I like the water-colour look. And i love the idea of a unique art style. Too many games are just overlooking this aspect.

Still we don't really know what the game is looking like in action though ... Maybe the time is coming soon to dissipate the mists of mystery ...

That pic is really awesome. Love all the details.  I wish you could spoil us more often with pics like this. (Elemental wallpapers?)

I really like the attention to detail on those models. I can't wait to see some up close unit models. 

That looks great. Do do realize we sound like a flock of children shouting "more, more more", but is there any chance we can get some examples of different architectural styles? We've been told (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that there's going to be a number of choosable styles, as to how towns and such will look.

That looks like some kind of mongolian mordor style.
I want Crystal Spire style, Ruski Onion-Dome style, Indigo Bear style, Mordorian Necropolis style!

The list is endless!

With buildings that pretty, I'll almost certainly spend more time zoomed-in than I do in GG2.

My addition to the art sample begging: I want to see some of those 'stylized' things you mention. Towards the bottom of my pet peeves with GC2 is the relative paucity of zoomed-out ship and fleet icons (there's no consistent way to distinguish hull types or fleet sizes. Will Elemental be able to generate that sort of icon based on the architecture of the 3D-level objects? Or will it at least have a large set of fixed icons that relibly provide basic info about the unit or group they represent?

Wow, this looks so amazing! Thank you for the update Frogboy! I love the art behind video games, and I totally agree with what your going for. Looking forward to more and more as we near the beta testing!

That's a very good decision .

Stylized graphics doesn't age, so even in 5-10 years, the game will still looks good. Realistic graphics always look painfully dated once the next generation comes out.

smashing awesome.   So is that the low end or high end rendering picture?

Good stuff to be sure. I would like to see the objects close up and in different styles however.

It seems there's a bit of a wave of artistry taking certain elements of the computer games industry at the moment. I'm glad Stardock is part of it, and the look is great.

I am wondering, would those (gorgeous) models go straight into the game as they are, or does the polygon count need reduction first? Additionally, will your engine be doing extra effects for DX 10 compared to DX 9? If so, I might consider upgrading to a recent graphics card.

It is because of how hard it is to go for just plain 'realistic' graphics.  To have state-of-the-arts realistic graphics, then only the top-of-the-line computers can run it, and lower end computers either get a very poor 'low-quality' version or can't run at all.   

Stylized art however lets you still get a beautiful theme on both high end and low end computers + making the game memorable because of style. 

I suspect that soon almost everybody is going to be going that way too.  Not just PC games.

Really looks good, frogboy.

What I didn't liked in this picture was that that stoned wall bulding seemed comparably small. I think its much better everything up to scale with eachother. Looking it, the houses inside it are smaller if compared to the other structures in the image and the bulding is shriked. Many games like early Age of Empires tend to shrink some models instead of letting them all correlated in size. But maybe that was just in this picture since the buildings was taken separately and put together for it at different approximations. I think everything up to scale is a better route and more fun.

Aside that the details are nice, I like that house with the fence. The L house on the left seems like intended to be big but is really small because of it's big doors and windows. I enjoy the castle in the Media section because everything on it is up to a beleaveable scale (like the windows for exemple) it looks like a big and graceful structure, but the houses inside that castle are bigger than would be and makes the stone wall looks small and not imponent.

I know that many things in a strategy game are meant to be representative, still it's better closer to realistic scale has possible in most of it. Thats what will make be fun to zoom to a structure. But it's nice to see the citzens there.

I'd also like to voice my support for using a more stylized art direction.  I find it much more interesting than attempts at strict realism.

Besides, if a company goes for photo-realism, can they really call it art at that point?  Doesn't "art" imply some sort of personalized touch by the artist instead of just a mechanical re-creation of reality?  Bring on the stylized art instead, it's much more interesting and distinctive!

Oooow these look great! I wonder if these are models for the map view or the tactical view?.. if indeed there's any difference (which I assume there will be from the screenshots to date).

I am also very much in favour of the stylized art direction