I generally agree with this sentiment. In fact, I've agreed with it since before the first public betas. So far, the design has treated magic as a sort of secondary technology. What I'd hoped for was to see a game where mundane technology played a background role to magic, but what we have is a game where magic is a struggling stepchild to the rest of the 'tech trees.'

The main culprit I'd blame for my frustration is the power that jargon has over folks involved in very complex work. Just try to imagine how you'd think about this game if you had never heard or invented the phrase "tech tree."

p.s. All spells should most definitely not be 'overpowered.' That way you can have fun with regular spells and extra fun with 'overpowered' spells.

*Sigh*

While I can't say I agree with the tone of the OP, I do, sadly, agree with substance. My impression of the revision process is that they're starting with a solid base to expand upon. So, I have hope that this is the eventual goal. Baseless optimism... maybe. Either way, I hope that the devs at least read over this post.

We have to remember who designed Elemental.  The same guys who brought us Galactic Civilizations and the Political Machine.  Both of these games are by nature number crunching games.

And there are (I'm sure) a good number of people here that bought this game because it would be kind of a 'Galactic Civilizations meets Lord Of the Rings' kind of game, complete with all sorts of min-maxing techs that you can use to get more production, more attack, more everything.

I, on the other hand, am looking for a worthy successor to past games, like the Warlords series.  With new and refreshing magical concepts that make the game cool.

I haven't played Master Of Magic (perhaps I should).  I haven't played Master Of Orion either for that matter.  What convinced me to buy this game was the cool graphics on the box, which indicated I'd be blasting enemies with powerful spells, fighting (or fighting alongside) Dragons and other powerful creatures, and, oh by the way, I have this Kingdom or Empire I'm trying to establish in the meantime.  The fact that Stardock made this game made it a no brainer.  I won't spend $50 for just any game, you know...

I want to have truly powerful Heroes that aren't stamped out by cookie cutters, each with their unique own style and skillset.  And I want to be able to customize those heroes to my style of play as they advance in levels.  Elemental lets me do this in a General sense, but not in a specific sense.

I want to know that the hero who's got my Sovereign's back is the guy that is the baddest Archer in the land, not just another pretty face.  And the Knight Lord I sent out in front of me was CHOSEN by me to take the fight to the enemy BECAUSE he's a Master Swordsman, not just some random dude I hired out in the wastes and bought a sword for. 

And I want the game mechanics to reflect that having BOTH of them in my party is necessary and generally a very good idea - i.e. too many archers and I get overrrun.  Too many swordsman and they get savaged by spells and bowmen before they can do their work. 

Oh, and a Cavalry dynamic would be nice too, especially if cool mounts like Bears and Slags enter the picture.

AND, I want my Wizards summoning Powerful Elementals that do lots of cool things (not just a token Attack spell), plus they have other, devastating spells at their disposal.  Mind you, I expect, for game balance purposes, that there should be a game mechanic in place to keep them from doing this without limit - otherwise that Fiery Nuke spell they might have will get boring.

Not everyone wants this same Experience from Elemental, I accept that.  But I'd rather have the min-maxers have more stuff to min-max, such as a huge library of spells, different skills as well as different stats and items, and other options for them to get completly lost in, while I'm just having fun exploring the land with that Fire Giant, Fire Elemental, a couple of badass heroes and such looking for adventure.  Oh, and conquering the occasional city when the opportunity arises...

Plus, I want to see those Epic confrontations that have me biting my nails the entire combat.  I had a few of these back in the earlier patch days (pre 1.09).  I specifically remember one fight that had me truly outnumbered, despite my stack of 12, and I REALLY had to use my archers and spells wisely to get through that one.  This was back when longbows only did a few points of damage every 2nd or 3rd hit, not like they work currently, and spells were tougher but Mana wasn't as plentiful as it seems to be now.  I ACTUALLY HAD to used my summoned creatures as blockers, to protect my Sovereign and bowmen from being overrun.  In fact, I ended up reloading the game a few times, just so I COULD figure out how to win that specific fight.  It took about four tries before I actually won...

