A few game related requests.

From what I understand, the tactical battle will be based around real time, with orders given with the game paused -- I'm hoping for a "turn-based real-time resolution" -- you give the orders for a turn, then they're executed in real time.

This is one of those things that has bothered me in several strategy games. If the game has a diplomacy model, I would really like having more fined grain tools for dealing with it other than 'Please ally with me' 'attack that guy' 'here's a pile of money' and 'now I'm attacking you.' This is especially true with games that have AI players send messages of 'displeasure' or ultimatiums to the player.

If there are treaties, I'd also like to be able to try bribing someone into breaking the ones they have with another faction.

I sure hope so. I'm no good at anything remotely RT and wouldn't like to see raw mousing skills be important in this game.

it's been confirmed by frogboy that it's not real time.

It's turn base but continous. Meaning it's like turn by turn but it does not stop between turns unless you ask it to.

... which actually means it is indeed real-time. All real-time games work on this concept. It's not turn based unless it actually has turns that dictate what are the limits of your actions, and possibly if the enemy can move at the same time. Take Baldur's Gate. It is identical in concept, but most definately the combat is real-time, even though the behind-the-scenes parts may be turn-based.

No, it is continuous time.  It seems to me that this is more like paradox games (Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis, ect), where you generally pause (especially in HOI) in order to issue orders (because coordinating an air, ground, sea offensive takes a bit of planning), and hit the pause button as necessary to make changes as it is playing out.  I often play Total War games the same way.  It strikes me as a very sensible way to conduct tactical combat, and as long as it is executed properly you should have plenty of time to make decisions and keep making decisions.

I believe one other element to this being continuous is that unit's don't act simultaneously.  If you look at the one battle screenshot with the dragon and army, you can see the order in which units will act.  Unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, you won't have to issue commands when your unit's turn comes up- you'll just pause the action whenever to issue your strategy, otherwise the game plays itself out.

At least, that's my interpretation.  Maybe units react simultaneously, but it doesn't look like that based on the info from Brad and the screen shot.  I'll be interested in knowing how this works with multiplayer, though, as you can't make it so anyone can pause the game whenever they want or battles would get annoying fast.

In multi the battles will be automatic I think.

man!  I agree 100 percent.     Especially if they do stuff like camp their dudes on your magic node >.< (or whatever it is in this game)

I also wish there was some gratitude from the nice AIs.  Like if I am running my scounts around their pad or maybe guardian spirit that has to pass buy them because they thought it was a good idea to set up camp in the middle of my empire.  I want to be able to say "hey, i was just passing through, don't hate me" and/or have them tell me that they were happy that I reacted to them so quickly. 

Tiavals is right. Think of combat time as pages of a book that sits between you and your opponent.

-Turn based combat systems are like a book full of blank pages. You are free to write whatever you wish on your page, after which you push the book across to your opponent who writes on the opposite page (upside down relative to you). Pages are flipped as needed and you and your opponent alternate until combat is over. Who gets the first turn is determined at the start.

-Simultaneous turn based works the same way. The only difference is that you write on your respective pages at the same time and a new page is turned only by mutual agreement.

-Continuous turn based has a few changes. Instead of blank pages the book now has boxes for you to write it. Both of you write at the same time, but now there is limited space so you have to be strategic about what you fill the box with. There is a third person with a stopwatch who does nothing but flip to new pages of the book at regular intervals, even if you have not finished writing.

With continuous turned based systems there is always some form of payment system. Turns happen at regular intervals and each player is credited with time that he can spend to move his units each turn. Fallout tactics handles this by crediting every entity with 1 action point every 4 seconds or so which spent to fire weapons and perform other actions. Movement is free and takes place in real time. It sounds like Elemental will have something like this only the player is able to pause. Not sure how that would work out in multiplayert automatic battles just doesn't sound right.