You could play as a charismatic swindler, who is skilled at diplomacy but perpetually unlucky. Or you could be a powerful warrior, able to track enemies in the field but far too arrogant to attract many followers. You can spend points to equip yourself with powerful spells or better weapons as well. There's a significant visual side to your customization, and you can even make a small trading card to represent your sovereign in the game. With that done, you'll need to align yourself with one of the game's ten factions. Alternatively, you can even make your own unique faction and conquer the world under an entirely original banner. Will you champion the cause of industrious, good-hearted folk, or become the leader of a race of evil warriors who prey on the weak? When the game begins and you actually see your sovereign walking around the map, there won't be any doubt that you made them the way they are. And when you add in the possibility of 32-player online games, you really won't know what to expect from your opponents. Though+it's+definitely+a+4X+game,+Elemental+also+has+lots+of+RPG+elements. As different as the backgrounds can be, all players are Channelers who can expend their essence to bring life to the world around them. The land itself has been ruined through a prior disaster, and now it's up to the Channelers to make it livable again. The trick is in finding the right balance between the essence you spend to allow your people room to grow, and the amount you keep for yourself in anticipation of a future need. If you expand too quickly, you may find yourself far too weak to fend off other players' attacks. After placing your first city, you'll be faced with a number of important decisions. Cities themselves will level up based on the available food and housing, but you'll play an important role in determining how your cities grow. You may fill in the city tiles with huts and gardens to feed your people and increase your population, but you'll probably also want to find some place for other important buildings to improve research or boost other crucial pillars in your infrastructure. If you construct a study, you'll have the chance to explore the game's technology system. Rather than simply letting you pick and choose a path through specific technologies, Elemental divides things up into general categories. So you might opt to research civics, or war, or diplomacy, and once you reach a certain threshold, you'll be given a chance to choose which specialization from that group you want to discover. Civics, for instance, might help you uncover a farming or mining advance, or even give you the secrets of advanced engineering.