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Big Fat Pictures and Day 0 reporting

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Big Fat Pictures and Day 0 reporting

from JoeUser Forums

Finally getting to actually PLAY the game some.  I’ve got a huge list of tweaks already for the day 0 build.

I play at really high resolution so this is what my screens looked like:

2010-08-14_2025

In this game, I’m slowly wearing Kraxis down.  Which means I’m unhappy because it means I need to do more AI work. Bear in mind, when I play I play at normal where the AI gets the same resources. If I wanted to get creamed, I’d just push up the difficulty but I want the AI to be very intelligent at normal.

2010-08-14_2032

This screenshot is full of win.   The beta group pushed hard for special abilities for units and they got their way (the fire giant has 3 actually).  This is something we plan to expand on over the next few months a lot (don’t worry, these things will be free updates).

We’re just incredibly excited about how things have turned out. Though, like all the other games we’ve done, we have a long list of things we want to add and improve on over the next several months. Though, for now, we’re going to stick with polishing so that we can hear what our customers want first before we commit to anything specific.

Availability

Now, one thing I think I can say (and I’m not promising this because all things are ultimately decided by the IT gods) but it is our plan to make the “gold” version of the game available a bit early to those in the beta and those who pre-order will also likely get it a bit early.   We hope to start pre-loading Elemental onto machines early to mid next week to reduce strain.

At retail, Walmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, EB, etc. should all have it in strong supply. Just make sure you update to the day 0 version (via Impulse) because you will need the day 0 version to play multiplayer or do the mod tools stuff not to mention we’ll have a ton of new stuff in it as well. The download should be pretty small though.

What’s next

Well, for this week, I plan to have fun working on the AI and making some more quests. How much will make it into the day 0 version is hard to say.  The writing team at Random House and us have been brainstorming lots of new quests we can put into the game and I really want the AI to play “in character” (no snarky dialog like in GalCiv).

151,259 views 84 replies
Reply #76 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kyogre12, reply 68



Quoting Raven X,
reply 50
So we "might" get it early? Like how early? Wooohooooo!!! Sweeeeeeeet!!!!



August 23 at 11:58 PM

Quoting Wintersong, reply 71



Quoting kyogre12,
reply 68

Quoting Raven X, reply 50So we "might" get it early? Like how early? Wooohooooo!!! Sweeeeeeeet!!!!


August 23 at 11:58 PMIn Australia.

I see I'm going to have to punish Both of you... :P

Reply #77 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Streamlock, reply 69

quoting post
 

That being said, is the harder AI difficulties purely a resource bonus this time around? Or are they going to use different AI scripting?  Or is it just that normal and lower difficulty levels will have some of the more....erm....brutal AI programming turned off?  If this is the case, though to late for day 0, sometime in the future it would be neat to be able to turn off the resource bonus but keep the brutal AI as an option.

 

Also, in GC2, there was an option to set how much CPU crunching the game could use (at least I think it was GC2) for the AI to 'think'.  Will there be a similar option in Elemental, and how much of a difference does it make to actual game play and the time it takes for a turn to resolve?

Sorry, I'll shut up now-curiosity got the better of me.

 

That option will be one of the difficulty levels on day 0.  I believe it's tough or challenging difficulty- forget which one.

I'd love for it to be labelled balanced or something.

 

 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #78 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting arstal, reply 78


 
That option will be one of the difficulty levels on day 0.  I believe it's tough or challenging difficulty- forget which one.

I'd love for it to be labelled balanced or something.

 

 

 

Awesome!  Look forward to it.  Well, maybe someone can call it 'balanced' in a tool tip or something....  I'll probably get creamed the first few games on normal anyway. 

Reply #79 from Elemental Forums Top

Frogboy wrote: "If I wanted to get creamed, I’d just push up the difficulty but I want the AI to be very intelligent at normal."

Yes, it is important. I don't like the difficulty levels which give AI a start.

I'm wondering whether the Elemental's AI will be as intelligent as what GalCiv II could show. It shouldn't do matter, but I noticed that the detailed options of AI habits from the latter one are missing in Elemental.

And technically will AI routines use the cpu cores to compute in the background while the player takes his moves?

Reply #80 from Demigod Forums Top

As games get continually more complex and have more dynamic systems, the AI gets naturally more and more inferior. AI is great at Chess or Checkers. Not so awesome at the latest games (unless they cheat or play to the natural strengths of a computer, such as lightning quick reflexes and the ability to do multiple things at once without having to click or scroll).

Even if the AI is "stellar" (and it should be pretty good given Gal Civ) it will probably be worse than Civ IV's, which will be in turn worse than Civ III, and so on. Don't expect it to be kicking your ass once you have a firm grip of the game itself.

Reply #81 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting awuffleablehedgie, reply 81
Even if the AI is "stellar" (and it should be pretty good given Gal Civ) it will probably be worse than Civ IV's, which will be in turn worse than Civ III, and so on. Don't expect it to be kicking your ass once you have a firm grip of the game itself.

This is true, of course. That's where the cool "randomization" factor of Elemental comes in though. There are some super rare items or quests that you won't see every time you play a game (in sandbox mode). There might be a Super Weapon that only shows up once every 40 times you play. Now imagine that weapon spawns in your latest game and the AI gets it's hands on it...hehe. "Game Over man, it's Game Over!!". That will add a lot of surprise and re-playability to Elemental.

Reply #82 from Demigod Forums Top

Sword of the Stars uses a similar formula (a lot of randomness and a LOT of random events. Certain events only happen one out of 200 games or have very very strict criteria to "fire". One game I had a GIANT unit appear called the "Peacekeeper" and it forbode war on the ENTIRE map. If anyone built too large of a fleet or attacked someone, it would instantly nuke one planet a turn for a few turns. It was fun the first time around). 

The AI isn't too bad, either. It sure kicks my ass, though I only play it very very causually. 

Reply #83 from Elemental Forums Top

I just uninstalled Elemental Beta and cleaned up under My documents. I AM READY SIR!

 

Edit: Sorry, make that: "I AM READY MR FROG"