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As Stardock president and CEO Brad Wardell show off his company’s next game, Elemental: War of Magic, I jokingly ask “So, is this GalCiv 2 with wizards?” Wardell quickly notes that despite coming from the same development team, Elemental is not a simple medieval reskin of Galactic Civilizations 2; its inspiration lies more with Master of Magic or Civilization. Its premise is like many other turn-based strategy games: you control a Sovereign and carve out an empire from nothing — with military, magic, and diplomacy as your tools.
One of the more interesting things Wardell points out, as he explains the premise, is that the current beta (which you can participate in by pre-ordering the game) doesn’t use the fancy new 3D graphics engine he’s showing off. Basically, the screen you see below isn’t what you’ll see in the beta right now; at the moment, the beta uses the 2D “cloth-map” perspective. Wardell comments, “We’re doing this because we believe if the game is any good, it should still be fun even when it looks like this.” Additionally, this view is an example of the low system requirements — if you have nice hardware, you get the snazzy 3D; if you have a netbook, then you’ll be playing in 2D.