Long post. Feel free to skip and just read the HEADLINES if you're lazy 
Hello. Long post, read if bored or interested in the reasons for the suggestions/wishes, otherwise feel free to just read the CAPITALS for the suggestions/wishes themselves (but don't reply pointing out something to consider about them if you haven't read what I've written because quite likely I did consider it and write about it in the bit you skipped lol).
1) LOOTABLE SPAWNPOINTS - MAKE IT SO THE CAMERA CAN ZOOM TO THEM.
I notice that when you are in the middle of one of the events where lots of mobs of a given type spawn, and their spawn-points, if you are on a large landmass it can be a bit cumbersome to locate those spawnpoints that need a troop to wander on to them to loot them and prevent further spawns. Currrently (unless I am missing a control somewhere), you have to scroll around the map looking for them by checking every hex. I sweep the cursor over the hexes from left to right, move down a hex, and then sweep back from right to left, and continue until I see a spawnpoint (e.g. Bear Den), and then get the nearest troop to head toward it.
What would be better from the ease of use point of view would be to either have a shortcut key that allows you to have the camera focus jump to the next den/lair (spawnpoint) so you can cycle through and see where they are without laborious visual searches, or maybe an icon on the right of the screen with all the other stuff that lets you cycle through (i.e. troops awaiting orders, enemy at the gate, etc) so you could click that and have the camera focus on each of the spawnpoints (at least those in explored territory, not obscured by fog of war). It wouldn't make the game easier in any way, it would just make it faster and remove a quite unneccessary visual search task that slows play during those mass spawnpoint events.
2) HAVE AN OPTION TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR LORDS (MAYBE INCLUDING PLAYER) TO SPAWN IN A PORTAL WORLD INITIALLY (if it isn't already - it certainly hasn't happened to me or my opponents yet)
I suggest this for several reasons:
Well first, here's some background to how I felt playing a particular game where I felt it would be a better experience if a lord spawning in a portal world was possible. I was playing a game where one of the opponents was on a quite remote part of the map. I had crushed the others and moved over to where he was and was easily beating the units he had around there. During my assault of his territories, I discovered the last world portal right in the corner of the world. For a brief moment I had a little rush of excitement when I thought "what if his main territories and units are through there?" and the prospect of him being far more ready for a fight than I had first assumed from his territories and units on the main world map. I found myself actually wanting his capital to be in that portal world with lots of units waiting to put up a fight when I went through. But of course he wasn't. And I won really easily without having to go through (though I did because I like going through and fighting the different mob types and expanding into different types of environments).
Rationale for the option:
a) Variety is nice. There is variety already in the environments you start in, this would increase that considerably (if the player could start in a portal world). I know those portal worlds can be quite a bit more hostile than the main world, but those not minding that challenge and able to quickly adapt or run away could have the option for them possibly starting in a portal world active, others not. Option.
b) Surprises are nice. Like in the scenario I outlined above, it would for me have been a pleasant surprise posing further challenges if while I was flaying the opponent on the main world and came upon the portal, if I'd discovered he was actually really well set up in that portal world.
c) More scope for fighting across multiple fronts with divergent/complimentary/broader strategies. If an opponent has a substantial force in a portal world as well as on the main world, the battle strategy would broaden and the player would have to more consider a multi-pronged battle strategy. You might, for example, have to post some strong units around the portal to keep the enemy's main force from spilling out, whilst then having to use a proportion of your remaining units to push at the territories in the main world. Or you might give up the region on the main world, hold the portal with a rear-guard to fend of his main-world units while an advance force goes hell for leather in the portal world. You'd have to consider more what the rewards of fighting on each front would be and take into account the situation in mutliple worlds far more than currently, where (based on my plays so far) you aren't likely to encounter an opponent's forces in a portal world. I know they do move to search them sometimes, but it seems to be in a half-hearted way and not very often. It's possible I just haven't been 'lucky' enough yet to find an opponent heavily entrenched in a portal world, maybe it just doesn't happen with the current AI. Having the possibility of a lord starting off in a portal world would for sure provide a chance for you to find yourself dominant on the main world but the underdog in a portal world.
d) More incentive to explore those portal worlds. There already are some fine incentives (new powerful troops, resources, etc). One of your opponents owning one of those portal worlds would add another incentive to go into them. To kick them out.
e) Quite probably a longer game. The game I outlined above would certainly have been lengthened and made more interesting had I encountered the twist where my final opponent had the larger share of his troops and territories in that portal world. The game's fun, nothing wrong with it taking longer.
f) The AI isn't as smart as most players. Sad but true, but oh well we should be proud of our human ingenuity. But if a lord started off in a portal world, assuming he managed to not get his butt handed to him (natural selection), he would quite likely have a nice advantage from being right on those juicy resources and powerful unit possibilities. That, again assuming he survived the first rounds of the game, would give him a boost that might help make up for the human being smarter.
g) I like the variety reason so much I'll just put it again lol. Variety is nice!
