Yeah, The Spell of Mastery always struck me as a little bit too on the nose I prefer The Spell of Making as it's slightly more obtuse and esoteric

The delay to September is too bad, but no surprise ... but anyway what is important is to get the final game right. So just keep up the good work.

The various victory conditions, and especially the terrain-wrecking magic, rule!  Give us some Silver death please!

When it comes to the basics there is only one complaint: no different races/creatures can be produced. Sorry, but modding in your own races is just not good enough and it's just too bad the game has taken this road ...    I already cross my fingers for the FANTASY expansion! The fact that you can only produce human units while you encounter various creatures also raises a question about the creatures on the map: can all of these be used by any civilization or will they be linked somehow to your alignment/faction. Normally in fantasy you have both good and evil races/creatures, but most of them are never interchangeable (that's part of the fantasy as opposed to a realistic/scientific view on things). A vampire is a corrupt creature of darkness, a unicorn one of light and goodness.

When it comes to the graphics it is on the right track but I hope it will be improved before the final version, otherwise it could be somewhat of a letdown for a game published in 2010. Hint: the terrain in the last screenshot looks a bit "empty". But the artwork is really good.

Overall it looks like the best game in ages - all categories!

You can't produce non-human/fallen creatures but you can recruit them. You will in all likelihood have fantastical creatures in your armies, but your armies will be comprised of mainly your own race. I don't see that as a problem, I love it actually. Now, if we couldn't even recruit fantastical creatures and beings into our armies I'd be really disappointed but as it stands I think Elemental is on a wonderful track in this regard. Fantasy does not require fantastical creatures to dominate over everything else. Some of the best fantasy, in fact, does the opposite.

Take even LoTR, for example. Yes it has lots of races, Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, goblins, orcs, etc. But what are the creatures that really inspire awe? The Balrog. Sauron and Gandalf (maiar). The Nazgul. Galadriel (most powerful Elf in Middle Earth). The Ents - a dwindling species of ancient and powerful guardians of the trees. If you took out those, the world of LoTR would be a much less intriguing place - it's the rare but powerful fantastical beings in LoTR that make it really exciting. Beside them the elves, men, hobbits and dwarves don't seem all that different - some are wiser, stronger, craftier, sneakier, but they all fall into very similar molds that are only broken by the spectacular and the uncommon.

Fantasy doesn't require black & white good vs. evil, either. That's the LoTR way of doing it, and it is certainly one method of doing so and it certainly works well enough. But in general, you can have as many shades of grey in fantasy as in any other genre. 

This is actually more a discussion about fantasy literature, but I do agree in principle. But note that there is a key difference between how common a creature i said to be in the world (elf= rather common compared to a Nazgul for example) and the role it plays in the story. As a matter of fact, in many respects Sauron is one of the main characters of LOTR, although he is actually never featured "live" in any single scene. Why? Because everyone is constantly talking about him, he provides much of the backstory, he sets the scene for the overall conflict ... The book is a lot about him, just look to the title of the novel ...  Also, look to the Nazguls: in effect they are more prominent than dwarfs or goblins for example, storywise. Saying they are rare is just a trick of the authour to make them more exciting. And the rare impressive creature (like dragons, Nazgul), doesn't preclude the more basic ones like the usual orc, goblin, elf etc.  They can very well coexist. Anyway, LOTR is a novel, let's not forget that Elemental is a strategy PC game:

Recruting fantastical creatures is fine, but we still don't know how the game will handle creature versus alignment: if I play an archevil faction of the Fallen, would I still end up with unicorns in my armies just because they are the most powerful creature I might have early access to? I sure hope not. Better would be that the alignment of the creature on the map decides its morale when it joins any faction, so that good creatures like unicorns would rather attack an evil faction than join it. On the other hand, this would introduce a lot of more chance to the game, as you could end up with only creatures to get rid of instead of to use as resources in the early game ...

I think the reason many consider the Nazgul, Ents and whatnot so much more "fantastical" than elves and dwarves is because they are so "vanilla" today. They're in virtually all fantasy, in important roles. In almost every single RPG, they're playable, etc.

yay new screens shots, lets hope for more in future posts!

Honestly I think a lot of the same principles that apply to literature apply to games of the same genre. Obviously some things that are fun to read about are not at all fun to play and vice versa, but there is a huge common ground. And roles creatures play in the story are often asymmetrical to how common they are. We don't read fantasy books about some random grunt in an army - that's just not as exciting. And even though creatures like the Nazgul were in some ways more prominent than goblins and orcs (and definitely dwarves, they hardly made an appearance), the fact that they are limited to 9 and there usually being fewer than that present made a big difference. If there were an army of Nazgul they wouldn't have been as intimidating or as effective in capturing your attention. Same with the Balrog - if Balrogs kept popping up here and there throughout the book they just wouldn't have the same effect. My point is that this 'principle' is just as true in books and in games. The trick in games is to balance it so that such creatures are rare enough that they're exciting but common enough that we actually get to play with them and see them on a fairly regular basis.

