Following WoM from the early days and now getting my hands on FE, I have to say it's an awesome change. I can't speak for everyone but for me the game runs much smoother and alt-tabs with ease. This being said, I figure I should suggest something that's really bothering me here:
Enchantment
Pre-made enchanted items are silly, in my opinion. It should be actual enchanting, where you can create an enchanted variant of a weapon, and if you wanted to be extra fancy, control how much crystal is used on the enchantment (perhaps for a stronger effect?) This way enchanting makes sense and will stay consistent throughout the game. For example..
Fire Shortsword
Does X Cutting Damage Bla Bla whatever else. Then we add a fire enchantment, and at our given enchanting level lets say we invest 10 crystal into it to give us a +3 fire damage for this sword (Arbitrary numbers). Later down on the magic tech tree, I can get "Master Enchanting" and unlock a cap of lets say 20 crystal enchantments so for my elite troops I can get a +10 Fire Attack or something (But if i'm cheap I can still give my lesser troops the 10 Crystal Enchantment). Keeping Amulets and stuff would be fine, but adding enchant-able armor too would be awesome.
On a two handed weapon, enchantments are scaled for the same price, since you sacrifice a shield hand. So the above enchantment on a greatsword would cost 10 crystal, and give +6 fire damage. (Or some other method of scaling)
One of my greatest feelings is having a varied army here. Typically I like the feel of having my unique champions, 1-2 bread and butter type of units, A cavalry, and then my elite guard. I feel this enchanting system would add spades more customization without too too much work.
And now for Cities
I don't have a direct fix for this, but the AI just throws down cities like it's nothing. There needs to be some kind of associated-set up cost so that sometimes you should think about throwing the resources into a city. It would be great if the farther you got away from the capital, the more expensive the initial set-up fee is. If you have a Trade Treaty with an AI, you can use their capital city to a REDUCED effect on set up cost.
For example, we have two capital cities, mine and Yithrils. X O
X C O Setting up the (C)ity at this relatively short distance from my capital is fine, but the further I go the more expensive it will get.
X C O Setting it up here would cost me a ton of money, since resources/industrial components need to go a long way by caravan to get there.
However I then seduce Yithril with my manly biceps (and perhaps some diplomatic capital) into a peace/trade treaty with me. I now use his capital city to reduce the cost of that settlement since it is closer, but it is to a lowered effect. If we were in a trade treaty, and I built X C O The city would use my capital city since it gives the best reduction for distance.
I don't know, I really like this idea of a city mechanic but I want some discussion on it. Thanks guys!