As the title says, the beta in its current state is a massive improvement.  City management is now much more manageable, and there are signifcant choices to make in terms of either conclave, town, or fortress.  Fallen Enchantress' superiority over Elemental War of Magic is orders of magnitude.  I don't post often on these forums, but just want to give the developers a tip of the hat for a job well done thus far.  I have gotten back into playing this game in a major way with the latest beta update, have played several factions thus far Altar (stock), Gilden (stock), Pariden (custom sov.) and Capitar (Mancers race custom sov).

Giving Mancers the build roads ability made my day.  As my username implies Mancers/Capitar are my favorite faction out of the Elemental series of games, just always suited my tastes.  I am very pleased that they recieved some attention, hopefully Capitar and Umber will make a comeback with the same level of detail as the other factions.

Essence and some of the newer spells have added greatly to game play, I hope that more spells are added and there are more rewards for investing in soveriegn with more than two schools of magic.  Currently I don't know of any spells that require three different schools of magic, but it would be nice to see some interesting options for sovereign builds that go down paths that are less traveled.

Keep up the good work Stardock.  I know the game is not perfect yet, my only complaint of late was a mid-game crash during my recent Gilden/Ironeers otherwise things are greatly improved over prior betas.

-GoC