I'm aware of some balance issues this would create. If the player started in a portal world, it would very likely be way harder than when he starts in the main world, for the first part of the game. I'd accept that risk, click the option, and be ready to adapt to the more hostile beginning, and either try to survive and exploit the portal world to be stronger faster than my opponents, or if I couldn't hack it, pull out of there and hold the portal for later while I slowly built up in the main world (by the time I got there I would be less developed than the opponents, but again, the AI isn't as smart as me so I wouldn't mind having a disadvantaged start). On the other hand, if an opponent started in a portal world, it would have the same issues to balance. Either it would handle it and become stronger faster than the others and the player, it would run and have a slower start, or it would get beaten up so bad it wouldn't constitute a threat ever. +++variety. +++not knowing what to expect in terms of your opponent's strength. Those are positives and add to the emergent play.
3) DO SOMETHING TO MAKE TROOP TYPES MATTER MORE, FOR LONGER INTO THE GAME
I noted a few occasions when I would encounter a unit type that the units I had couldn't handle too well. I liked those moments. Having to figure out what to do about unit X or unit Y. Typically when it's happened I have had to use certain spell types or manufacture certain units that are 'good' against the target while keeping my other units away from that kind of fight. That creates the need to think and use strategy. Unfortunately, for me it hasn't happened enough, and when it has it tends to happen more in the early stages of a game. Later when troops are levelled up and oozing perks and buffs and pwnage they just hammer anything regardless of unit types and elemental/resistance types. When that happens it feels like half the challenge has gone. I wish I could give a good suggestion for how to preserve the need for strategically picking which unit types go against which unit types, but I can't think of a simple single thing that would resolve it. I'm tempted to think along the lines of just making those stats matter more in fights, take the elemental attack type effect, the elemental resistance effect, and just multiply them a lot until the meaning of them holds, even after levelling units a lot and all the buffs and perks. That'd probably do it but would perhaps make it way harder at the start of the game should the player encounter one of those units they didnt have the unit types to take and unless the necessary means to get hold of the required units were available it could spell an early game over. I'd be okay with that, plenty probably wouldn't be. So... in short, sorry, I haven't an easy solution to that little issue, I just point it out, that towards to mid and endgame, unit types, the resistance types of the enemies, etc, don't seem to play enough of a role in determining outcomes anymore; the player's powered up troops of all types can just pretty much flay whatever they meet, and the challenge is diminished by it.
4) MORE DLC!
So far the dlc has been very cheap but does feel like it has broadened/expanded the game nicely. That's a rare thing given that for most games, DLC is usually overpriced and doesn't change much.
5) MORE QUESTS, PERHAPS MULTI-STAGE QUESTS, AND/OR QUESTS WITH MULTIPLE WAYS OF RESOLVING THEM (WITH CONSEQUENCES), AND/OR QUESTS THAT ARE OFFERED ACROSS ALL LORDS ON A 'FIRST TO COMPLETE THE OBJECTIVE GETS THE REWARD' BASIS (FORCE MORE CONFLICT).
It's okay to get a quest to kill *this* unit. Or *that* unit. Or to build *this* city improvement. Those are okay, they're in the game. They are mostly the only quests you get. There could be more to quests, with some quests of a more complex nature spicing things up a bit.
