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.

the suspense and decision-making involved with venturing into the land and not knowing for certain whether or not my heroes / cities will survive against the dangerous monsters

originally, the quests/narrative added some level of interest but that went away once the quests were just repeats of what I had seen in earlier playthroughs

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 Exploring.

I love fighting off and then looting monsters skulking around my territory and making forays into wildlands.  

Founding, capturing, and managing new cities and building an empire.  

Stationing armies (with heroes at the vanguard) at various strategic points along the map as I plan my attacks.

I love designing and then leading troops into battles with magic and steel.  

Doing all of this on randomly generated maps in a fantasy setting (often with custom factions, but not always).

Seriously, this one of the few 4x games I've ever really played and the only one I currently play (never played any Civ game and Sins is a hybrid, so no sure if it completely counts).  

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.  

Most FUN in Legendary Heroes:

1. Challenges facing situations new (to me) requiring ‘outside the box’ thinking to grow my civ.
2. Creating overall plan to grow my civ to next level, implementing that plan and overcoming obstacles AI presents. Examples: establishing new settlement, getting military equipped/trained with next generation of skills/equipment, leveling lead heroine.
3. Challenges requiring me to really concentrate and analyze the constantly unfolding and changing situation.
4. Surprises challenging me in a manner to which I can successfully respond if I think before I act. These challenges must test me, push my boundaries, and require me to use various assents in combination, but not be unwinnable. 
5. Exploring.
6. Making interesting choices. 
7. Laughing at the (often intentional by designers) humor.
8. Commentary: I play 4x games from the perspective of roleplaying an overseeing g.d like character. 

Frogboy:  thank you for asking.  Hope this helps your team’s design efforts. 

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

Thanks for responding guys!

Here's  my list of things I like:

• Exploring the world
• Finding loot
• Leveling up my champions
• Going on quests
• Getting spells that I can use in tactical battles

These are things I wish we did more or better:

1. I wish we had more quests and that quests weren't so tedious
2. I wish we had more random events
3. I wish the spells were more powerful
4. I wish each unit had more interesting, unique abilities
5. I wish there were more city levels that opened more possibilities
6. I wish tactical battles had flanking (i.e. a unit faced a certain direction and getting behind did extra damage)
7. I wish there was more interaction with my opponents (even if it's just flavor text)

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.

Frogboy, regarding your suggestion, #6:  Several times, during the EWOM phase, I posted well thought out suggestions for modifying the tactical combat system.  Flank and read facing was part of it.  Another was allowing a unit to use its move go into react mode for the turn.  (Similar to overwatch, etc in other games) .  It would wait for an enemy unit to move near it.  Front facing of course.  And the first enemy unit that does gets attacked, barrage, missile/arrow/whatever. 

• 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.

Without meaning to marginalize your comment, (just giving a different point of view), I've really enjoyed the smaller maps.....tiny is too tiny though.

Being all squished together....with only 2-4 cities to depend on, you are forced to engage the world around you...or be consumed by it. AI, Wildlands and Monsters, oh my.

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.

The modding features have given this game a lifespan that it wouldn't otherwise have.  Better/more accessible modding tools and spell/quest/map editors would ensure your game was played for a decade.  

Otherwise all the other points in this thread are well-taken.  The Sov and faction creation are particularly fun.

Edit:  And the fact the enemy sovs can be made your vassals is awesome!

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.

- Building Cities

- Building and expanding territory

- Lore creation

- Specialization, but not through custom unit creation

Basically, I like creating a kingdom and interacting with the world around me to create a story.

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.

I agree.  I actually think LH has a pretty good balance in terms of how powerful the magic currently is.

agreed.

But I do think it need more spells...

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

Will there be chance to see improvements in this area, to make magic to be more suitable as "main damage dealer", not just supplemental power, or to see that "affinity" idea I suggested somewhere earlier - where you deal more damage, at cost of receiving more damage from magic?

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.

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.

Exploring and leveling (discovering new magic and physical abilities from leveling, putting them to use in combat) / gearing up champions. Random events that change the state of the game. The story driven elements of the quests. The Undead faction.

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