Stardock should provide a basic PDF manual with the game, but then offer other hardcopy types available for sale.  These hardcopy types would naturally provide more than the basic PDF manual.  Here are some examples:

1}  Basic PDF manual copy... comes with the game and occassionally updated with patches.

----Now for the HardCopy examples----

2)  Advanced HardCopy of the Manual (Stardock chooses the price)... includes:

  A} Extra pages on the myths behind one or more creatures... not found in the PDF manual.

  B} Listing of HighScores and Rankings amongst all the Stardock Developers for games such as GalCiv_2, Civilization_4, Worms:Armagedon, Elemental Final_Beta version, etc., etc.,

3) Collectors Manual  (Stardock chooses the price)... includes  :

  A}  All the same features as found within the Advanced HardCopy

  B}  Plus actual signatures from the entire team at Stardock who worked on Elemental

  C}  Golden Ticket to join a group chat session with the developers during the middle of 2010.  Only those with golden tickets will be allowed to join this group chat session.

...  If you build it... they will come.  

Yes, yes, yes!  I'm also in favor of a ginormous manual.  Something that remains useful, necessary, and fun to read long after you've mastered the game's controls.  If E:WoM is harkening back to the old school days, then please do this for us. 

I think Stardock should sell a few rights to the publishing companies a la whoever makes Halo (am too lazy to look at the back right now). I would certainly read anything they came out with!

True, but after the intense 6-12 month beta period, I'd imagine that the initial manual won't need too much done to it later on.  All they'd need to do is exactly what they did with GalCiv2 Ultimate Edition: re-release an updated manual with the final version. 

Well, for me, full color might be cost prohibitive and something I could live without.

I was jsut loooking at my SOASE manual - at 80 pages it really is pretty good. I'd still hope that with 12 factions as opposed to SOASE's 3 factions that EWOM's will be a good bit bigger, The exact page count or color isn't really my concern - I just want it to be rich, detailed - and able to deliver blunt force trauma.

If they did a manual, I would buy it, but only if it had a TON of not-necessarily-strategic-related info and lore in it. After all, I don't want to just stare at a bunch of unit ID's. I want BACKSTORY!

Stardock has been known to add stuff to what the pre-order boxes include. Its very possible for the box itself to include a whole bunch of stuff by release.

For the purposes of having lore, and a manual, it might be a good idea to keep the 2 as separate books. The lore book could be the fancy hard cover book with all the lore you could drool over. The manual then could be built like the Dominions 3 manual for quick referencing, with the spiral bindings and all. You could flip the pages until you find what you want to reference, and then leave it open so you could reference it quickly until you decide to reference something else.

I'd swear I had a post here...

1. Manual should have all the techinical info needed for us (vets and newbies).
2. Art, pretty art.
3. Description of the 12 factions as well as fiction about them to flesh them out.
4. Stuff about the awesome thing that modding is and the... things to add things to the game (damn headache).
5. List of spells (even if they will get obsolete...).
6. List of development lines for the factions (see above).

Make it collectors edition so I can get it while cheap people only get a pdf version.

I would actually like to see the lore manual published as an actual book: I'd buy it.

I would also like to see it appear either on the web site or as a PDF with the game.

I like the suggestion above to have at least one manual spiral bound so you can open it to the page you need and leave it there. This should at least contain all the technical how to stuff, and preferably the spell book as well. I can remember finding what I needed in the MoM manual and then sticking it under the corner of my keyboard to keep it propped open to what I needed.

The lore, and lots of the "non reference" material could either be included in the spiral if that is easiest, or could be in a regularly bound supplement manual. Also, if a lot of the technical stuff is going to be available via mouseover in game, that may not be necessary in printed form at all (especially with the ability to create your own...)

I am still against a full color manual just due to cost - maybe include some color artwork in a separate, color only addition. A color manual just doesn't do that much for me. Although I would like some artwork, color just doesn't add enough to justify the cost for me. I thought the GC2 manuals were very good, and the MoM manuals were also. The best manual I ever got with a game was with Falcon 3 a F-16 flight/combat sim. That was hefty it felt like you were reading an owner's manual for an F-16. You really had the feeling after reading that, that you could climg into a real F-16 cockpit and would know what you were doing. I even was fairly knowlegeable about what different munitions were good for, etc. I probably literally got almost as much enjoyment from that manual as I did from the game.

  Not that I expect that from this game, but a good solid GC2/MoM-type manual would be awesome.