need a treaty that allows you to do quests in other peoples territory as well as quests not being bland and almost a meanlingless task.

I think Refined stuff should be capped like you can only get a few in that area and which bonus you get would have more effect on gameplay. eg you can only get like refined 5 times under Civilization i think that would be fun if thats balanced out.

and Forge of the Overlord twice for a victory? i didn't think the quest was fun

It used to be like that and it was terrible. Spend 20 turns researching "Daggers" then "Swords" then "BroadSwords" 

Would it be possible to have "rare" metal deposits (a subset of the existing metal mines) that give your troops better weapons and armor? These deposits would NOT be random but strategically placed in dangerous areas (open terrain, strong monsters guarding it etc...). If the player wishes to pursue these resources at the risk of losing a lot of men/having a not-so-defensible position then he/she can do so. You could call these mines "mithril" deposits (or whatever the equivalent is in the lore) and the difference would be graphically noticeable in tactical battles (glowing white swords/armour).

i like the idea of "mithril" should be other rare/limited metal out there maybe even for Mounts and other resources. be cool if you could tame a Drake and use it for a mount as well as being able to give mounts armor.

Seems like at this point Warfare/Conquest has the most tech, Magic is a bit out of place since you also have to learn spells but i will assume it has use for enchantment and other magical things of nature.

well, there are a few things i would like to see.

1.  i have already posted this in the ideas section, but to recap. i want alot more kits for customizing units.  i love the ranger kits, and the healers kits, but i want more.  i need more options beyond just weapons and armor to make unique and interesting units.  i want kits and other equipment that gives traits to come from all tech areas. my idea was to eliminate the stagnant prebuilt units for customized ones that can remain useful throughout the game.

2.  i would like for the terrain to affect visibility.  i came across an interesting thing in the beta last night.  while i was away a group of bandits stood in a forest next to a caravan route and when it got closer they attacked it.  i loved this.  what i want is for them to be hard to see in that forest.  basically i want the scout kit to be able to see the invis units in the forest, where i cannot.  this would go for hills, swamps and other tiles that would normally have low visibility.  when i equip a unit with the scout pack i can see these hidden units up to their visual range. i want to teleport into and hide in a forest or in some hills with an army, and if they don't have a scout or something watching i can sneak attack. (i realize this doesn't fall into the categories but it was to cool of a moment to pass up)

thats all for now.

Ok.  With Diplomacy- why would the player want Diplomatic Capital in return for giving up resources?  If you can bribe the AI with Diplomatic Capital, there needs to be a reason for the player to offer something for Diplomatic Capital from the AI, and the AI needs to offer such trades.

Maybe Diplomatic Capital should be spendable to get minor civs to join your empire peacefully, and the AI should do this also.

Another thing I'd want to see down the road with the tech trees.  Cross-branching.  Maybe Magic+Diplomacy tech combined could unlock certain spells.  Maybe Adventuring+War techs would unlock specialized units, such as unusual cavalries.  Maybe Imperium+Magic  could unlock magical farms/houses/mines.  Maybe Adventure+Diplomacy could allow for spy actions.  I can see possibilities, though I'd want the AI to be able to do anything I can.

As far as the magic goes, I believe it was said another post but being as the magic is based on elements it seems there should be some way to mix them. Within reason though, the outcomes are only limited by imagination. For example you if you had an earth shard and water shard you could make spells like Mudslide, Mud Golem, with fire and air you could come up with some really intense fire blast spells. Earth and fire could yield lava based spells and so on, like i said the outcome could be endless so it might be difficult to implement but it would be cool! For all I know it might already be in the works but thanks for listening!

Merely possessing diplomatic capital gives you a relations bonus.  

I like how the Master Quest is going. I am curious if the AI can and will pursue the Master Quest as well, and if it can, are the pieces of the Forge the AI is chasing after the same 5 pieces I am looking for? 

It would make for an interesting game with the AI, and perhaps later for Multiplayer as well...

If we are doing just conquest mode, last team or person wins. Will diplomacy still be just as helpful.

Good luck finding a balancing act between all these. I mean they all play out very very different. Player 1 is building an army, player 2 is building up his town, Player 3 is focusing on powerful spells, Player 4 is doing adventures and building up his heroes, can diplomacy server a purpose in multiplayer?. Who will win?

Here's some ideas for you:

Warfare/Conquest - This tree is fairly mundane. Research weapons, research armor, blah blah. I liked the idea of researching Fortify - more things like that might be nice. Researching Forts, perhaps, built by armies, or Sieges, and other army related abilities might be nice. I think there should be other ways to improve your military units than straight equipment. We should be able to research different forms of training to apply to them (perhaps done with an improvement?). Perhaps these improvements give them a tactical battle special ability. Example; building a Spartan Barracks allows your units consisting of more than 1 guy (The Parties and up) to form a Phalanx formation. This is just an idea to make it more than just "Research swords, research shields.." Or perhaps these training regimens can be unlocked when the unit levels, like cities get their traits.

Also; spoils of war. Why not a few techs that give us benefits for beating someone up? Techs that increase our chance to take something when we win.

Adventure - This should unlock rare resources and, by rare resources, I mean stuff like alternative metals or mounts. If we finish a dungeon (perhaps 2 or 3 tiered tactical battles in an ancient ruin following a questline?) the Ancient Ruin, or Hidden Temple, or whatever the spot was should transform into that rare resource so we can harvest it. This will make Adventure different while still using basic game concepts; I found a rare resource, now I need to get a city on it to harvest it.

Diplomacy - Whenever I think of Diplomacy, I think of Trade. Whenever I think of Trade, I think of Anno (Age of Discovery). I think the most important way to make Diplomacy effective is to ensure that Altar needs Food and Pariden needs Iron and that you trade for Pariden's Food to trade for Altar's Iron and profit, while making the two indirectly relying on each other. A diplomat or emissary type unit would be neat, as well, perhaps to help expand influence and bribe minor civs?

The civics stuff, for the record, is generally spot on in my opinion. It should all be based on improvements.

Lastly, the Magic.

There is something odd about the Magic research I haven't been able to put my finger on. I like how researching individual spells works. I don't always see the benefit in researching down the magic tech tree, though. I feel like magic should explore some other gray areas or something. Researching that tech tree should make magic related things available that don't involve casting a spell. Perhaps crafting custom magic items could go here? I'm not sure. It almost feels like Magic tech is already covered in Spell research. I can't imagine the tree being very large - it doesn't look like it is. But it needs to be as potent as the other trees, aside from just unlocking new spells.

I think the Civilization/Imperium techs that originally allowed building on certain resources, now offer a significant enough bonus to be worth researching.  Some techs in 0.92 are worthless because all resources can be built on right from the start now.  But if you got a worthwhile bonus from researching that certain tech...

That would be a great balancing tweak. 

Best regards,
Steven.

It gets its own version of the quest.