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War of Magic

From our aboriginal attending at Elemental, it's bright that the bold draws afflatus from several sources admired throughout both the fantasy and action universes: The Lord of the Rings, Master of Magic, Sid Meier's Civilization, and the Total War franchise. As a baton of a civilization, or a channeler, you'll abound your kingdom, authorize new cities, recruit heroes to your banner, and do action adjoin evil. Unless you adopt to be evil, in which case you can accurately the armament of acceptable in the mouth. The bold has added than a year actual in development, but we sat down with Brad Wardell, advance artist of Elemental and admiral and CEO of Stardock Entertainment, to get the latest. Here's what he had to say.

Humans advance technology to advance resource-gathering. The Fallen adopt raw power.

GameSpot: Elemental looks to be an aggressive project, to say the least, with elements fatigued from Master of Magic, Civilization, and Total War. How would you call Elemental? What is it abutting to?

Brad Wardell: It actually does draw from a lot of altered games. I'm added of a bold amateur than a developer--I advance amateur so that I can play them (and achievement others wish to play them too!). I would say that Elemental will be a lot like Master of Abracadabra and Acculturation in agreement of the cardinal elements and a bit like the Total War alternation for the appropriate battles.

In essence, you're architecture a acculturation in a fantasy universe. You're founding that association that you may accept played D&D or some added role-playing bold in.

GS: We accept that, like in some of the added fantasy action amateur that came afore it, in Elemental, you aswell ascendancy a appearance in the bold that can action in battles and aid in city-limits management. What admiral does your appearance have, and what are some absorbing means you can advance him in the game?

BW: Your appearance has immense ability that grows over time as he levels up. At the alpha of the game, you're actually indispensible. The apple of Elemental begins with an actually devastated landscape, and alone through activity abracadabra (or afterlife magic, depending on how you play) can the arid apple be brought back. That magic, at the alpha of the game, flows from you. You can alone begin cities in places that are no best abandoned wastelands, and you can alone do that by imbuing the acreage with some of your essence--which, already used, is gone forever.

Over time, you can bathe some of your champions with your aspect so that they can casting spells and admission your all-around backbone pool, but at the alpha it's just you, and if your appearance dies it's bold over.

As the bold progresses, you accretion levels as your champions and you accretion acquaintance (anything that has some of your aspect in it will aswell alteration some of its acquaintance aback to you), [so] you can become added powerful. Depending on one's strategy, their appearance may be a titan a la Sauron at the alpha of Lord of the Rings (the movie), or if they've broadcast out their aspect a lot, they may not be abundant added than a Sorcerer King who mostly stays in the basal city.

GS: Take us through the basics of city-limits management. What assets are at your disposal, how do you abound your commonwealth and access in military/magical might?

BW: Every city-limits founded has a keep. The accumulate provides a amount of basal assets for that city-limits such as food, stone, and wood. If abundant antithesis aliment is collected, the city-limits grows. If the city-limits grows, the amateur is able to add a asphalt to their city-limits which can be placed in any adjoining amplitude on the absolute city. Inside of these tiles, players can body abundant barrio (a asphalt can authority assorted buildings) such as farms, housing, barracks, forges, temples, academies, etc.). These assorted barrio aftermath altered things for the amateur such as aggressive units, spell research, tech research, ability enhancement, etc.

GS: Along the aforementioned lines, while you're developing your domain, how big of a role, for instance, does abridgement play adjoin aggressive or bewitched development? Are you traveling to accept to bang a antithesis amid these areas of development for your kingdom? If so, how calmly will it be to about-face apparatus from one clue to another?

BW: The abridgement is one of the abounding things a amateur will accept to balance. In the acceptable 4X action game, players bisect assets amid researching tech, architecture infrastructure, or architecture units. In Elemental, you accept the added ambit of researching abracadabra and convalescent your absolute and champions.

One of the key distinctions amid Elemental and what we've done afore is that we wish there to be assorted paths to achievement that actually absorb agitative gameplay in them [and] are actual altered from one another.

GS: We accept that hero characters can be begin throughout the apple of Elemental. Tell us about the altered types of heroes, their roles in the game, and how you can recruit them to your cause.

BW: Around the apple of Elemental are assorted heroes. If players acquisition these heroes, they accept all kinds of altered stats that accomplish them acceptable at altered kinds of things. So if players alpha to recruit heroes, they will charge to attending at their stats and get an abstraction of how they wish to use them