Gamespot, Kotaku and IGN have all recently published previews of Stardock’s Elemental: War of Magic.

Here are some highlights.

1) Families as Vassals: The parallels to both Paradox’s Crusader Kings and George RR Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice are obvious. Your sovereign will have children that will serve him/her and get married off to strengthen alliances and refresh the family potting soil. Your sovereign is immortal, it seems, so you may not get a disputed throne. Think of the family members as resources you can use, though they may be unreliable or unsuited for the task you need them to do. Plus marriages muck up the diplomatic matrix, so have fun.

2) Alternate paths to victory: Conquest, obviously. And diplomatic. There will also be heroic quests tied together in a story that will satisfy some victory conditions.

3) It’s pretty: Lots of discussion about the cloth map, which looks ripped straight from a Tolkien introduction. Still some work to do on the ground level/city map but there will eventually be randomly generated terrain that both looks good and serves an ingame purpose.

4) Modding emphasized: No surprise here. Just as GalCiv has become a haven for sci-fi modders, Elemental promises to make custom content not-too difficult to develop.

The more I learn about this game, the more I want to learn.