So after a crash (tried reloading from within the game) I decided to take a few moments to give my thoughts on the past 4-5 hours of gameplay.

I'm with a custom-made sovereign, playing a custom-made faction, both based on research and magic - sort of Pariden, but with an emphasis on Tarth longbows and with an Amarian background. In short, I am playing magical elves. I started the game by playing with two teams - Kingdoms (myself and the other four) and Empires. After a good 400 turns, I've yet to meet any of our enemies, and just recently came across Gilden, with whom I have an alliance.

So for the first time, I've been able to keep up. The spawn was less-than-wonderful, though I spawned near a Fire, Earth and Life shard. My main city is now level 4, and I just made a new city after a good 300 turns, mostly because bandits covered everything and they didn't like to share. With the advent of Ithuane longbows and my casting sovereign, I managed to finally push them out, and have taken a ton of natural resources.

There are a few things I noticed. But let me begin by saying that it has been a long time since I sat down to play a game and then realized that it was 2am. I am having a lot of fun, really. Character and faction creation was very nifty (do I want poison? Maybe snake-friends? But I like research...ooh, what about bows? Bows are nice. Yes, bows...but that poison, mmm...) and I had a lot of fun contemplating how best to fill my enemies with arrows.

That being said, I wanted to give a bit of feedback.

1) I knew to pick Amarians because I silently watch the forum. I'm sure it's been said before, but I feel I must mention it: can we have a way, within character/faction creation, to know what the faction differences are? On a totally separate level, would it be feasible and not-too-time-consuming to have a race editor so we can make our own custom fallen/human factions?

2) When creating, can we have more negatives for factions?

3) It's hard to create a spellcaster-type sovereign early on because crystals are highly necessary to be useful. Playing an earth mage, I got lucky, being spawned near an earth (and fire and air) shard. I do not know if it's already in, but could we spawn with assurances of shards nearby?

4) Shards feel useless beyond generating mana and buffing spells. Don't get me wrong - I like having a ton of mana, and I like having super-strong spells, but could we do something with shard-cities beyond having them...be cities with shards? I know that in a very early War of Magic beta, there were buildings that went with shards. The only one I distinctly remember was a Temple of Winds, which gave haste to all soldiers built in that city. Instead of something so empowering, perhaps let the shards empower us in a more subtle way.

For example, if I have a city with an Earth Shrine, I am allowed to now build an Earth Altar which acts as a sort of magical fort, improving the city's defenders. Later on, I can build the Infused Mineshaft, granting random resources each season (+1-3 metal or crystal, or +5-10 gold). Level three cities allow the Sparkling Statues, which turn the default militia guardians into weak earth elementals. Things of that nature. They are totally ancillary and require mana, as well as the shard, to build, but their purpose is to further specialize a city. Each shrine would give a final super-powered building, of which there can be one per faction - that is, if I build the Earth Shrine superbuilding, I cannot build another superbuilding of any shrine.

Earth shards: Turtling dream. Powerful earth magic allows for fewer cities to be as prosperous as larger ones, and protect those within from attack. Defenders in a city with Earth enhancements find themselves shrugging off enemy attacks much more easily.

Air shards: Magic and research. Those cities blessed by air improve research, quicken allies near the city, bring in additional mana. Cities strong with air magic are filled with scholars and mages.

Water shards: Chaos and spirits. Water magic improves summons and bestows random blessings to the city they are within. Water magic also improves harvests, allowing more people to live in a city, and weakens enemies.

Fire shards: Power and strength. Fire magic bestows flame enchantments to soldiers and can randomly cause small damage to enemies near a city. While earth is prosperous, air is wise, and water beguiling, fire is consuming.

5) Speaking of magic, elemental magic should really have a basic offensive spell for the earliest level. I started with earth magic and had absolutely nothing to play with. Is it too much to ask for a Book of Earth and a Book of Air in the Magic tree, too? I'd greatly appreciate it.

6) It seems that by turn 50-100, Procipinee was still wandering around without a city. Even on turn 400 or so, Pariden is currently at the lowest level of power according to the little chart. While I appreciate being able to wipe her off the face of the world early on...

And other random thoughts.

1) It's amazingly fun to wander throughout Curgen's Tomb area with my super-powered Ithuane archers, my champions and my sovereign. Fire Wave is...wow. That spell is visual awesome. It's also amazingly satisfying (giggle-inducing, in fact) to disrupt another mage's spell. When magic was flying about the field, it was a fun time. On a suggestion-related note, can we have a sort of bubble/shield spell? It'd be nice to be able to defend against weak/low-level spells as easily as we defend against higher-level spells.

2) I had to reload after aforementioned Ithuane archers, chamption, sovereign and knights were utterly wiped out by a Storm Dragon. I want a Storm Dragon and have now made it my life's goal to attain him. I can't wait for endgame - I have never had so much fun being wiped off the face of the planet.

3) I want to repeat my love for Fire Wave. Because I love Fire Wave. Also Fracture. I'm not sure I totally understand how it works (when I used it on an enemy, they took -10 damage, followed by another -10 damage immediately. Air Elemental, around level 5?) but it seems like such a useful spell later on. I haven't gotten all of the nifty new researched spells, but I'm liking what I've seen so far.

4) The magical equipment and staves are nifty. I have my sovereign with a weak fire staff at the moment. I'm looking forward to vast amount of power later on, although I am loathe to replace my delicious archers with elemental-casting teams of pseudo-mages. Also, early on I got a Darkling Cloak, which bestows the power of Blind. That spell has saved my live on multiple occasions.

5) Cities look nice. The clutter of old betas is very much gone, and my city just looks...right. I like it. Serpent cities is still a bit of an issue, but that's a small issue.

6) I find myself going into Evil Genius mode, cackling when a new creation/tech/spell becomes available and preparing to crank out new minions/buildings/magical explosiony goodness. This is a good thing.

Welp, now that's out of the way. I'm going to bed, to return tomorrow for more Fallen Enchantress goodness. I'm having fun guys - way more fun than I had in WoM.