Imagine getting a quest to kill *this* unit. Same as we already have, right? But wait, there's more. The unit you have to kill is a *boss*. Not just a powerful named boss unit either, it's one that you will definitely *not* be able to beat if you just head off and fight it. The quest says you get a reward for killing the unit however you wish to, but suggests you should defeat *that* miniboss first to obtain a scroll with the knowledge of how to do it. You track down the miniboss and find it's already dead, because the quest was offered across all lords and one of your opponents rushed to do it and got there first. Your enemy has the scroll that reveals the secret of how to kill that juicy boss unit. You open diplomacy and demand he gives you the scroll. He says no. You kill all his troops in the immediate area, and one of them has the scroll on it (you maybe could see which one when you hovered your cursor over it, or maybe there was an icon above it denoting it had the scroll - different ways of implementing it of course). Now you have the scroll, and it adds information to the quest; that the target boss unit is in X portal world, is vulnerable to fire, and can only die from melee attacks delivered in the same round as 3 missile hits, otherwise it stays alive on 0 health until that type of combo is delivered. Oh. So if you'd rushed at it without knowing that, yeah it would have owned you unless you are a lottery winning type and happened to do that coordinated attack by chance. So now you have to develop those unit types and coordinate that attack. And you get something juicy for doing it. That's a quest with more to it than kill *this* unit. It might not be that exciting and might well be massively flawed, but you get the idea. Quests with multiple 'parts' or quests with sequenced objectives. Not all the time, just now and then amongst all the more simple "do this", "do that" ones. Quests that unlock other quests maybe. I'm sure you know how it works, plenty of examples in plenty of RPGs of sequenced objectives and multi-pathed quests and questlines/series. Some types might fit the game more readily than others, some not at all, but I get the feeling for sure that the quests side of the game could be spiced up plenty and enrich the game enormously. And quests that are open to completion by rivals as well on a whoever does it first gets the payoff basis could add ways of creating conflict between lords (civ5 AI hates me building all those wonders...).
6) ALTERNATIVE GAME MODES/TOOLS FOR MODDING THEM
I know it would be a totally different game but... in a different mode, perhaps via a mod made with some.. modding tools... I could imagine playing a campaign of scenarios of increasing complexity and size with different victory/objectives as I progressed. I could even imagine playing a mod that got rid of cities and lords altogether and had me taking a bunch of units on a jolly oldschool explorative adventure through a world of hexes into a dungeon of hexes with plenty much tactical/strategic fighting (fantasy wars, wesnoth - whilst playing master of the arcane I was reminded of fantasy wars; similar graphics, those hexes, similar unit vs unit stuff etc, and wesnoth popped into my head too in terms of some of the battle tactics), perhaps a series of scenarios linked together with units carrying over etc. Yes, that would be a different game - but what I'm saying is that the master of the arcane game engine could easily accommodate those types of games as mods or alternative game modes. Anyway, this kind of wish/suggestion is not really for what I'd like to see happen to the standard Warlock:Master of the Arcane game, cos it's fun to play as it is, a kind of Fantasy Wars/Civilization hybrid (not to detract from its originality, just noting some pleasant ancestors); but it would be nice to see either DLCs or mods that used the engine and lore and resources in other ways to make different gaming experiences... which would perhaps best be achieved with modding tools for those people far more clever than I that come up with such amazing things.
7) MORE EVENTS AND OF MORE DIVERSE TYPES
I'm talking about those things that happen every once in a while where demons spawn or rogues etc. I'm not suggesting they be more frequent (to my tastes they seem perhaps a little too frequent as it is), just more varied. Maybe look at some of the weekly events that happen in games like HOMM that for that week change how you might play or at least force you to take them into account. Such as BOOM famine this week, food production is lowered. BOOM the life festival is here for ten days, life spells and life attacks are at x 1.5 for ten days. BOOM season of conflict, distrust and paranoia sweep the lands, for 15 turns all relations with other lords are reduced by x influence points (which if close to war could lead to war, or if only just allies could break alliances etc). BOOM the lord of shmargelzargel has arrived from another dimension with his entourage and they are running amok fighting everyone they meet for x turns; kill him for a sexy artefact and x gold/god rep/etc. Etc. The more drastic types of event would be best kept very spaced apart and happen very rarely, less drastic ones could be more frequent, but overall the events shouldn't probably be more frequent than they are currently cos as I said, at least to my tastes, they occur more than enough already. I'd just like to see some different ones that have different types of impact than GO HERE KILL THIS CLEAN UP THESE SPAWNPOINTS or GO HERE PICK UP THIS LOOT, and every once in a while, very rarely, something that maybe makes the game radically different and unique compared to a different playthrough.
8) WORLD CONFIG- ADD RANDOMIZE OPTIONS
a) Randomize options for type, size, rival lord number, portal world number, with the results made known to the player before starting
b) As above but don't tell the player the results of those randomizations, let them discover it in-game through exploration as the game unfolds. Nice to be kept on your toes sometimes instead of knowing what to expect.
Maybe have the randomize options (random seen/random unseen) appear in each category individually (type, size, rival lords, portal worlds), so if someone wants to specify on one category but random on another, they can.
9) MAKE TERRAIN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Currently, you build a farm on a lava hex or on a jungle hex and the food productivity of both farms are equal. Not only does this seem counter-intuitive, but it also means that the player has less to consider when choosing where to send a settler and what to build on each hex than he might. Modifiers to city structures for terrain types would add another layer of thinking and strategy in deciding where to settle and what to build where.
