Well I started over for a third time yesterday. Had to really after going to the bother of creating custom faction leaders and editing them into the factions via some (very simple) XML sauciness. Third time may be the charm in other things. Not so much in Elemental. While I wasnt doing particularly poorly the third run at it was extremely slow in comparison to the other two attempts, not much going on other than building up my forces in isolation. I suppose thats the chance you take with random maps. Still I pushed on and was around Turn 363 when the game decided to go tits up (yet again). It now consistently crashes every three to four turns, and frankly Im bored with re-starting and re-loading. I see that a new patch (and attendant hotfix) is out. So I think I’ll wait until I’ve installed that and then give it another go.
While Im certainly enjoying the game (when it works) I dont think I would recommend buying it just yet. While there is a decent enough level of content (and an awesome amount of easily added customisation) the game still feels very sparse in terms of upgrades and tech trees. There is also the issue of how buggy the game is. While its not actually unplayable the amount of glitches certainly mars one appreciation of the game. Now based on both their stated aims (and previous releases) Elemental will be seeing bug fixes and update patches for at least another year or so. Which is excellent, but doesnt make the game any better right now.
Im going to give the new patch ago and see if I can make it to turn 500 without the game shitting itself. If I can manage that then I’ll continue with the Elemental Let’s Play. If not, then Im afraid Im going to shelve it for a month or three. To give the game time to get updated and patched into something that I dont feel ripped off for having spent money on.
Listening to: Johnny Cash - That Lucky Old Sun