I like the idea of the gate building and I also think in addition to large gold maint each gate should consume 1 mana/turn as upkeep so they aren't simply spammed at every city.

Instead of something complicated like having 2 gate sets it should just be possible to move between any gates. Cloudwalk/Teleport are still completely OP and should be removed no matter what mana cost you set it at.

I don't like anything that starts "Remove". However I like the ideas for replacement. Make Cloudwalk give a big move bonus, and be able to build gates.  Good ideas all around, really. I'd give a gate a mana cost of 1 and no mundane maintenance; in order to be able to use them you'll have to build them in multiple cities. If they have a fairly high amount of labor required then you can't put them in newly captured cities quickly enough to matter in the short term most of the time.

As for Cloudwalk, +3, with an additional +1 per air shard sounds good to me on a small map. It should scale to map size, though. Each single tile is worth less on bigger maps. +5 +1/air would be a good addition on a large map.

Maybe I just like it because I like to use it, not abuse it.

For me this mechanic is really important as I love to go in the wilds and quest... but if somebody declares war on me or some big bad monster shows up I want to be able to teleport to that location to help my faction out.

And I believe that heroes should be powerful, 80 Mana imo is quite a bit (although I could do with higher costs) - maybe not totally later when you get soo much mana but I'd hate to see this spell completely removed.

I'm rather on the side of: Increase ways to get extra movement and / or ability to get some kind of terrain-walk/pathfinding simmilar to MoM (whould make a good Perk/Perk-Tree imo.) to all units making them faster (which also might help the AI) and make Teleport weaker in that way side of the argument.

(Doesn't exclude nerfing Teleport of course. Against removing it completely. Maybe up the mana-cost ect.)

Yep, sure is. There's no channeling limitation in combat either, for whatever reason.

It'd be a totally separate post, but I personally really dislike mana as a balancing method, because it's binary: you have it or you don't, and if you do, you have infinite spellcasting. I'd rather see a cooldown based system, possibly with mana used to infuse magic item creation or certain specific very powerful ritual spells with game changing effects (a 'currency of power' vs its current implementation).

That's a radical change however, so I've been hesitant to make a post about it, given how many other aspects of the game need polishing right now.

I think adding an expensive mid-late game tech that allows for expensive, slow transit between cities (one unit/turn or less) would help for late game travel, and adding on-map portals with restrictions (guardians, in-transit guardians, fees to use, etc) to medium and large maps would also be a boon for the AI, and give another interesting strategic wrinkle to deal with.

Otherwise, on medium and large maps, fighting effectively vs enemies on the other side of the map is difficult or impractical, barring abusive tactics (hero stacks instantly razing cities, etc).

In Master of Magic the only 'Strategic' teleportation allowed was via the Very Rare Earth spell. At it was exactly the 'city gate' concept that is being described here.

And not only was it a last tier spell, but unless you invested 10 out of 11 points directly in Nature Magic, You had increasing chances of not even being able to get that spell.

This is something that is extremely lacking with the Elemental universe. Magic seems to be so accessible, and any hero can turn into a Jack of all Trades. And a lot of 'skills' are so feeble that they can easily be overshaowed as early as "late early" or "early mid" game. Things that give you a static +1 is not even worth the point spent. In many cases that +1 represents a single building. How many of those buildings are you going to have in a game of 'medium' lenght?

When comparing to the "traits/abilities" that wizards could have in MOM the Elemental ones appear nerfed and bland. :/

I've always thought a late game, expensive city improvement that acted like MOO2's star gates would be better than the various incarnations of teleport.  

Does that Hero that's getting teleported happen to have the Cloud Walk spell?

 I have always favored making cloud walk caster specific. It should teleport the caster and only the caster. That way you can still use it to explore and quest.

It could be turned into a town portal spell that's more expensive. This way you get around the outpost abuse and it being expensive, caps it's use.

I definitely think that we are in dire need of the channeling concept. Unlimited casting in combat and on the cloth map is way wrong!! Time/mana should be a factor when it comes to magic. This is the only way to add really powerful spells in the game.

Casting call to arms 4-5 times in a row in a city with the magic buffs after you just unlocked and designed the new uber troops?

Then casting crusade 2-3..  still on the same turn and then cloud walking them around?!!?? How can any AI cope with all this?

Towns build so pitifully slowly that by the time you acquire the mana to cloudwalk your sov is level 20+ with speed 8 and can just run there in a turn or two.

Last game I only ended up casting it once.

Well...personally, I like Cloud Walk. Though it's name is deceptive. When I think of cloud walk, I think of normal moving but ignoring obstacles, hovering above the ground. In that context, you still need to move, but you get there faster cause you can zip over mountains rather then having to run around them. Could also make it so you can't be attacked while Cloud Walking(cept by ranged or spell-casting enemies), and it only has a duration of a few turns. Or you could set it up so while Cloud Walking, you can't be attacked at all, nor can you attack anything either. That way it won't get abused.

As far as teleporting goes...I've never seen a fantasy setting of any kind that didn't have it in some form. I'm a big D&D player, and teleporting is pretty important there, but it requires (normally) a high level member of the party who is a spellcaster to cast it, or to purchase the teleportation from an experienced NPC. Instead of totally killing the teleportation concept, as I think it's a bad idea - make it limited to a certain number of panels, not anywhere in your control zones. Higher mana cost would help straighten it out too. Say around 100-200, and it lets you jump 20 panels, and onto into areas you've explored. 

Course, with the current casting system you could jump from one side of the map to the other after casting a dozen times...but do you want to spend the 2000+ mana to do it or not? That way it's still pretty powerful, but not totally broken, as I dunno anyone that can easily cough up 2000 mana without batting an eyelash. But - for people that like working with one stack of strong units, it doesn't totally destroy their ability to protect their land if they accidentally forgot to put enough defenders in a city, or if a city is taken and they need it back right away.