So, what I would like to see in Elemental is:

* More buildings with interesting and varied effects
    * Avoid building endless studies and arcane labs
* Better city defenses
    * Avoid steamrolling the AI, make the game more defensive in nature
* More customization of heroes


Hero customization

Heroes have a job\class - these get assigned by the player. Initially only a small selection of jobs are available, but later more powerful ones are unlocked as research is done and buildings are built. Jobs are a consumable resource - an Assassins' Guild provides a single assassin job, and once that is taken, no other hero can be an assassin until the first one dies or changes jobs.

Each job has the following qualities, with the following options: Armor (Light\Heavy), Weaponry (Simple\Martial\Exotic), Magic (None\Items\Caster), and any extra abilities.

Light armor is padded and leather, useful for fast and mobile characters, who rely on dexterity and dodge. Heavy armor is scale and plate, useful for melee tanks, who expect to be hit a lot but reduce the damage to minimum.

Weaponry - simple is clubs, staves, spears and daggers. Martial is swords, axes, et al. Exotic is unusual weaponry with strange style (such as fencing rapier), and some rarer magical weapons.

Magic - none means the character cannot use magic items. Items means the character can equip magic amulets and rings. Caster means that the character can use some of the channeler's shard connection, and cast spells based on that.

Example jobs:

Warrior - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: None

Archer - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Archery - can use ranged weapons

Rogue - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: Items, Special: Coup De Grace - extra damage to enemies at less than 50% health

Assassin - Armor: Light, Weapon: Exotic, Magic: Items, Special: Assassin Strike - double damage on first attack in combat

Mage - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: Items, Special: Arcane Archery - can use mage staff for ranged magical attacks (attacker's INT versus defender's CHA)

Swordmage - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: Items, Special: Teleport - can teleport to any square on battlefield once per combat

Warlord - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Leadership - gives bonuses to attack\defense to nearby allies

Healer - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: None, Special: Heals allied units by X amount per turn

Knight - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Exotic, Magic: None, Special: Horseback - can fight when mounted

Horseman - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Horseback - can fight when mounted

Horse Archer - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Horseback, Archery

Hexhammer - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Martial, Magic: Items, Special: Stunning Blow - this unit and all enemy units surrounding it are stuck in place for two turns (can attack normally)

Sorcerer - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: Caster, Special: Can cast spells based on shards, can do 1-radius burst spells

Wizard - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: Caster, Special: Can cast spells based on shards, can do status spells affecting all enemies

Duelist - Armor: Light, Weapon: Exotic, Magic: Items, Special: Agility - dodge bonus

General - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Strategy - gives bonuses to attack\defense to all allies

Scout - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: None, Special: Scout - +2 seeing range

Ranger - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: Items, Special: Scout, Archery

Bard - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: Items, Special: Inspiration - gives bonuses to attack\defense to nearby allies

Barbarian - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: Rage - as berserk spell on himself

You could also have civilian 'classes' (light armor, simple weapons, no magic), though it may be interesting for a single hero have both a 'civilian' class and a 'military' one.

Merchant - Special: Guildar +1 per turn
Diplomat - Special: Diplomatic Capital +1 per turn
Farmer
Administrator
Miner

For city defense forces, there are a few extra jobs:

Civilian - Armor: Light, Weapon: Simple, Magic: None, Special: None
Militia - Armor: Light, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: None
Guard - Armor: Heavy, Weapon: Martial, Magic: None, Special: None

And so on.

More buildings

Unless specified otherwise, all buildings are 1 per settlement.

Forge
- Requires 1 Materials, 1 Metals, provides scale\light plate\heavy plate armor to units stationed in the city

Weaponsmith
- Requires 1 Materials, 1 Metals, provides weapons to units stationed in the city

Hunting Lodge
- Requires 3 Materials, provides 2 Animals
- Can be built instead of finding a Game resource in the wild

Tannery
- Requires 1 Animals, provides padded\leather\studded leather armor to units stationed in the city

Fletchery
- Requires 1 Animals, provides 1 Archer hero job, provides bows to units stationed in the city

Archery Range
- Requires 1 Materials, provides 1 Ranger (w/tech), 1 Horseback Archer (w/tech) job, 2 Archer defense forces

Stables
- Requires 3 Food, provides 2 Horse, provides 1 Horseman job
- Can be built instead of finding a Horses resource in the wild

Barracks
- Provides 1 Warrior job, upgrades any civilian defense forces to militia

Armory
- Requires 3 Materials, allows units stationed in the city to benefit from all the buildings in the kingdom (so doesn't need a tannery\fletchery etc.)

Knight Order
- Requires 1 Metals, 1 Horse, provides 1 Knight job, 1 Guard defense force

Market
- As normal

Merchant
- As normal

Herbalist
- Provides 1 Healer job, +2 arcane research

Hedge Magic Shop
- Requires Market, 1 Mage job, +1 gold, +1 arcane research

Warriors' Guild (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires Barracks, level 2 city, provides 1 Warlord job, 1 Guard defense force, 1 Militia defense force

Thieves' Guild (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires Market, level 2 city, provides 1 Rogue jobs, +X gold

Assassins' Guild (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires Market, level 3 city, provides 1 Rogue, 1 Assassin job

University
- Requires level 3 city, +25% research\arcane research rate

Tower of High Magic (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires University, provides 1 Sorcerer, 1 Wizard jobs, 1 Mage defense force, +X arcane research

Mage School (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires University, provides 1 Hexhammer, 1 Swordmage jobs, 1 Mage defense force, +X arcane research

Fencing Academy (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires level 3 city, provides 1 Duelist job, provides exotic weapons (rapier + parrying dagger)

War College (1 per Kingdom)
- Requires level 3 city, Barracks, provides 1 General job, 1 Warlord job, 1 Guard defense force

Tailor
- Requires Merchant, provides robes (light armor) and cloaks (accessories), +X gold

Jeweller
- Requires Merchant, provides rings and amulets, +X gold

Better City Defense

So, essentially, every city should have its own defense force that attackers have to overcome. This is generated at siege time based on what the city size is, what the tech level is, and what buildings there are.

City size of 1 gives 1 defender, 2 gives 2, 3 gives 4, 4 gives 6, and 5 gives 8.

This can be improved by taking "squad" tech tree, which will give +25% each to the number of defenders.

So, let's say a city of size 3 with two levels researched -> this gives 150% = 6 defenders.

The city has armory, archery range, barracks, knight order, university, tailor and Tower Of High Magic.

Out of the six defenders, two will be archers (from archery range), one will be guard (from knight order), one will be a mage (from Tower of High Magic), and the remaining two will be militia (rather than civilians, due to barracks). Due to armory, the defenders will be equipped with the best available armor and weapons for their unit type, as well as cloaks from the tailor. The mage will be wearing robes from the tailor as well.