I drafted a post on ideas for a series of 'packs' of user-created spells organized thematically.  Then binned it because it's folly.

I need to know the scope and granularity of spell effects. Do spells impact individual units, groups of units within or spread across multiple map grids, or even across the entire map?

Need to know if spells can have negative impacts on the caster (Say I want to make a Fireball spell a la D&D.  But I want it more potent.  Except that for balance considerations I want the caster to suffer a resistance penalty to cold damage for X amount of turns.)

Can spell have effects across multiple turns? (simplest example is if you can make DoT spells.  But creativity rules here, and I'd want to look into creating spells that have different types of effects on each successive turn.

Can AoE spells affect friendly units?

There are tons of questions and the answers to those questions may shape ideas on what we can or cannot do with whatever toolset we're provided with for custom content.  The Holy Grail would be to get a list of stat names or characteristics associated with a spell.  By definition, that would provide answers about what we can or cannot modify (without separate coding).

Can't speak to the question or concern about spell or unit progression (yet), but I will say that I'm really not worried about concerns about 'balance' stemming from player created content.  In other games (and there are many that are modded heavily) these things (balance, playability) tends to sort it outself out, a bit like a self-cleaning oven.

Taking 3 fictitious scenarios (just from my own experience watching how modding communities develop content over time for games like Oblivion, Total Annihilation, Civ IV, Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights to name a few):

1) Ultra-powerful, seemingly unbalanced mods.  sum 1 set up us teh bomb. "We Are Gods Amongst Men!"

Predicted result: folks that like to play either single or multiplayer games where everything is the relative equivalent of the A-Bomb will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

2) Mid-line tweaking, some things a bit more potent, some a bit less.  The Middle-American Mod of Mediocrity (tm) - "It plays well in Peoria".

Predicted result: Of the total pop of players that actually do mod their game (probably not the majority!) this is probably where most folks end up.  they're looking to tweak the game a bit in a direction more suited to their playstyle, and maybe fix a few irritating things.  These folks - probably a majority of players that use mods, will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

3) Hard-Core, Realistic Sadists.  No pain no gain, and it's not fun unless you're bleeding.  "You are not hard-core!"

Predicted result: These folks think that metagaming mechanics (like Save Game features) are for wimps.  Battles should be like 'the real thing'.  You should feel pain before you progress. And the favoured mods will remove some ease-of-use convenience features from the UI, and perhaps make fireballs drop your mage's HP by 50% with each use to avoid spamming the same attacks. (replace 'fireball' with your favored spell of choice).  These folks probably about the same number of people that fall into the 1st category above (if we put faith in a variation of the Pareto Principle) will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

I end up in the 2nd category, and most players I think do as well.  But I *will* definitely futz around with stuff that falls into the other categories to satisfy 1) a curiosity about someone else's mod, and 2) it helps to learn the limits of what can or cannot be done according to game mechanics and rules.

My only wish for a cost-benefit system is smooth curves.  I hate breakpoints from a design perspective, because it encourages min-maxing, giving distinct advantages to micromanagers.  If benefits and penalties scale on a smooth curve (preferably not linear), then it comes down to tactics and strategy.  The best "breakpoint" dependso on the situation: either the situation presented by the player, or--for good players--the situation created by the player.

I estimate a good mix from the way Age_of_Wonders:SM and Dominions_3 did their magic systems would provide a satisfying result.  In Age_of_Wonders:SM you had six spheres to chose for magic at the start of a game and could specialize in one type or mix them as desired... it was possible to collect the other types of spells but only from quests or special structures called magic vaults.  In Dominions_3 every spell could be eventually researched, but only mages with matching magic paths could cast the spell type researched... sometimes magic gems were also needed.

I believe it's important to make it possible to obtain a few spells outside of your researching by completing quests or from a special NPC or structure.  At the very least the map editor should allow the adjusting and placement of spells.

Also by default Elemental: War of Magic might have 5 levels of spells for each category, but I hope it will be possible to add new spells and/or adjust existing spells beyond the 5 levels.   Thus allowing us to move an existing powerful spell to level_8 and thus create new level_6 and level_7 spells since this will be very important for those creating very large maps.

I never saw elements or classes aside the classic ones but a few. I played a game that had classes like Balance, Storm, Ice aside those scheduled to Elemental. That was actually a fun online game and the producers said to have been making it's turn based magic system for 6 months, I've found it very fun and it is all oriented to PvP as to PvE (up to 6 in the same battle) and it is called Wizard 101. Never experienced any other magic system that was as deep and fun yet.

From here:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/338042

So there will be the ability to create new races. Hopefully Stardock can develop a way to create diverse and visually pleasing races without having to be a professional 3D artist/animator. Thinking about the GalCiv2 ship editor I'm pretty sure they can. I'm sure most people here would like to play with staple fantasy races such as Elves and Dwarves, so I'm sure they'll be available almost as soon as the tools are released.

From Brad in another forum:

The game is only going to include two races for story purposes. But players will not only be able to create their own races in-game but actually mod full-blown races, submit them, and share them with other players. So if you want the Klackons in there, you could do that.

Unfortunately I can't find an exaxct source for that quote (but only found it previously quoted on here) but I can assure you that I did read said post previously and independently of it also being posted on here

Edit: it's ok I found the source here yay! Verified!

On the other hand I would think a lot of development time (and hence cost) would go to creating these tools that allow players to create their custom graphics for additional races - I'd rather see that time being spent on game mechanics

I would already be happy with something like the custom race creation in GalCiv II: a wide variety of parameters to fiddle around with, without any need for custom graphics (I'm obviously talking about the race setup, not the ship designer aspect).

I'm torn (as usual). I can see the addition of some great, really well-made races. This again brings me back to Dominions 3, where someone made two excellent mods - one adding pirate-like dwarves and the other adding an elven nation. But on the other hand, for every well-made, well-thought-out, fits-into-the-setting-like-a-glove, there's a goddamn hundred worthless, run-of-the-mill, let's-force-this-shit-in-there-like-a-monkey-through-a-keyhole "yay I want elfeses!"-mods.

I can see the addition of an entire elven subrace. High Elves (WoWesque), Wood Elves (LotResque), Dark Elves (Forgotten Realms Drowesque), Dark Elves (Eberron Drowesque), Fel Elves/Blood Elves/Fey'ri (A mix of all at once). Add some nice interaction between all of them, and we have an entire new race. Of course, right now I'm just dreaming, but I can dream dammit!

And yes, I only now realized how incredibly off-topic this was!

Tolkien elves pretty much started the trope. The distinction between types was very vague thought. The high elves were immortal and if any were killed thier soul would return to the land over the sea. The wood elves were "here in middle earth already" and are distinct from them.

It was all very confusing.

Screw this, I'm making a dedicated thread. I originally had a semi-long post here, and I didn't really care that we were getting a bit off-topic (since we're getting off-topic together, aren't we in fact on-topic?) but I realized I wanted to get creative and began to dig a deeper and deeper hole of off-topicness, where I went from general ideas to very specific models.

So damn, this new thread is up here.

Edit: Added link.