I'm in school / work a lot so I didn't have time to finish this game until now. I finally cast my spell of making and wow, what a dissapointment that was!

In Master of Magic (mom), you felt more like you were a part of the game because of the way you were able to mold the world around you. Elemental does not have that feel for me. Here is a short list of some of the features I liked better:

1. Tactical spells were cast instantly while overland spells took time based on your caster's ability. You can link it to the total intelligence of the sovereign or all the casters in the army. So if a spell of making is 500 mana and the int of sovereign is 50, then you need 10 turns to cast this spell. (Ideally, SoM is MUCH more mana). This way if someone is going to cast that spell, you have time to attack him/kill him, and make him restart casting it. (This also allows you to counter that spell for example.)

2. I want to be able to manipulate my land in a meaningful way. I cast something, was it nature's bounty? and it was supposed to beautify the land. All it did was cast some flowers/plants for 1 second, it didn't help my town at all. In mom, you could change a tile with a bit of gold, to one with a lot of gold. A spell to change farms from 5 food to 8 food etc would be cool. (Change terrain/transmute are the spells in mom).

3. I want global enchantments! In mom, some wizard you had never met cast a global enchantment that turns all the fallen foes into zombies. You're like, crap, I got to get at him. These spells let us interact diplomatically, not everything should be about money. One wizard casts a spell like armageddon (raising volcanoes randomly around the world) and they lose face, and casters start to dispell the armageddon.

4. Spell descriptions suck! There was a spell that raised volcanoes on my foes! Ok, so.. do they get hurt? Can I get extra mana for each volcano? Why would I want to cast it? Mom had great right click quick pop up info.

I'm just naming things I liked in Mom that I didn't like here. There are more, but this is a good start. I feel like ver 1.1 is significantly better than previous versions but mostly because it is now more like mom =]