Your worlds will be of your choosing, or players are free to create their own.

The story of Elemental: War of Magic begins with an immersive single player campaign with you being the only person in your kingdom with the ability to channel magic through mysterious shards of magic that are scattered across the world. These shards, a result of a tremendous cataclysm that occurred a century prior when powerful beings waged war across the world, are the source of much of the world’s magic.

With the powers of old now gone, you now hold the key to the use of magic in your land. As ruler of your land and a channeler of magic, you must decide how much of your power to imbue into your heroes as you build new cities, explore dungeons, perfect spells of ever-increasing power and negotiate with friends and foes alike. Other channelers in the world, whether they be of the race of Men, The Fallen or the Beasts, are also able to access magic and may not share your vision of the world.

“The 1.1 patch for Elemental: War of Magic is an opportunity to enhance and refine the game.  In a limited time frame, the team was able to implement major features. As a result, the game has been rebalanced to remain fun and challenging throughout.  It impacts nearly every aspect of gameplay, the interface and most significantly the role of Magic,” said Derek Paxton, lead producer of Elemental: War of Magic.

Elemental: War of Magic is a PC strategy game set in a fantasy world that puts the player in command of a growing Kingdom or Empire bent on expanding their influence across the world. Players build cities, raise armies, research technologies, go on quests, recruit heroes, negotiate treaties, learn spells and much more in this epic strategy game.

A summary of updates is below:

• Global Mana System- Instead of having mana per unit, mana is a player resource.  Players must balance between using their mana to enchant their cities and units, summoning creatures, attacking their enemies, or saving up for powerful late game spells.
• New Spells- New spellbooks and spells have been added to make magic more unique and strategic.  High level spells can wipe out cities, raise volcanoes and hit enemy armies with powerful tornados that scatter their units across the countryside.
• Population as a resource- Players must consider how their population should be used.  Population is the primary factor for the player’s economy through taxes and each improvement and unit the player builds requires population.  Players have to choose if they want to allocate people to a study researching techs, a workshop producing materials or as a scout to explore the world.
• Dramatic update to the UI- Nearly every screen and interface has been improved to be more useful and intuitive for the player.  Important information has been brought to the main interface, and greater detail is provided in the detail screens so the player can see exactly how his empire is running.
• Rebalance of the game- The core stat mechanics were reworked and every unit, equipment and monster stat was reviewed and tweaked to make for a more balanced and even playing experience.
• More monsters from the beginning- Exploring the early world is a dangerous prospect and bandits and animals roam the world looking for weak groups to pick off.  Some creatures may form powerful armies and travel the wastes together looking for victims to kill and cities to raze.
• Multithreaded AI- The AI now has a separate thread so it can plan its strategy while the player is taking their turn.  This dramatically reduces the between turn wait time (the time a single threaded AI has to spend planning their turn) and improves the AI by allowing us to have it factor in more conditions that would slow the game in a single threaded model.

Check out the entire, 11 pages long, fix list right here...

The game also includes integrated modding tools that allow players to create their own fantasy maps, monsters, tiles, effects and much more. The game ’s story-driven campaign, written by Random House’s writing team, was made exclusively with the built-in modding tools.

Besides including the sand box game and campaign, Elemental also includes a multiplayer mode in which up to 16 players can play online while taking simultaneous turns. Players can save their multiplayer games online and return to them to continue in order to support players who wish to play more epic-sized games.

Like all Stardock titles, Elemental: War of Magic includes no on-disk DRM and will be available for re-download and updates through the Impulse digital distribution platform regardless of wherever it is purchased.

Players who purchase the game by December 31, 2010 are eligible to receive the first expansion pack free of charge.