Back in the 80's, 1UPT was just about all there was.  All the Avalon Hill and SSI wargames were 1UPT--and these were on 5 1/4" disks, CPU's were measured in megahertz and memory in kilobytes.   I don't particularly remember the AI being any worse than it is today.   I think it was easier to deal with the AI than it was how to design the UI to handle stacks.   They didn't have a mouse and 3-D engines back then.

IMHO wargaming at the tactical level has never been better than now, but it's because of RTS.  I remember for the longest time there was talk of putting Advanced Squad Leader to a computer game.  That was never going to happen--the rules for ASL were soooo complex, no one was ever seriously going to code that.  So some people looked into it (Atomic Games, I think?), and they just said to heck with it all, just do a squad-level RTS.  And along came Close Combat.  Totally awesome series.

At the strategic level, though, I tend to think the 80's were the golden age for battalion-level and up wargames.  No one's really come up with a better formula than good old counters, ZOC, and stuff.  Thus I think 1UPT's golden age was back then, too.

It's just surprising that nobody has seemed to just borrow the old 1UPT AI's and adapted it to their own games.  Maybe Ubisoft owns the rights to it?

Wait guys so because I waited and bought Elemental War of Magic later, hoping that it would finally be a finished product (and still encountering such graphical bugs that made me spend several hours just to get the thing running) won't even get a discount because the game wasn't bought pre-2010?

I mean the game I bought wasn't very expensive at all considering it was a digital download. But then again it is still a game that I don't consider has left Beta. And I think you guys would agree with me on this one.

I sure hope that FE won't cost 50 dollars because then it's just plain unfair.


Regardless I wish you good luck and I'm sure it will be a nice piece of gaminghistory now that you have a technical base to stand on and can concentrate on the details, AI and fixing bugs.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/403846

If you buy E:wom before FE is released, you'll get a discount for FE.

and here https://forums.elementalgame.com/412178

I've been away from Elemental for quite some time now.  I pre-purchased the original game and waited oh-so-impatiently for it to be released.  It seemed to be everything I ever wanted in a game of this genre, and it was being made by STARDOCK--creators of the Galactic Civ and Sins series... some of the best PC games *ever* IMHO.  Of course, like most, I was completely dumbfounded when I began playing the game.  It just seemed completely disjointed... nothing flowed together at all.  I truly wondered if someone had accidentally sent an early, early beta version to the guys burning the DVDs instead of the final version.

I'm a big believer in Stardock, however, and followed along as they rushed to make things right.  I tried a few updates, but the whole game still seemed disjointed.  I was so disappointed with the whole experience that I wiped the game off of my drive and put the DVD on the shelf where it's been collecting dust ever since.

Fast-forward to today.  This is the first time I've signed in in a loooong time, and I see talk of Fallen Enchantress.  This begs a few questions, and I cannot seem to find the answers to them in the short amount of time I have to "goof off".  If someone could give me some input it would be greatly appreciated!

1) I did see the post on a Summer '11 release for FE, but this obviously did not happen.  To my surprise I can't seem to find an updated schedule, but did see the developer's post that it wouldn't be done until they're happy with it.  With that said, is there an estimated release date at this point, or do we have a typical Blizzard hype about a game that shows up 5 years later? (Are we looking at a Summer '12 release, or is it going to be a year or more from today?)

2) As a pre-purchaser of the original game, will I be able to play the beta of FE?  For that matter, is it out now?  I'm waaaay behind.

3) It sounds like FE is going to be almost a complete re-write in game mechanics.  If so, is it even worth reinstalling EWOM to get "warmed up" for FE?

4) This really doesn't fit this post, but I've got to ask... with the recent 1.4 update, is EWOM finally worth installing?  (I only ask because I have limited drive space on my SSD, and would likely have to uninstall something for it to fit).

Getting guardedly excited here, but it's hard to shake the monkey of EWOM off of my back. 

Thanks so much!  I installed the game last night as well as all three mods.  I simply unzipped each mod into the root directory of the game, made sure the "use mods" box was checked in the "options" tab, but how do I know they are being used?  I played for several hours last night... very enjoyable, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the game economics and especially the building portions of each city.  I never took the time to try to figure this out before, but I think this time around I'll delve into it and see what I can do.  For instance, I'm playing it on the easiest setting (so I could worry less about getting destryoed and more on game mechanics), and although I'm the highest-rated kingdon, I barely have enough money, population capacity or materials to make units, while my "opponents" are walking around with *huge* armies and could easily take each one of my cities one-by-one without stopping, if they chose.  I'm doing something wrong! 

• I preordered E:WoM. I knew the risk I was taking and were still sore from Black and White(still am). Still, I decided to vote with my wallet, that there *is* a market for fantasy TBS. I will never lose hope of one day playing Forgotten Realms Total War or Sid Meier's Middle Earth.
• In my opinion, WoM still isn't a very good game. It is choke full of unrealized potential and other design problems that Frogboy already mentioned. I'm very happy to receive FE for free, as I expect it those design problems to be addressed.
• There should be more trolls on the forum. Frogboy still care what people are saying, and he shouldn't. People who post on the forums can probably find mods to fix their problems, the developer should aim to please the unheard masses.

FTFY.

<Anxiously awaiting trolls> I have popcorn.

The trolls will go hungry this Christmas.