Exploring and building, with a pinch of parmesan and extra virgin olive oil questing, and, ahem, "assembling minis".

But mostly exploring and building. Preferably in such way so enemy couldn't interfere, so you could "Travel" at yout pace and to you leisure, rotating maps, finding interesting views... 

Exploration always was and still is one of things I always liked in games, and bulding in LH is so heh, "assembling mini-alike", so I can't resist.

Not knowing what will be coming or happening next... (in game, due to special events and not otherwise)...

Wastelands to work on while building the empire/kingdom... as long as you have a spare army.

It is from the company that made GalCiv X (variable) = Quality. 

I love the exploring and questing. 

I love the wildlands. 

I love the tactical magic. 

I love the lore. 

I love the idea of outposts(non producing settlements) vs cities. 

I like the split tech tree. 

I like the hero system. 

I dislike city management in LH, it never feels like it has the same kind of weight to it that Civ has.

I dislike strategic spells; they feel a bit underwhelming to me most of the time.  

Leveling sovereign and champions

Leveling regular units and being able to update their equipment

Designing regular units

Variety of monsters

Finding unique items in loot

Quests

City building

In no particular order, some of my favorite, FUN features are:

-Exploration, particularly of a dangerous, populated world

-Quests, particularly the epic level ones like the Dragon statues and Wildlands.

-Building up my heroes to godlike proportions with XP and gear

-Establishing my civilization as the dominant economic powerhouse in the world (shared with every 4x game I've ever played)

-Tactical combat

-Turn based mechanics, both strategic and tactical

-Manipulating the world, my troops, and battles with spells

-Teaching my misguided opponents pointed lessons on how they should be ruling their people, ultimately convincing them of the error of their ways and welcoming them into my society as productive vassals.

• Faction and Hero creation - creating entire histories and back stories with complimentary skill sets and design.
• Exploration and exploitation.
• Encountering my created factions - and then regretting it.
• Having the game switch things up through random events - though, usually, it just delays the inevitable and gives me something to do while building.
• The tactical combat (huzzah!) - since I'm an ungrateful and entitled consumer I'll always wish there was more to it. Its current incarnation keeps me interested enough, though.

I really, really REALLY enjoy playing the largest maps available, with research and build times, etc., set to their slowest with most everything else regarding the map randomized.

Yeah, I gots friends that prefer smaller maps for a variety o' reasons. Some just 'cause that's what they got time for. I keep tellin' 'em to ditch their spouses...

I've done smaller ones now and then. Drives me nuts. I tend to place exploration and creation above combat 'cause combat is a foregone conclussion for me. 'Cause I'm super-hyper-duper-intelligent.

And god-like.

Right up until I meet human opponents.

In order of what I enjoy;

Campaign Story - An actually story campaign is quite important to me and Legendary Heroes did not really have any, it was more a sandbox experience. A campaign provides a great way to present lore and story, which I love. Essentially like the campaign added in that patch a while ago, The Fallen Enchantress one.

Sovereign and Faction Creation - I enjoy making a unique faction that fits closely to my play style and a sovereign that aesthetically and tactically fits a role I prefer, I am a roleplayer at heart.

Heros and Leveling - I absolutely love bringing an army and heroes through many battles, it generates a character and even units gain sentimental attachment when they have leveled up over so long

City Planning and Tech Trees - The micromanagement and planning of a tech tree for my faction is very enjoyable, I do wish we had more city planning options though.

Questing - By no means perfect as it requires randomization but I really do like sending my characters on quests around the world. I get very upset when an enemy faction beats me to a location by one space. I usually go to war in spite! As a byproduct unique items is something I love obtaining in the game, makes every character unique, I just wish units had a chance to use unique items obtained through quests too.

Random World Generation - quite an important aspect that I enjoy, I know for a fact if the game only ever had a handful of set maps I would be quite bored.

Diplomacy - I like to make allies and enemies, trading tech, resources and generally interacting with other factions. I just wish this aspect was expanded upon.

Tactical Combat - Fairly fun but not perfect, which is why it is last on my list of fun things.

my spouse will kill me if I ditched her...

I agree to all, but I'm not among those complaining spells are not powerfull enough. I fear great balance issues in magic contra weaponry contra hitpoints, economy etc etc ant you name it. To me it gets less interesting if it turns out to be all about the magic.

if I was the one responsible deciding what the next expansion should be about, to improve the game as much as possible, I'd go for a naval exploration/naval quests, naval units, naval buildings and admiral hero class - expansion.

agreed.

But I do think it need more spells...

Perhaps a series of buildings available through the Conclave that unlocks a set of spells?

Quoting Frogboy, reply 33I wish there was more interaction with my opponents (even if it's just flavor text)

Only opponents? I wouldn't mind to have better interactions with teammates and allies, even in SP, to give it a flavour of co-op. Sort of. Kinda. [/quote]

That would be cool, if you could try to coordinate attacks with allies; pay them to attack certain enemy cities or just sit their army somewhere menacing to distract an opponent.

ETA: Oh, and I forgot to say before, while i don't do this all the time, I like zooming in on my cities and seeing the pedestrians within.

I love the loot (could be more variety, though).

Love building up my ancillary units more than the heroes,esp. with a sovereign that can give them some magic.

I'm done.

pek