and they're not true units, they'll be almost like decoration except when attacked).

So when I go to build a unit, the amount of time it takes to build that unit is going to be based on decisions I made -- what am I equipping him with. How much training am I giving him? And of course, since populations of "cities" range from 100 to 1 million or so, one of the resources units require are people. A village of 100 people obviously can't conjure up a legion no matter how much money and resources you have.

How will all this actually be implemented? That's where the open beta will come into play. Our development tools allow us to quickly implement many different concepts and UI's. that's where a lot of our work has gone into so that we can make changes like this. Players saw hints of this in Galactic Civilizations where we could make dramatic changes to the game based on player feedback but it's nothing compared to what we've built for Elemental.

So for instance, do players want to prioritize where these caravans go? How much control do players want of this kind of thing? Would it be more fun to actually have technology branches dedicated to having governors (not AI, just bonuses to supply) that "manage" this. These are some of the many things that players will be involved in.

The main thing I wanted to get across is that we are not going to have the traditional "N units of production". Players will be able to design their units, design how much training (a small squad of elite soldiers or a huge mob of untrained brutes or somewhere in between?), decide how well equipped you want them to be and so on. It's not about sending out a knight. There is no "knight" unit unless you choose to call a unit you designed that has a horse, a soldier who has been trained, plate mail, sword, helmet, etc. a knight when you save it. How long would this knight take to create? Possibly very little time at all if you have the plate mail, sword, helmet, and horse ready to go. Then it's just a matter of the training time. Otherwise, it could take quite a long time (the game will estimate the time based on arriving supplies).

Hopefully this gives you a glimpse at the strategic depth we want to provide players. The choices for players in how they want to play this game are endless.

Later on in the same thread:

Ah, this seems to bring two things I yearn for to the game. It brings a certain sense of uniqueness to a city if it is the main contributor of a certain resource, and as such probably the place that uses those resources the most. "The heaviest armor in our Kingdom comes from Armouria." That kind of stuff.

And the second, which is quite important, is that you can't always just build the best unit in masses. Like in Civilization, once you've researched Knights, you'll just build 30 units of them and crush your enemies. I'm hoping that this system limits the amount of super-elite units you can get, forcing you to use a lot of "trash folk". Sauron's armies were mostly made of orcs, after all, not mountain trolls.

You hit the nail on the head. What this system will do, in practice, is bring a more realistic and more fun way of playing the game - just because you have the technology to build something doesn't mean you can realy build it. Just because you can now, theoretically, train elite guardsman, who ride griffins, are armed with magic swords, etc. doesn't mean you're going to start cranking these things out. Do you have access to griffins? Has your sovereign imbued one of his armories with the ability to create magic weaponry locally or do the arms have to be shipped from across the world?

I find this particularly cool, as it means your cities will actually be somewhat unique and/or important in different ways. No more generic 20 towns/cities all more or less alike....

[Rilder]

I'm probably not gonna get it, stardocks whole: "Were so scared of pirates were gonna force you to use this program while proclaiming were awesome for not having drm" Pisses me off.

Now excuse me while I spend time screwing with impulse to get the 2.0 patch for Galciv2 downloaded.
Can't fecking give a direct download... nope they gotta force people to deal with this crappy program called impulse... morons.

[Xiahou]

Can't fecking give a direct download... nope they gotta force people to deal with this crappy program called impulse... morons.

Or, they could just not release a freebie add-on... or, they could sell it in a box and make us pay for it....

I didn't like Impulse when it was beta, so I stuck with SDC (which still works for the most part), but once Impulse actually released, I tried it again and have been happy with it since. I'd get on their IRC channel and ask about your problems there. My Sins install wasn't being detected one time, and within about 10minutes of being on their IRC, I had a fix for it.

Brad also talks about at some length his vision for how economics and troop production will work in Elemental:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Later on in the same thread:

I find this particularly cool, as it means your cities will actually be somewhat unique and/or important in different ways. No more generic 20 towns/cities all more or less alike....

That sounds awesome.
My biggest concern will be the actual pacing of the game, but I probably won't know about that until I actually lay hands on it....

[Xiahou]

oops

[Rilder]

Or, they could just not release a freebie add-on... or, they could sell it in a box and make us pay for it....

I didn't like Impulse when it was beta, so I stuck with SDC (which still works for the most part), but once Impulse actually released, I tried it again and have been happy with it since. I'd get on their IRC channel and ask about your problems there. My Sins install wasn't being detected one time, and within about 10minutes of being on their IRC, I had a fix for it.

I just hate that overbloated piece of trash, and yes they could of charged people for a patch. The patch didn't even add much, they couldn't of sold it if they wanted to.

[ElectricEel]

There's a new Q&A up at Gamespot.

Gamespot: Victory in Elemental can be achieved in more ways than simply wiping out your enemies. Tell us about the different victory conditions in the game.

Brad Wardell: The victory conditions are one of the things we've focused the most on. As a gamer, one of my pet peeves in strategy games is that nearly every path to victory involves, directly or indirectly, having the best economy/military. So when designing Elemental, we wanted to make sure there are other paths to victory that involve other distinctive resources than just that.

So first, you have the traditional military conquest mode. You also have the diplomatic victory that works much like what's in Galactic Civilizations, where if you ally with the other factions of your order (men or fallen), you win. You also have the spell of making, a powerful spell that you have to (a) research at great expense and (b) capture and hold enough shards of magic to get the mana to cast it. And lastly, you can win by completing the quest of dominion, which we'll talk a lot more about in the future.

But these four victory conditions are deceptively simple, because there's a lot more to them than what you'd normally expect. Without going into too much detail, let me give you an example:

Because so much of the game's key choices are made by the player character deciding how much of their essence to impart into their minions, you can't easily tell how powerful another player is. It's not like in GalCiv or Sins of a Solar Empire, where you see a big, honking fleet and know a particular player is going to wipe everyone out. That's because the power of armies is not obvious. One player may focus on making their player character ridiculously powerful, with relatively few champions leading armies. Another player may have tons and tons of armies. Who would win? It's not obvious.

But that's one of the parts we expect to be the most enjoyable about the game. It's not about players knowing they've got the game wrapped up in the first half hour and spending the next four hours mopping up. There are many different and subtle paths to achieving victory. The guy who cranks out eight cities in the first 20 moves will have a very weak player character for a long time (since those cities will involve taking a lot of their essence to revive the land they're on). There's just a ton of different choices for the player that are fun and interesting.