What this game really needs is. . .

Well, my suggestion is improbable because it already got shot down. The initial consideration for a resource system allowed for extensive item creation. Mine iron, send it to blacksmith to make a sword from, send sword to an alchemist to enchant with some gems, so on so forth. Then you'd be able to design units and equip them with these weapons, as many of them as you have.There would've been several different places that could do something with the items, so you could essentially customize your equipment however you liked.

I know one of the expansions will deal with item enchanting.. but not item creation in this manner.

Bridges...that and hear me out on this...that you can pass over right...and here's the insane part..UNDER.

A really complex social model. You have a vast empire with hundreds of thousands of souls. There are ambitious nobles. Angry peasants. Greedy merchant guilds. Corrupt churches. And you in the middle, trying to play them against each other in an effort to stay in power.

Oh shit... mod idea...

Real time tactical battles. But like Annatar's, that has already been shot down

Flying units or/and "lower lever terrain" (caves like underdark or what age of wonders had). But i think that are things for an expansion and not the original game.

Hotseat and PBEM (play by email) modes.

Lords of the Realm 2 had something like this. You didn't buy swords and stuff, you harvested wood and mine metal and then used those to make so many weapons per turn - and then you could recruit that type of unit. So if you had 100 swords, you could recruit 100 swordsmen.

You also harvested stone to build castles (which also required some wood too).

I would love Elemental to have a system like this.

It made weapons, basically, another resource - then throw in your enchantment and what not - sounds sweet.

Depending on how robust modding turns out to be, it might still be possible

// I'm only suggesting this cause of the OP, I'd never seriously suggest this for Elemental Gold

1. Tile-less (continuous turn or real time) tactical battles

2. the ability to go "First Person Slasher" with your Sovereign

3. Real Time Dungeon Crawler (a la Final Fantasy) within a single turn (on a dungeon tile).

Here's some stuff I was hoping would be in the game but doesn't look like it will make it.

1) Living world where NPC's and monster spawn in natural ways and have somewhat complicated behaviors (they did some stuff with this but want much more)

2) Quests that have us explore dungeons, nothing complicated just a more complicated tactical battle

3) More involved quests - they are all pretty simple from what I've seen so far.  Was hoping for something like in the new King Arthur game

4) Different materials for weapons/armor - a fantasy game with only iron?  Sorry something feels wrong.  Should have mithril, adamatine etc (or some lore specific types) and should be able to enchant them with spells.

5) Big differences in races/factions - difference aren't big enough for me, kingdoms feel to similar.  May change in the coming weeks but think it will fall way short of what I imagined

6) Item creation/enchantment for heroes

7) Terrain being important for building - right now it is a simple can build or can't build here.  Terrain should be important

8) Overland forts/watchtowers

9) Damage types - heard this may be planned but haven't heard anything in a while

10) Large battles with units - right now the battles feel very small, was hoping for a more Total war feel but turn based

11) More interesting races - would be cool to have flying races, races that swim, races with multiple arms, races like centaurs, etc.  Races currently aren't interesting but I think they aren't finished yet.

especially the PBEM type of games.. this allows for people who have to take their turns at different times due to schedule / time zones and what not..

oh and Pie this game really needs more Pie.

I'd like to se way more races, but then again the dynasty aspect would be lost and that's something that I find REALLY cool and almost never seen in any game.

But in Age of Wonders, the really cool thing about that game was you could form parties with 2 opposite races (like elves + orcs) and attack something. Ok they would revolt the next turn probably but still it was possible. With so few races that coolness won't be in it I think, but you can't have everything !

An interface thats pretty and doesn't make my eyes die. I like the idea of parchment everywhere, I just think the current implementation does give the impresion of quality that I'm expecting from the game itself.

A developer created monster/civ/spell creator and a server where we can upload the ones we create and download random sets of these for games.

They are already in and functional, just not reflected in the UI yet.

Hot-seat would be great.

Access to other maps, to enable an underground, dungeon, or different plane, etc..

Some global/influence area type spells would be fun, tie them to shards to give shards a little more weight.

Some flying units eventually.

Weapon enchantment too.

Being able to Move after Attacking on the Tactical Map...

But that is one of the intentional 'oversights' to make the real release that much better!

I will suggest something crazy that will never happen (like the original poster said).

A group of online games where Each game has a world of it's own but players can open gates to warp from a dimention to another (another game).

That would be totally crazy an complex to manage especially if your empire is spanning across multiple dimensions.

This, a centrally managed location accessible IN GAME (or a button that links to the web page) where you can get player created content

Over the top idea... hmmm

A spell that would destroy a city completely to bare smoking ground. Nukes are fun!

A spell that turns,  enemy Sovereigns into chickens for 2 turns haha

Nah ... just make the cost to move "outside of ZoC" 3x more expensive than regular movement.

In otherwords, moving into combat range costs 0.1-1 movement, while moving out of range costs 2.1-3 movement.

Honestly, Hit and Run tactics for anything other than mounted vs non mounted seems rather silly.

Good suggestion. It is always easier to get into battle then make it out without being hit.

Best regards,
Steven.

Remake the Tactical combat in such a way that you can zoom in from the normal map. Every turn are considered as 2-n turns in TC. This means a TC could last longer than only one turn in normal gameplay. And as a spice, add the possibility for reinforcements