You mentioned multiplayer - normally when I look at a game I consider that to be an extremely important aspect, but in this case I hope you consider post-poning it until single player works properely. I can't imagine what kind of flak the forums will see if you enabled it and there are more problems with that than there are with single player

1.07 fixed most of the performance issues I've had, rendering the game playable and fun for the first time, which is awesome =-)

Froggy, I know you have been getting alot of flak, I just wanted to let you know I believe in Elemental. So far I have payed for four copys of the game (one for me, and three for my friends). As I have been playing since beta I look at this as beta 1.07. Keep up the fight!

Minor Factions:

*Kingdoms would want to make them allies (possibly vassals?) while Empire would want to conquer and assimilate them.

*Leaders have unique properties, and once the required dimplomatic steps are taken, i.e. Kingdom makes them vassals/allies or Empire conquers them, the leader of that minor faction becomes a champion with unique qualities in-line with that minor faction's traits.

*As vassals/conquered folk, player gains access to their special buildings and units, ala MoM.

About minor factions:

They need to be self sustainable. To be able to function well with just one city.

And that means at lest one golden mine (so they could house defensive army) and maybe some other important resource. It could even be something related to their flavor, and not random.

I think the penalty will be in the new system, too, because, as Frogboy mentioned, some spells will have a maintenance cost instead of using enhancement slots and Imbue Champion should have such a maintenance cost.

A statue should be made in your honor, cephalo.  I was a bit disappointed that Frogboy didn't add a random map generator to that list.  It pleases me to see that you have taken up the reins.

As for the AI, I would agree that this should be finalized later, whether multiplayer is activated or not.  The AI needs to make intelligent decisions based upon the game mechanics, and if these are going to be significantly changed, then the AI will need to be updated to reflect those changes. 

But you are right in your assessment that multiplayer games need to be enabled, if not for anything else than to allow us to play games against intelligent opponents.  I also think that some strategies for the AI could be learned from here as well.

 _____

Thanks for the update, Frogboy, and keep up the great work.  Your dedication is appreciated.

As for the spellbooks during character creation, there are some various posts throughout this thread that offer some nice suggestions and alternatives.  One of these is the cost to research spells.  This could be expanded upon.

Personally, I believe sovereign creation needs to offer more varieties of sovereigns, not less.  I think it would be interesting to allow the sovereigns to choose primary, secondary, and tertiary schools.  These can be handled via point buy (primary = 9 points, secondary = 6 points, tertiary = 3 points).  The level which you choose determines the rate in which you research, your casting power, and/or what level spells you can eventually research.  This would be similar to a simplified "spellbook selection" that MoM offered during sovereign creation.

In addition to above, all schools could be bought for 21 points (saving you 3 points).  This would grant you one primary school, 2 secondary schools, and 1 tertiary school.  These would be determined by the school you choose.  I.e. if you spent the 20 points and chose Fire as your primary school, Earth and Air would be secondary schools, and Water would be your tertiary school.

Anyhow, this is just my simplified opinion and could be explored deeper if it proved a concept that accumulates inteterest.

I was pretty excited about the game since I missed Master of Magic for many years

Since my copy of the game has not arrive yet, I read Gamespot review

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/review.html

It is scoring at 4.0 of 10.0, honestly I am a bit sad with that, but it is valuable / worth to read.

Given my visit to this game forum since early of the years, I trust Elemental team for outstanding service.

Is OK, I will wait for another 2 months to stabilize / polish before I Install it,

Just want to say that Demigod is also many bugs at the time of release, and Stardock able to handle that, yes you can. 

My only concern is a game "brand" take times to build up, but can be destroyed in a short while, probably that's the reason

we keep on complaining Starcraft 2 delay I guess.

People care about the campaign? I've never even started it up..
I'd be more happy if they put ALL their effort and new content into the main game, the main custom game / multiplayer mode, since thats what we'll play the most anyway.

Otherwise i'd be as dissapointed as i was with the Anno expansions, which basically added a few new scenarios, but almost nothing new to the actual main gameplay. I'd hate to see Elemental do the same mistake. Mission packs should be mission packs, not labeled as Expansions. Expansions should severely expand upon the gameplay features, not just add a 1-run scenario / campaign map.

I agree 110%. 

That can wait. [..and I have an x64 system ] Crash & bug fixes/gameplay enhancements >>> everything else as it is now.

I am not sure how I feel about Sovereigns losing their 'spell points'... that might make magic more gimped than it is already.

And regarding the moving spell books to tech trees, that might make the Sovereigns feel even more uniform. If it is implemented, I would like to see spell book research become harder.

Please spend time looking at the Master of Magic spell lines and make EWoM's magic lines feel more unique like those. Adding an 'Arcane' of default magic line, and putting all the spells that are similar in there might solve the issues too. I would also add summon hero/champion spells, I almost never see adventurers other than Jannusk in my games.

Keep up the improvements!

Stardock is the only non MMO game company I know that develops its games after launch around the player base. A MMO game at launch is more what the company thinks the player base wants vs. a year or two later what the players want now. This is why I love Stardock. The only games I have on my computer pined to the start menu are my current MMO and Stardock games. With that being said here are a few updates I would like to see in the game that I have not seen posted yet.

1. All factions have their own color please show those colors on the map just like GC2 not yellow, green, and red. I want to see how others are expanding and go not like clicking in to every single town to know who owns it.
2. City manager more like GC2 colony management window to quickly see the status on all cities and update them from the manger.
3. Add the GC2 shift + N ability so I can restart another random game with my current options to get a better start position.
4. Form an Army like a fleet in SoSE but the army stays grouped while in town resting. Since atm this is the only way to heal all the single clicking out of a city to reform my army is a pain. Easier to let weak die and strong stay.
5. When a city levels up show me that city’s status resource screen so I know how to better pick the bonuses.
6. Update character screen to the normal MMO charter item slots so I know where items go. Why boots are considered legs? I like to hunt for those item slot upgrades.
7. The faction sides mean something. I like to play the good side in this game and want all of the good to come together to defeat the bad. Yet when I play a game it’s a FFA.
8. Graphics mean nothing to me they just slow me down so I play on the cloth map. The cloth map is not as easy to tell what type of land your are on or how to access areas with mountains.
9. While playing in cloth mode anytime you go to the menu and back your game is bugged to graphics mode and you have to load the game. So I always have to save the game first when I go to the menu to make changes and load the game up after changes. I start of a game with auto turn on and turn it off as the game progresses. That’s how I found this bug.
10. More bow upgrades. Rethink the long training time on archers. I just stopped using them.
11. More work on unit types for countering bonuses vs just attack power. If they have knights I need pikemen, if they have archers I need knights, if they have melee and I need archers, etc. As it is now I just go for the best attack and always win no matter the unit type. I mostly always auto battle combat slows this game down too much for me.
12. Ability to turn off all the flash in combat and to pick faster movement speeds in combat to speed up the time it takes to do a round. More like Heroes of Might and Magic. That game had tons of options to speed up the combat vs just hitting auto battle.

This and with all the other changes talked about in this post mainly making AI on par with GC2 and fix the memory leak this game could become the GC2 of the turn based fantasy realm.

Turn off smart player colors in the options.