Elemental: War of Magic - Stardock's Fantasy TBS

[GlobalExplorer]

Gamespy has a first preview of Stardock's long awaited fantasy 4X, Elemental: War of Magic.

Gamespy preview

Official announcement scheduled for tomorrow.

The basic gameplay of Elemental, like Master of Magic and Civilization, is a classic 4X conquer-the-world empire builder. Players begin by creating their "channeler." Unlike many "4X" games, the player's avatar isn't a distant unreachable sovereign: The channeler will be an incredibly powerful unit within the game. By him or herself, the channeler will be able to easily take on an entire enemy army and cast spells of devastating power; at the head of an army of men and fantastic beasts they'll be a military force to be reckoned with. The channeler may also remain within one of his or her cities imparting bonuses to the town, casting overland spells that aid in conquering the world, and researching new and more powerful magic spells.

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The world map also plays a significant role in the way the game plays out. One of the design team's mantras is that everything the player sees should be "real." That is, everything in the game should represent a real strategic factor the player must take into consideration. Cities aren't just single-tile icons. Instead players can grow their cities according to specific strategic dictates. As cities expand, players can choose how to spread their cities across the map and can locate individual city elements within those tiles. This can lead to cities being used as fortresses to block specific mountain paths or a situation like the classical Greek cities of Athens and Piraeus in which the Greek city-state's naval power was extremely dependent on maintaining a thin, vulnerable strip of land that let them control the port city of Piraeus.

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The best thing that strategy gamers have to look forward to is how fifteen years and the advent of the Internet have changed what's possible in a turn-based strategy game like Elemental. The game will come complete with several different multiplayer modes, including classic skirmish and a persistent universe mode that will allow players to develop long-term open campaigns.