Played a game on challenging, though I'm only early into the game.  AI heroes and armies are much more active early game.  This is only one game worth of observation, but I played 7 games of .912 and never saw nearly this many wandering heroes.  They actually grabbed goody huts.  More thorough attempts over the weekend, but this was an encouraging first 50 turns.

the problem with that [at least in my own experience] is that 90% or more of the time when i find an item, it is more or less useless to the character that found it. i either have better already equipped or it is meant for a different type of build.

opening up the equip screen just so i can look at the item to see what it does to satisfy my curiosity is not the answer. You already have a window and a prompt; there is almost no excusable reason to make the player(s) go through OTHER menus just to see what something does.

with that said, i think the item stats should be displayed on the screen with the item, and i do love the suggestion that equip brings up the equip screen instead of silently equipping the item.  i know that MY personal preference would be to see the item stats of what you currently have equipped in that slot to compare in a streamlined window

Okay, but in a larger game you won't always know what each hero has equipped. Simply seeing the stats and effects of the item you have received does little for you in that case, especially since I almost always end up clicking okay, equip on the main screen, and then trade because either that item is good for one unit or I just equipped it or my main unit and now I need to trade his old item to another hero. I guess the best solution would be a quick stat of the new item and then the equip button going to equip and the okay button going to the main game screen to continue playing. That would be a great UI. 

Is finesse a bit weak? I have not seen Finesse II or III (I have never picked Finesse since it seemed weak) but +3% to hit seems like a waste of pick.

Pillar Of Flame and others spells like it hit more then one army on a tile.  

Now that the AI attacks and what not, it tends to move its armies around in a big stack.  I was able to hold back the Gilden advance by casting Pillar of Flame once to kill all 3 of his armies. Also tested Tremor, Freeze, and Wither they also work on every army that in on the same tile.

The only thing I don't like so far are the new borders, I prefer the old ones.  But that's just nit-picking.

(Partial repost from another thread)

I think there are multiple nice changes in 0.913. Much funnier to play! Currently the biggest issue seems to be that once you get some basic weapons technology and squads, then building a couple of units and casting buffs on them will create such a killer stack that it is able to beat almost anything on the map. Maybe the units scale up a bit too much on level-up, and maybe the steps between technologies needs to be just a little bit smaller. Having +1 attack for a weapon means a squad is doing +5 damage... I was able to beat a dragon using basically second and third level technology! Also, when you get your units in full armor (even leather) they become very hard to hit.

It is also pretty easy to level-up, as moving wounded units behind fresh ones is easy. I believe the AI is not able to do this, and thus the player has a huge advantage. Maybe overall the level-up bonuses for _normal_ units should be smaller?

Another thing: even more powerful monsters guarding. The power of the spawns need to be considered carefully.

Once a guardian monster gets inside borders, it should just kill the city/outpost which is responsible for the borders and then return back to its nest. That is, it should not then rampage the whole map.

I felt the start of the game was really nice, but at around 50 turns the monsters weren't a threat at all anymore.

Overall the game feels much, much better from 0.90. All of the above is just from single game...

Settings are set to: standard map size.  5 enemy factions (total 6 incl me, 3 Empire, 3 Kingdom), challenging world difficulty, challenging faction difficulty, dense monsters, standard resources, standard magic.  I played as vanilla Magnar.

1. Monsters seem to have a nice balance now, there is some stuff that can I kill solo from the get go if I burn a bit of mana, and there is stuff that I waited till I had a unit or two (ended up using another champion) to kill.  I overestimated a couple of battles and a promising champion became useless (this is good, I shouldn't be able to wipe the floor everytime).  Overall ABOUT RIGHT for monster threat and aggressiveness.
2. AI players, aren't a threat.  I waited until I was ready then pounced on Ythril.  even though in the save I have attached, I don't have the highest "power rank", there is only one way into my territory for all the teams who are left, I have my sov and a champion in strong enough equipment, and way higher level than the AI Sovereigns, such that I cannot lose. You'll notice how early it is in the game too.  All I will do to mop up is attack tarth, which will be a cakewalk with my spellcaster, then I will be sooo powerful compared to anyone left they'll all ally with me cheaply (or surrender after I declare war).
3. diffiiculty was challenging for all settings.
4. Magnar, vanilla.  Go slave lords
5. The Ai can't seem to graduate while killing monsters.  The last few games I have played, all the Sovs and champions are either broken beyond repair, or really low level.  Perhaps the taactical AI doesn't recycle injured units very well?  by recycle I mean, if a unit is hurt, retreat the unit to live another day.  If a unit has to be sacrificed, the lowest/designated sacrifice should be the one left next to the enemy.  That simple change would allow the sov or champion to level up, even though you lost a spearman or two taking out a slightly bigger enemy than the sov could solo.   Also, Attacking spells seem to be underrated compared to buffs and debuffs.  Change the waiting to buff defense/dmg spell being equal value, and things might change dramatically.
6. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6868387/AutoSave.EleSav
7. save game attached.  I think I've explained above what will happen next.  If Tarth doesn't have a gigantic army and LOTS of mana + is willing to attack me NOW, I win.
8. Overall, this was much more challenging, and I did a lot more thinking to get to this point.  GOOD WORK     Next stp..... Making me lose....

