Since the mod beta may be coming up soon, might as well throw this out and see what people think.  (I was hoping to save this until I'd been able to actually play some elemental and learn the mechanics, but it might be awhile before I actually get the game working, plus the changing mechanics meaning I'd have to wait awhile to get some finalized ideas, plus the upcoming influence on the mod beta make it seem worthwhile to get these ideas out now rather than later.)

This mod idea is based on the game Lords of Magic.  It is not an attempt to replicate the original game, though.  Instead, it's based on a collections of ideas I've thought of on and off for a theoretical sequel to the game.  (If someone were to want to make a mod based on the original game, I'd be happy to help with that, but that's not my plan for this mod.)

I have a lot of general ideas thought out, but not too many specifics.  My current brainstorms/summaries of the ideas are linked below:

Faiths

General Mechanics

They are mainly in brainstorm format, and not everything in my head has been written out yet, so if anyone reads these and has questions, feel free to ask.

I haven't actually done much coding before (Like a lot of potential modders apparently.  ), so I'll be trying ot make as much use of regular elemental mechanics as possible.

Some more stealth mechanics description:

For overland stealth detection, I am not sure whether it should be done by army or individual unit.  if "by army", an army is either entirely visible, or entirely invisible.  if "by unit", than an army might be partially visible, with non stealth units and some stealthed units visible to enemies, while others would be invisible, meaning that an enemy sees an army as smaller than it really is.  The first would allow a few non-stealth units to be brought along in ambushes, while the second might have some other effects from players (including computer players) not being entiely sure if they've seen an entire army.

Also, I'm not sure whether the chance to detect an individual unit (or army), either in combat or overland, should be reduced or kept the same if other stealthy units or armies are in a detecting unit's vision range.  The first feel more realistic (at least ot me), while the second seems that it would allow stealth units ot scale better as larger armies come in to the later game.

There are also some other stealth mechanics that Ill have ot figure out when I get to working on the mod.

Races and Combat Leaders:

If anyone looks at the unit chart, you'll probably notice that several races are included for each faith.  for the backstory and setting of the mod, I'm planning ot have each faith represented by 2-3 "major" races, which will make up the combat units.

I am not sure yet how I'll handle different races in the same unit category.  I do plan to give different races in the same category different combat stats (For example, centaur infantry will be faster than human equivalents), but I am not sure whether I'll do this using new units, or have some customization feature that allows the same unit to be given several racial options.  (The first would avoid clutter, the second might be more difficult to actually code, plus if uni upgrading is included, might produce some odd situations)

I'm also thinking of handling the leader units in similar ways, either making leadership a customization option, or making them separate units.  The first seems more sensible to me from a backstory and setting perspective, plus reducing clutter, the second may make more sense from a mechanics and coding viewpoint.