Somewhere along the way, lately, the game seems to have lost that appeal.  I miss the wandering hordes of monsters.  I'm seeing a few in 1.09n, but nothing like the first game I played.  I've asked for a check box option to bring those back, which it seems has fallen on deaf ears. Conquering empires is fine, but having to keep the monsters out of my cities truly kept me on my toes. Having those hordes made City Spam a dicey proposition (and just how do you plan to defend ALL those cities?) Brad's work on the AI is making enemy kingdoms more scary now, and I applaud that.  But slaying rampaging Fire Drakes just sounds cooler!

Global Mana is great from a wargaming standpoint.  But from a Role Playing standpoint, not so much...

I've discussed various aspects of this in other threads, so I won't belabor them much more here.  All I can do is let the developers know that:

I want Epic Heroes doing Epic Battle against Epic Monsters using Epic Magic and Epic Armies,while building my kingdom to Epic Proportions

Keep working towards that goal, guys.  We may get there eventually...

Wow, Wintersong, I never expected you to fanboy in such a pathetic way. I'm a bit disappointed in you. Seriously, "You haven't done X, so you can't criticise them for it!" lost all meaning after the Twilight fangirls started doing it.

And you don't seem to understand the meaning of "powerful spells". Powerful spells are ones that affect the world. Like any of the global enchantments in Master of Magic, any of the global spells in Dominions 3 (which are seriously epic and game changing) etc etc. A single volcano is no big thing. Ten of them springing up every turn is.

From looking at the 1.1 patch notes, the changes to magic seem, if not in the wrong direction, to be going nowhere. I'm not sure if Kael is the man for the job for Elemental. He was good on Fall from Heaven, but that was more for the world building / general polish of the mod instead of the magic system. The magic system in FfH was pretty dull, as it stood.

I'm no game developer. I'm no designer. I haven't had about two years of in-production game development to build the game in. I didn't have a bunch of beta testers telling me exactly was wrong with the magic system. I wasn't one of the people who ignored all those beta testers and went straight ahead with the magic system as is.

And, personally, I think that all those things make it more profound that I can tell what the hell is wrong with the system where others fail.

( Oh, and balance should be the last thing on their minds when they're doing something like this. Rule of cool first, balance testing later. Balance is extremely poor at the moment, so that doesn't really matter. )

Get a bar of soap and wash out Autarkhos mouth and I agree pretty much with his post.

Totally agree with point 1, although part of that was due to the 'glass' heroes we had before.  Now that they have more HP, I think those spells would be more balanced, if they were re-implemented the way they were before.  As it stands now, I only use the missile spells in 1.09n until I scrape together 250 GP for a longbow - then I stop using them.

Also totally agree with point 2.  The magic trees were changed around, but I've been looking for Mr Elemental and Mr Giant.  I miss having those guys running interference for my Sovereign, and expected to face the same with enemy sovereigns.  I wasn't aware that having 3-5 different summoned creatures in your stack had become an issue, but apparently it is...

That being said, I do understand the word BETA, so maybe these are being reworked at the moment.  I still want the flavor/unit mix of summoned creatures to be retained as it was before, though.  This is WAR OF MAGIC, after all!

Imagine a battle between a Sovereign with a bunch of armies against another Sovereign with a bunch of armies... within a few turns the only thing left is the two enemy sovereigns... that would be cool!  These sovereigns casting all kinds of crazy magic at each other ala the Gray Wizard vs. the White Wizard.

Also, they need to make gaining magic be about using magic. How do you gain magic currently? You research it with the tech tree to make it available to research again.

But once you have a spell, as long there is mana available, any channeler or imbued champion can cast it. Oh look, its late game and I just managed to recruit a new champion, the next turn I imbue him and pow, he can cast any spell available to me, level 10 on down.

You want to give us a sense of accomplishment on being able to use magic? Make it so we have to 'practice' casting spells to gain the more powerful ones. Let us go ahead and research the spells, but before we can use them we need to practice. Cast level 1 spells 15 times before you gain the ability to cast level 2 spells, or something like that.

I actually disagree. Magic should be an edge, not the be all and end all of the game. If I can't take out a sovereign with mundane troops then something has went wrong in the balancing somewhere. MoM and Dominions did have good magic systems, but that's all they had. Dominions is seriously sub-par in the economic and general empire building stakes, and while MoM managed to retain useful mundane units this was largely down to the shortcomings in the AI than anything else.

