I'm not sure if this belongs more here or in the general Elemental forums... 

One of the things I've long wanted to see in grand strategy games -- those that have playable battles, anyway -- is for an empire's campaign-level (or "strategic") AI be able to communicate with/to the combat ("tactical") AI the importance of a particular battle. In other words, you'd expect an empire to fight that much harder to protect its capital (or other major city) than it would a minor outpost on its outer marches.  Similarly, you'd probably expect an empire to fight harder when attacking an important objective, whereas it'd be more likely to withdraw if it's having trouble seizing a target of only marginal value. 

I don't know how difficult this would be to code -- I gather AI programming can be a real bitch, so I'm being careful to not harbor unrealistic expectations -- but it would sure be nice to see in a game like this!