I'll try and keep this fairly organized. This is all based on a few recent campaigns I have tried since .86 was released.

Monster Dens - These are the caves/lairs that some creatures are guarding on the map.

I have found that they like to come out of their den, usually to attack me when I end my turn too close. After that their treasure is exposed and free to take as they rarely move back on top of it. This seems like a bad idea for them to move at all. From what I understand the den will occasionally spawn wandering monsters of a lower caliber. This is a good idea. I am guessing this isn't working as intended.

Next, when my towns influence reaches a monster den they seem to myseriously vacate it and wander outside of my territory after dithering in it for 40 or so turns. Occasionally they will attack one of my cities of which I will lose because I have no possible way to beat them so early in the game. This really needs to change unless it is intended to get your butt handed to you by level 7 monsters that lead a strong army before you even have leather armor technology. Also at that point the monster den gives up its treasure just by visiting it. I would suggest that monster dens stay monster dens regardless of being in my territory or not.

Eventually when I have a chance to win, i will clear out the monster den. I would like to challenge to remain there until I am ready to take it on.

Exploration - During the course of playing I will eventually explore all goodies and quests in my territory. I have started exploring them in other players territory however, they can demand I leave their territory so often than If I get put on the wrong side of their territory I litterally can't get back through without declaring war. WHERE DID THE MOVEMENT SPELLS GO? At least let me magic myself back home.. sheesh.

On the same note it is a little disapointing that when I clear out my territory of monsters that more aren't showing up. How am I supposed to level up my champions? I know there are buildings that if you sit there with your champion you can get xp, and that's an awesome alternative, but I would like to go out and use them instead.

Several quests that were great fun ended up being in other people's territory. So, given my problems with exploration of the world these are hard to utilize.

Expansion Agression - I have had a few things come up with this. Firstly I've had the computer player walk through and plop a city down in my back yard. They then proceeded to expand their influence and take already established resources from me! This is extremely agressive and also, extremely foolish. The computer needs to have some idea of empire cohesion.

The computer also likes to build in every possible place. There is no frontier! Where is the wild frontier like a monster pit. Where are some dungeons that go underground to add more monsters/places to visit. I feel like the map is totally overtaken and there are no frontiers, no places for monsters any longer, just men and fallen. We need more alternatives like I suggest here.

Empire/Kingdom Ratings - This seems to be one of the biggest indicators I will have people attacking me. I've noticed the computer builds huge amounts of militia caliber soldiers in the beginning. This inflates this rating by more than double mine on average. After they get to be about double they start demanding money and if I refuse they attack me. They always lose hard because my quality beats their quantity. I would suggest that you increase the rating for high quality and decrease it for low quality soldiers. Either that or make the rating much less militaristic and keep it based on relative strength of each kingdoms economy vs each other. I like the rating system, but just like in elemental it needs work, especially if important decisions are being based on it. Also in elemental if you reload a game from a save you'll notice the computer lose a hundred to two hundred rating points. How is that possible without a bug being present in the scoring system.

Magic, I feel restricted - So the scenario is this, I make Mephisto the fire mage of doom as my sovereign. I start playing my game and I have 0 fire shards in my territory. This happens pretty often actually. Basically my fire spells suck, and thats what I wanted to play. They gradually get more powerful as I level, but a major part of spell damage and effect is extra shards. By the end of the game I'm wishing I would have made Bubba, the axeman instead because i'm hitting like a limp noodle. I would highly suggest that every shard contribute to the power of my spells regardless of the school, HOWEVER make fire shards contribute double or the normal amount we have in the game. I assume if you wanted to do something like this you would need to rework the spell modifiers per shard to make it better.

I have noticed that magic seems very underpowered overall. Its not until I have taken over 1/3 of the world do my spells do the same damage my warriors/assassins/ have been doing for 3/4 of the game. This needs to be addressed in my opinion. The premise of the game is MAGIC. Swords are nice also but mages should be feared as well. And not feared for buffing themselves with haste.

So far I feel like the game has matured greatly. There are many features I greatly enjoy such as the itemization for all my characters. You are making a quality new game I feel and i'm happy to be part of the beta. Soo.. when are the death mages going to show up with their undead hordes? I've been waiting...