"Quests
Players are not the only ones who can go on quests in the world. Across the lands, parties of adventurers are exploring dungeons, ruins, and abandoned castles looking for glory, treasure, rare items or all of the above. Some of these adventurers can be recruited. Other times the player, as the sovereign of their lands, must clean up the mess of these adventurers."

The heading and the paragraph here dont seem to match...? Quests: Hire some adveturers!

I get 'cleaing up the mess' is player quests but I only know that cos I read it elsewhere.

Anyway the thing I liked most about GalCiv2 was designing my own ships - might be so again in this title.

Everything sounds great!!!! i just cant imagine this....

• World Class computer AI.

What is world class? With what could i compare it ? 

Must read thread!

Once upon a time factions were to have a couple of elements associated to them. As the Sovereign can now pick up books at creation, that idea is no more? That would leave factions being different from each other by appearence and tech trees?

Let's hope it is more about AIs with distinctly different values/personalities. Faction (pre)history needs to shape AI behavior at least as much as practical matters like research possibilities.

Strictly speaking, "world class" is a tired-to-death marketing phrase in the software business. In terms of comparisons, I've not played a non-Stardock TBS heavily for several years--the last ones I really liked were MoO2 and Civ3. I like GC2 AI better than AI in both those games because it does not cheat until you ratchet the diff level way up, and even then the cheats are just ability bonuses and none of that instant-fleet sort of stuff that MoO2 seemed to do.

Like all game AIs (which after all, aren't anywhere close to being real AIs), the ones in GC2 have weakness that hardcore competitive types can exploit. But unlike other games I've played, they have enough 'smarts' to be a real factor in replayability. They respond to variations in map settings and your choice of other civs to include in the game, and until you've gotten really confident about the mechanics, they can keep a single player on his or her toes. I still play GC2 at Tough, the last level before bonuses kick in. Sometimes that means a map that feels a bit easy for me, but even after many, many hours of playing, the story generated by a given sandbox game can seem like a good new episode in a favorite TV series.

Frogboy: Thank you! Wonderful summary.

One question about Unit Design:

Will we be able to give units special abilities in addition to Equipment?  Examples: Cause Fear; Inspire other units; Resist Magic; Flight; etc.

Okay, I'm really liking the sound of this game now. I hope we can make nonrandom maps as well though.

I'm still hoping that this particular change will be rescinded or substantially modified. It sounds far to much like making a magic system equivalent of railroads in Civ1-3, only worse because it would make big chunks of spell knowledge useless for a certain range of map types and playstyles. I wouldn't mind some very rare/high-end spells (especially the world-wrecking stuff) that had a shard requirement, but to make it the norm seems excessive.

The beta itself already contains the map editor, so yes, you can make your own maps.

We don't know how many spells require that yet, or how many shards there are likely to be in a given game. I'm not that worried about it right now.

I mean at one point wasn't the idea to have shards each give mana of that type? That's even more restrictive.

no it does not

Loving everything I'm reading except for two things:

This will only cause problems, which to me are obvious, but not many others see it yet I guess. Every fantasy book, game, or movie I have ever seen has nations whose borders are all together. Having a sovereign whose exploring the map and also laying down cities is going to result in them being all over the map, hardly giving them a chance to be collective. I think city growth and establishment should be more fluid than that. Like the ideas in this thread. My bet is that by the end of the beta testing this idea will be abolished. You can hold me to that  

If this is how dowries will work than this is probably how trade will too. The economy shouldn't revolve around a "gold value/turn". I think gold should just be worth its weight. So the value of one gold piece will fluctuate from game to game. A dowry should just be a lump sum of gold, resources, etc. that makes the "deal" worthwhile. Gold/turn is completely overused and over-rated. Elemental can do so much better than falling back on what every game I can think of in history has done.

How many difficulty settings will the AI have? I like it when there are at least 4 (although I hate when developers let the comps. cheat so they can play competitively) 

Essence has to be sacrifed in order to make the land livable. Therefor either your sovereign or a another channler needs to  start the city in order to remain consistant.

I do NOT want to see that mechanic changed much as is makes your cities much more valuable - and prevents endgame city spam.