1. Tactical combat enhancements with an increased emphasis on unit special abilities
2. Magic system improvements both in variety and impact.
3. Stronger champions/sovereigns compared to other units.  Hopefully closer to what MoM had.

1: Performance

2: AI

3: Magic Overhaul

1. Make the process of climbing the tech tree more fun and intuitive

2. Remove units and mechanics that don't have a well defined purpose or role (observers vs. forward observers)

3. Re-do the UI to make important text and icons stand out

1. magic system and more meaningful spells

2. battle system

1. AI

2. Tactical combat balanced and fun

3. Magic balanced and fun

1) Make tactical combat deep/interesting

2) Overhaul dynastic politics (children need to inherit the throne for ALL players)

3) Make city building/management more interesting

Little game experience, but so far:

• Tactical combat needs a MASSIVE overhaul. Its so bland. Also, some points:

• The differing terrain granting various bonuses to defense are difficult to differentiate from each other.

• Little to no reason for troop variety. Just equip them with the best stuff available and churn them out like theres no tomorrow.

• I've notice that the ATK stat for units is not consistent in the way it is calculated. For example, the starting peasant design has an attack of 3, which is from a base of 1 plus 2 for its weapon (gnarled club). However, other units that are designed and equiped do not always have a base atk of 1, so their ATK stat is simply the value of the weapon equiped. I don't care how its meant to be, but the inconsistencies need some serious sorting out!
  • Edit1: I've notice that this is also the case for the HP of different unit designs. Some have a base of 1, others do not.
  • Edit2: Okay, so I've realised its not the same case with the HP. Rather some of my units were leveled up, so they gained some base hitpoints (which I think should be called something else to explain were it came from). However, I did notice that units with no experience (so level 1, or is it level 0?) do not get the x1.5 modifier from the "experienced training".

• Stacking units is screwed up and doesn't work gameplay wise (in my opinion). If you have a squad of 4 units, each with an ATK of 6, the total unit ATK is 24. It remains at this value regardless of unit losses in the squad. It gets more ridiculous with the stacks of 12 units, each with very high attacks. Also, the way it works (at least how I think it does) means that armour of individual units can be completely irrelevant. As I said, I believe this whole area of combat needs looking into.

• Magic. This has been discussed many times, and I believe it is being overhauled, which is nice to know.

• Performance. I realise that the game is just out the door, so there is likely to be much optimization to be had in the future, but I just thought I would point out that its quite an important point.

I would like to point out that I do love the game and really do look forward to the continued effort and timethat I know Stardock will put into it, as they did with Galciv 2. Its just a matter of time before this game is brilliant, its just not there yet.

AGREED!!!!

1) Performance

2) AI

3) make city building/management more interesting (i also never run out of resources... materials for example, always got thousands and thousands of it, it is impossible to run out of it)

1. unique magical resistances for different eneimies

2. An actual manual so new players can read how to play the game (sorry, but that deserves a bit DUH).

3. MP with Tactical

Just scratching the surface of the game so far but:

1. Keyboard remapping. 

2. More information in the UI - a lot more

3. Still thinking, probably a lot more detail in the campaign

re: #1 -  I'm playing on an m11x laptop, and half the camera controls are unavailable because I'm not playing with a mouse, and there's no apparent substitute for the mousewheel controls.  The tactical combat screen is particularly atrocious, as the '+/-' zoom keys don't even work there.  At least let us remap the camera controls and/or anything that relies on a mouse (eg using the arrow keys to control the camera and not units).  Even if there isn't an interface for this, at least slap them into and expose the xml file.  FWIW, I think this was a problem (no keyboard remapping) in Demigod, but for a turn-based game it really should be possible to play without a mouse, Demigod was more twitchy and it would be less expected.  Most of today's laptops may not be able to play it, but if this has sins' legs then it will be more probable.

re: #2 - the UI *really* needs to give the player enough information to figure things out.  Right now the game pretty much comes with the cliffs notes version - the game needs to provide the Elemental encyclopedia  Yes, we're talking exponentially more documentation here.

re: #3: the campaign lacks polish.  It should pull the player in, and probably do a little. more handholding early.  For 'the recommended place for newcomers' it does leave a lot to be desired, and it needs to feel more epic.  There are some epic elements, but they seem kind of disjointed and they really need to be dialed up to 11.  Campaign quests/tasks really need map flags/markers too.  eg: Where the heck is the 3rd farm under threat in the swamps (unless this is a bug, and there's only 2?).

I noticed the only difference between Elemental and MoM tactical battles(other then graphics) was that MoM had a lot more special abailities for units and more spells, other then that they are pretty much the same.