Games where fantastical units are so prevalent to the extent that they are as common as or more so than 'regular' units makes the fantastical units become regular units. It's more exciting to see them (wandering, in your army and even in opponents' armies) when they aren't common. Being uncommon and uncommonly powerful makes them more significant, I think, than making them the mainstay of the game.

I agree with you that some creatures should certainly have intrinsic alignments, but not all and maybe not even most. Unicorns, sure - it's been so drilled into us that unicorns are good shiny happy creatures that there would be an uproar if Stardock made them neutral (god forbid evil!), although I think that would be an interesting take on matters I'd like to see them break out of the normal 'alignment' mold and be creative. They should create their own original creatures, and they should take liberties with the archetypal ones to add some freshness to the game.

To break cliches just because they are cliches is very bad. To break them to offer some really interesting and with sense, is another thing. If Stardock could do the second, then ok. If not, let Unicorns alone. (doesn't D&D already have en evil unicorn?)

yeah, an evil unicorn isn't exactly amazing.  its just an evil magical horse with a horn by concept.   I like breaking cliches as much as the next guy, but I hang out with too many "idea guy" designers that think such an idea is "creative".   But that being said, if somebody said "oh, I wish they had a yeti with horns in Elemental" I'd likely shrug it off as nothing exciting.  But the yeti image above I think is a pretty awesome piece of art.  So you can do anything with anything should it be done with a good vision and talent.

Not to bead a dead bear or anything but to me the "spell of making" sounds an a lot like "the spell of doing stuff" or

"spell where things happen".  Better to my ears is the "spell of ending", "spell of twilight", "the breaking of ages", "song of the new age", "seeds of the new age", "wall of time", "the shattering" ect.   The "making" sounds like a craft project.

One thing I really like about this last journal entry are the pictures of the cities-some of them have double walls-I wonder how this will effect seiges?

It really depends on what we're making. If it's the spell of pure creation, that is, Massive Cold Fusion Power + Universal Energy-to-Matter Constructor, "Spell of Making" sounds great. It's the spell that makes something from nothing.

Edit: Man, the basic smiling-smiley creeps me out.

Thanks for the FAQ and updates Frogboy and team! Great info!

Liking the screenshots too.

Also, appreciate the tidbits on twitter. Only reason I use it.

Yes I totally agree. So in that sense it's good that the fantastical creatures will be rare in Elemental. But it's definately possible to keep a dragon rare and powerful also in a world with say orcs and goblins. If you had entire armies of dragons (like in Silmarillion, earlier referred to as a main inspiration for Elemental by the way) then you would need to add something else which is rare and even more powerful, like a demigod or the like. It's all about inflation and relativity.

Regarding the clichéss I think it has to be remembered that there is a reason for something being a cliche. Some images and concepts resound strongly within people in a certain way, that's why they become so popular that they eventually turn into clichés. The difficult thing is to be creative and come up with something new that still resounds  as strongly (in a positive way!) within people. If Stardock could do this it would of course be the best. But  I must say that  often in books the author fails terribly in trying. They try to be fresh and modern and end up with something that just feels contrived or worse. And in games it's often even worse since so much effort goes down on the technical side and other aspects than the story/world concepts.  So please, no "fresh" evil unicorns or vampires choosing their alignment freely.

The dragon is one of the rare creatures fitting for both absolute good and abslolute evil, but the alignment has to be well reflected in the type of dragon, it's looks, powers etc. A beautiful gold dragon is traditionally good. A dracolich animating the dead is fitting for evil. It can be noted that in Western myth the dragon is considered evil (but D&D was so successful at coming up with good "western" dragons that they feel like part of an old myth now ...). While in the East dragons were often good, but looked different (more like snakes with many legs and manes ...).

I don't think any one single action such as a single spell should allow a victory.  On a very large map a smaller nation can instantly end a good challenging game... there's no clues to even identify this threat.  At least with a diplomacy victory it would take time and players can attempt to stop the threat.  Even the quest of victory can provide a series of stages which other players should be able to recognize and work towards preventing the opponent. 

If an all powerful winning spell exists it should include not only the necessary research, but the forging of an item and then the construction of a building where only one can be done at a time.  When the item is forged all players are notified and then the building can be constructed... once constructred all players are notified.   

I can't think of anything worse than....  SURPRISE  you lost.