Can't really say much about the new patch, since installing it, my game crashes every 15 seasons or so, so I'm gonna wait for the next one.

Difficultly - Beginner

Started and was swamped by monsters, monsters also attacked my shards and mines. 

While handling all of this and trying to build up my town the AI got extremely more powerful and then declared war on me.

Basically game over.

If it's like this on beginner I am going to need a baby mode.

Verdict - game play was much better before patch.

Yes, AI go up in world power very fast in normal level, it's can be bad, now if that hard level. maybe its' ok, but not ok for normal level.

Just wanted to say that this time you hit the spot.

Last time I fetl this way playing the game was when I played original Master of Magic.

The original "Elemental" was "OK" but no more than that. This game ... it's just fun to play.

The balance is right I think (played normal).

Noticed one thing - the smaller the landsize - the easier to play, this need to be balansed a bit since on normal "tiny" size is too easy, "small" is pretty well balanced and bigger than that is becomes rather hard.

 One negative comment related to diplomacy - it still sux:) (same as it wqas in all GalCivs and original Elemental). The main problem with it is that other players do not care about their own interests - I almost finished someone and he still wants a lot of money for a peace treaty - God! He should be paying me for it or at least accept my proposal right away and for free! (I finished him few turns after )

Hi

Just played about 70 turns and tried to check on what i did...

Setting: Large swamp(without seeing a single swamp), challenging; Left out Krax in favor of a custom Umber sovereign with Beastlord and Brilliance.

After about 10 turns, owning my own hero, a champion and a bear cub i meet the Oracle, Ceresa. I declared war, then demanded surrender without leaving the diplomacy screen (declaring war should imo close that thing and suspend diplomacy for some turns); She accepted(which she shouldnt immediately or not?), so i got another champion - and being a caster she is amongst the best broken spirits you can get...

Met Pariden, followed her with a rock spider. The queen was hunting down empire champions with a one champion escort for quite some time. She picked all the easy lairs she could find and didn't attack heavy things. Refreshing. Attacked her for the fun...

One note, both Ceresa and Procipine didnt use shadow warg. Not on strategic map and at least Procipine didn't in battle. Especially the queen should cast that beast on strategic from day one, it makes quite the difference...

Next, Magnar. Within about 20 turns i saw 4 scouts, a bunch of pioneers and one champion. The Champion attacked a Demon with a short sword(the demon was NOT blocking a passage, it was out of every path), the scouts ran around and the pioneers... well, they dont stop and stand forever on one spot if you "steal" their spot for founding a city. That seems to have changed

Instead, they ran to another spot. There they found several outposts blocking it, so they ran to the next place. Every time there was one more, since magnar sent new ones to all nice places within one screen around my starting city just before i began building them myself. When i stopped playing there were 5 standing around one outpost where they all wanted to build a new city.

Should Magnar build scouts at all? I dont know, didn't play it yet, but if i did, i guess i would found two high production cities just to mass produce militias until midgame. By the way, can one still migrate hundreds of people into other cities by disbanding units? would make that tactic worth even more...

One bug(or so i would guess): The Oracle had Tireless March on her when i met her. She kept it, and it didn't cost me anything! Three Moves in turn 11, with the scout-trait of Umber, for free???

Another Bug on Tireless March: it works in tactical battle. And it stacks. If you cast it on 3 Champions and put them together in one army you end up with 5 moves a turn (without mounts and boots) and get 3 extra moves in battle, which is about the whole tactical map...

So long!