I'm in support in all options.  I want way gates (HoMM style) wizard towers (MoM style) plane walkers (D&D style?) teleport spells (everthing) super speed things that seem to move instantly (uh... the Flash?  and air elementals from MoM) random holes (subtle knife style? insert cave to another world here)

I thought that was half the point.   Atari isn't making an MoM 2... Ubisoft isn't either.  Micropose is dead.   We NEED an MoM sequal.  The only problem is it isn't allowed to be made, so the next best thing is being made instead.  A game that WOULD be the sequal under a different name.  (I mean improved obviously, no reason to keep un-memorable features or bad mechanics.  But the multi-world thing isn't bad and its basically required for a true MoM sequal)

Wheel of Time-style waygates would be awesome! Having doors scattered around the map, each connected in another world through a maze of paths inhabited by unfriendly creatures. With enough strength/stealth, waygates would be a really cool cost-free way to speed up traveling to certain places!

By cost-free I meant it would require no effort on the channeler's part to use the ways. The cost associated with using the ways would come in the form of lost/degraded units. Your troops would be vulnerable to attack from all sorts of dark creatures, and like Denryu suggested units that have spent too long in the ways could be negatively affected. I'd like to see most types of units that spend far too long there even desert and become malevolent creatures, so that no player can really take control over the ways.

Even more, the maze-like structure of the ways would make them difficult to use until you've managed to explore a fair amount of it. The relative positions of the exits from the ways shouldn't be related to the relative positions of the waygates in the real world, either. This way it will only be possible to make efficient use of the waygates in certain circumstances (the waygates are fixed, and not that common), and only once you've mapped out a lot of the ways. Mapping out the ways would be a drain on your resources, it's just that the associated cost isn't directly born from your channeler.

Either way, the big issue is getting the pathing to handle these sorts of "shortcuts" effectively and efficiently.

I agree. It's always kind of bothered me that in most games, once you clear something of guardians they're gone for good. But what would be really cool is if you defeat the guardians, scary things can come out of the ways. I don't mean whole armies, but maybe smallish raiding bands and the occasional powerful monster. 

I can see why portals/shortcuts of any sort might be a pain in the butt to whoever is in charge of pathfinding, but we know it can be done. HoMM has portals, and the underground can often function as shortcuts. The AI in HoMM III at least seemed to use them fairly effectively. AoW:SM doesn't really have portals but it has the shadow realm and underground. Any form of map layering at all can effectively be shortcuts between points in the real world, due to terrain.

I see where that can be troublesome.  This is especially true if you get some sort of plane-shifter that can move between planes because the possibilities would be great.

Good old fashioned number crunching.   I'm curios to find how a fast computer and a slow computer might work together if they find different pathing solutions in X amount of time.

That's great! What better way is there to feel like you're part of the gameworld than to get lost in it?!  Seriously, the way you describe your pathfinding skills I really hope the devs don't use you as the benchmark .

I don't claim to know anything at all about programming pathfinding, but I do know that AI's of 10 years ago could handle portals and shortcuts to a reasonable extent. That leads me to believe that stardock is capable of implementing it (in fact I'd be very disappointed if portals/shortcuts aren't implemented because of pathfinding). I could see the proposition of a system like the waygates, with the positions entrances/exits in the two worlds being uncorrelated, being a problem - but it would still be really cool to see! 

To fix path finding issues, when opening a gate bettween 2 citys, do something like this:

Each city needs a pree built gate.

To connect citys you need to "explore the eather for a route" A space time relm thats differnt from our own, days weeks or months could pass for the people in the "eather" while only a turn passes for us.

Weak units could get killed to the nastys.

Once you create a route you still have drawbacks, including raids from the eather, possable backdoor into your city from other players (which would require geting a spy into your city) troops need to keep the route clear for city trade, and your "hero" would have to give some of his magic to keeping the gate open, OR you need to train lesser magic users in the city (and reduce the magic the city gives the hero)

Finally repeated trips through the "Eather" could age units due to the differnce in space time, which would show up as hurt units etc.

I think the best reason to mention the Wheel of Time in this thread is that "as opposed to" might be better as "in addition to." WoT included the Ways, portal stones, Skimming (kind of Ways-like channeler-made rapid movement), and Traveling (temporary channeler-made teleportation gateways). The portal stones stuff is certainly too much bother for a TBS game, but I don't see why the game couldn't support analogs to the Ways, Skimming, and Traveling.

Investment-oriented players (heavy essence spenders) might favor big, permanent gates, while those who focus on channeler strength would learn to open temporary gateways of ludicrous size to help armies appear out of nowhere. And maybe players who like to have a strong group of spellcasting hero units would have several elite squads that could Travel independently of the channeler unit.

Another idea for pathing might be that during 'down time' when the game isn't crunching something particularly important like enemy AI's turn.   it can just overview the map and find quick common routes and stash them between locations.   Points of intrest like cities and portals could have quick access 'closest route is XXXX' saved so it doesn't have to do the math again everytime somebody tries to move a unit between the two locations"

I don't code at all (puttering with XML and HTML don't count, IMO), so I just have more questions.

This sounded on first read like a reasonable cause of death for my interest in some teleport spells. But could it be a category mistake to even consider pathing along with point-to-point teleport functionality, at least if the teleport has no range limits? Wouldn't the AI problem there be more about deciding whether the mana cost is worth the benefit of opening a temporary gate to somewhere?

On the other hand, this does sound like a close analog to an AI decision about a one-time teleport. Doh.

Your forgeting Fairy Trod for Nature mage's , Cloud Trapeezing for Air mage's , Astral Gateways for mage's to take others with them, Shortcuts through the lands of the Dead for Death mage's emerging back in the land of the living at their destination nearly instantly.  Earth Mage's could meld with the land and re-emerge at their destination, Fire mage's could do some crap like in Hary potter with the fireplace's hehe. Blah blah blah.  The more options the better.

Well HoMM uses that all the time.   

MoM's guardians for the wizard towers (or whatever the gateway howers were called) were not really the only thing protecting the gateways as well.   That is, to go through a tower, cross the world of myrrer, and out of a different tower can be really hard since monsters and such on the other world are very powerful.

Alternativily, you can't see things on the other world, so an AI would need to be able to realize that the benifit of movement outside the field of vision that other players might have.   I know I love to move units around the long-way around just because I know the other players have fog of war there.  That is going to be a pain with waygates.