My disagreement is based on

1. You behaving bad and making group attacks to all who simply disagree with you.

2. You basing your opinion on MoM and Dominion 3, who despite being good games, had so many flaws i dont know why they are so hyped.

3. You bashing a beta release where the devs clearly stated magic is still in the works.

And as little special for you, just because i can use capslock, too:

IF YOU WANT TO PLAY F***ING MoM; GO AND PLAY F***CKING MoM. I DID NOT PAY FOR THE SAME OLD SH*T I ALREADY PAYED FOR 15 YEARS AGO. I WANT A NEW GAME.

Have a nice day.

@Stardock: Despite the OP behaving like a 13 year old wiseass, there is some truth to the lack of undead armies. Long life the undead ... hum.

"Elemental - War of Magic". It's called that for a reason, man.

I'm not saying that sovereigns shouldn't be able to be taken down by mundane troops, but the game is - undeniably - about powerful magic users. No matter how you start the game, how your character is designed etc etc, he is still an immortal magical ruler. The fact that magic is relegated to such a pathetic position at the moment is absolutely hilarious.

Also, I'm personally of the opinion that a sovereign should not be able (except under exceptional circumstances) to be taken down by some two-bit knight or peasant. At the very least, have it be a hero who does the killing blow.

1. Such as? I call out bullshit when I see it. Like most of your post, really.

2. Because they are fun. Because they make players feel like the characters they're supposed to be (powerful wizards and gods warring over the world respectively). Because they have ridiculously high replay value despite their "many flaws".

3. lol. "IT'S A BETA HONEST THAT'S WHY IT'S BEEN RELEASED AND IS GOLD ETC ETC". Read this and then this. "YEAH BUT..." Yes but nothing. This company does not need sycophants, it needs people telling the truth. GTFO. No, it is not a beta. It may be in a state expected of an early beta, but that does not make it a beta.

Elemental was regularly advertised as the "spiritual successor" to Master of Magic. That means it's designed to incorporate elements of Master of Magic into it's design and tries to improve on them or other ailing troubles. The fact you don't seem to understand the difference really highlights how little you have to give to this conversation.

Have a nice day.

I just want to give the developers the opposite end of the spectrum:

I played a game as a Fallen race with a cool Sovereign. I studied the crap out of Combat spells and Fire spells (I managed to grab THREE fire shards, by tactically placing some cities). I gave my Sovereign full armor, a giant axe, and buffed him with combat spells. I hunted down quests and beat the crap out of monsters.

I marched on Altar's capital city. They had an army with a combat rating of 240 defending it, including their sovereign. My Sovereign was alone. I sent no troops with him. He had a combat rating of 300. He solo'd the entire defense and in the following turn summoned a volcano on the city. When I did this, I felt really cool and I was reminded of Master of Magic. I felt like the bad ass magic user of the century.

Play the new beta patch. Aside from some really weird resistance issues (Resisting arrows? What?), crash bugs, and the need for damage types on weapons and abilities for customized units... well... the Magic system and the pacing on city building? MUCH BETTER.

1. The part in bold, big letters. How can you miss that? Didnt you wrote that? You are saying, that all who think the game concept as is, is good, are wrong. You are saying your opinion is worth more then mine. If it werent for this last paragraph i would have read, shrugged and thougth 'let him have his opinion'. But you decided to feel all superior and that makes me pissed of. Because you are as worthless as me. We are equal.

2. This is a very opinion based argument. MoM was great, but at start of the game you honestly did not feel like some god. You had to work for that. In E:WoM it is the same. Start weak and grow. And Dom 3 had no replay value whatsoever for me. It is all opinion, you see.

3. You are arguing the BETA patch here. Or are you saying you havent installed it yet and playing v1.08? If thats so, i apologize and back out. If not, you are stating the obvious, with the devs already aknowleding you and what a thousand others already said. Also they stated, they are working on it. What more do you want? A personal apologie and handshake from them for crushing your dreams?

I understand the difference, but i am not of your opinion that they missed the mark yet.