Elemental War of Magic



Elemental - War of Magic is a fantasy 4X game released in August 2010. The game is set in a world ravaged by a catastrophic war against the Titans, beings of great and powerful magic.

The player is a "Sovereign", an immortal ruler capable of reviving the land and great feats of magic. Depending on racial choice (between Fallen or Human), the player either turns the land into lush green plains or volcanic hell zones.

The game was almost unplayable right after release but a large number of patches have been cleaning up some of the problems.


 * After the End - Technically the game is this. You start out in a magical wasteland, and you have to expend your "essence" to change the land to suit your people.
 * All There in the Manual - The Hiergamenon.
 * Amazing Technicolor Population - Your sovereign can have pretty much any colour for their skin.
 * Big Badass Wolf - Horse-sized, even! Mount of choice for Empire factions.
 * Censorship Bureau - The ESRB forced the developers to remove "Ale" as a resource / item from the game.
 * Copy Protection - As with all Stardock games, there is none. No copy protection, no DVD required.
 * Brad Wardell's statements suggest that the Copy Protection is really in the patches - see Obvious Beta, below. Note that this is standard practice for Stardock: no copy protection, but if you want the updates (which generally make the game better, and not just in a "tweaking" sense), you'll need to have purchased it.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive - The Financier unit, backbone of the Imperial economy.
 * Death World - An arid barren waste, filled with giant spiders, trolls and golems? Sounds good.
 * Desert Punk - To a certain extent, the world of Elemental is a post-apocalyptic low magic fantasy world. The game mechanics and game style try to encourage this but the genre expectations of the players get in the way.
 * Elemental Powers - Four of the magic schools your character can learn are fire, ice, air and earth.
 * The Empire - One of the two possible political systems, a favorite with the Fallen, believing in a Might Makes Right philosophy. Their armies consist of conscripted peasants, led by elite aristocratic officers, their research and education is done by specifically appointed officials, and their economy is run by Corrupt Corporate Executives.
 * Game Mod - From the dev journals, the game appears to be very, very moddable, even if the modder doesn't know Python.
 * Generational Saga - Start out with a Sovereign, end up with an army fielded out of your pants.
 * Good Kingdom Evil Empire - Used as a game mechanic. Civilizations with Kingdom in the name all have some concept of human rights, the importance of collective social action, and the importance of individual liberty, while civilizations with Empire in the name believe in a Might Makes Right philosophy. Both philosophies are reflected by their corresponding technology trees.
 * In addition, Kingdom-aligned civilizations revive the land, making it lush and green. Empire-aligned civilizations corrupt the land, making it black and barren (though not as barren as the default terrain).
 * Hero Unit - The sovereign, his family and any champions he picks up along the way.
 * The Kingdom - The other possible political system, favored by the humans. Fond of things like public institutions and human rights. They have professional soldiers who gain experience, and their research, education, and economy depends on civic institutions such as schools and markets.
 * Mundane Utility - "I'm just going to use my near infinite power to give you guys bigger houses."
 * Canon Welding - There's sufficient shared terminology to indicate that Elemental is in fact set on ancient Altaria.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy - Potentially the Fallen.
 * Obvious Beta - The release version of Elemental had six patches in the first four days of release, and was accused of being a beta version by a writer at PC Gamer, among others.
 * To put this in perspective, Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire both shipped in somewhat-buggy states, and also received a couple patches each within the month of release. Elemental was shipped (against numerous suggestions NOT to release it as-is from the preordering beta testers) and patched more times in a shorter timespan than both of those titles.
 * It has been implied, after the release, that very few people at Stardock wanted to release the version they did, but were pressured into doing it.
 * Implied by whom? The official version is that the development team was very badly organized and that everyone was too close to the project to see the flaws. This is why Brad Wardell says that even another six or twelve months of development would not have made a difference, because they really did think the game was ready. Since then the game development side of Stardock has seen a major overhaul with many new people coming in to fill key positions, the most notable being Derek "Fall From Heaven" Paxton who has experience managing enterprise projects.
 * Stardock acknowledged the difficulties and problems of the initial release, regardless of why those reasons existed. In an act of apology and thanks, Stardock allowed anyone who paid full price for War Of Magic to download the beta for the sequel Fallen Enchantress, in addition to getting a free copy of the game when it is released.
 * Our Orcs Are Different - Again, potentially the Fallen in a way.
 * Shout-Out - According to Brad Wardell, the player's character card is a a shout out to Magic: The Gathering.
 * Sorcerous Overlord - The player can make their sovereign this.
 * Spiritual Successor - This game is generally considered the spiritual successor to Master of Magic.
 * Summon Magic - A type of magic in game. Includes, but is not limited to (it's limited to how many mods a player wants to use, technically), giants of the four elements, demons, familiars etc.
 * Technology Marches On: As you explore your tech tree, new weapons and armor become available, along with new units based on those technologies. However, this trope is averted: none of your units ever become useless. They keep their experience and can upgrade their weaponry whenever you want, as long as you have the money to do so.
 * Viral Marketing - The "army" user ad campaign.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair - The player's sovereign can have any colour for their hair.
 * Zeerust - You can opt to play on a virtual cloth map the entire game.