10) INCLUDE TERRAIN COMBAT MODIFIER INFORMATION IN TOOLTIPS WHEN CURSORING OVER HEXES
Terrain modifiers show in the combat prediction part of the screen, but to get to that point you've already moved your unit to get in range of the target. If you could see those modifiers when hovering over hexes (which currently only pops up tooltips saying "Forest" or "Hill" etc) you'd be better equipped to decide where to move your units beforehand (and without having to memorize or look up what terrain modifiers apply to different terrain).
Some things to think about maybe. Love the game as it is, but I do see it as having more scope for juicy things being squeezed out of it, and that's a compliment too. It's fun now, and with some extra options and some patching and some dlc and some mod tools, I can see it having a very long shelf-life and a wealth of replayability. So, good job on the game, great work.
Hello. Long post, read if bored or interested in the reasons for the suggestions/wishes, otherwise feel free to just read the CAPITALS for the suggestions/wishes themselves (but don't reply pointing out something to consider about them if you haven't read what I've written because quite likely I did consider it and write about it in the bit you skipped lol).
1) LOOTABLE SPAWNPOINTS - MAKE IT SO THE CAMERA CAN ZOOM TO THEM.
I notice that when you are in the middle of one of the events where lots of mobs of a given type spawn, and their spawn-points, if you are on a large landmass it can be a bit cumbersome to locate those spawnpoints that need a troop to wander on to them to loot them and prevent further spawns. Currrently (unless I am missing a control somewhere), you have to scroll around the map looking for them by checking every hex. I sweep the cursor over the hexes from left to right, move down a hex, and then sweep back from right to left, and continue until I see a spawnpoint (e.g. Bear Den), and then get the nearest troop to head toward it.
What would be better from the ease of use point of view would be to either have a shortcut key that allows you to have the camera focus jump to the next den/lair (spawnpoint) so you can cycle through and see where they are without laborious visual searches, or maybe an icon on the right of the screen with all the other stuff that lets you cycle through (i.e. troops awaiting orders, enemy at the gate, etc) so you could click that and have the camera focus on each of the spawnpoints (at least those in explored territory, not obscured by fog of war). It wouldn't make the game easier in any way, it would just make it faster and remove a quite unneccessary visual search task that slows play during those mass spawnpoint events.
2) HAVE AN OPTION TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR LORDS (MAYBE INCLUDING PLAYER) TO SPAWN IN A PORTAL WORLD INITIALLY (if it isn't already - it certainly hasn't happened to me or my opponents yet)
I suggest this for several reasons:
Well first, here's some background to how I felt playing a particular game where I felt it would be a better experience if a lord spawning in a portal world was possible. I was playing a game where one of the opponents was on a quite remote part of the map. I had crushed the others and moved over to where he was and was easily beating the units he had around there. During my assault of his territories, I discovered the last world portal right in the corner of the world. For a brief moment I had a little rush of excitement when I thought "what if his main territories and units are through there?" and the prospect of him being far more ready for a fight than I had first assumed from his territories and units on the main world map. I found myself actually wanting his capital to be in that portal world with lots of units waiting to put up a fight when I went through. But of course he wasn't. And I won really easily without having to go through (though I did because I like going through and fighting the different mob types and expanding into different types of environments).
Rationale for the option:
a) Variety is nice. There is variety already in the environments you start in, this would increase that considerably (if the player could start in a portal world). I know those portal worlds can be quite a bit more hostile than the main world, but those not minding that challenge and able to quickly adapt or run away could have the option for them possibly starting in a portal world active, others not. Option.
b) Surprises are nice. Like in the scenario I outlined above, it would for me have been a pleasant surprise posing further challenges if while I was flaying the opponent on the main world and came upon the portal, if I'd discovered he was actually really well set up in that portal world.
c) More scope for fighting across multiple fronts with divergent/complimentary/broader strategies. If an opponent has a substantial force in a portal world as well as on the main world, the battle strategy would broaden and the player would have to more consider a multi-pronged battle strategy. You might, for example, have to post some strong units around the portal to keep the enemy's main force from spilling out, whilst then having to use a proportion of your remaining units to push at the territories in the main world. Or you might give up the region on the main world, hold the portal with a rear-guard to fend of his main-world units while an advance force goes hell for leather in the portal world. You'd have to consider more what the rewards of fighting on each front would be and take into account the situation in mutliple worlds far more than currently, where (based on my plays so far) you aren't likely to encounter an opponent's forces in a portal world. I know they do move to search them sometimes, but it seems to be in a half-hearted way and not very often. It's possible I just haven't been 'lucky' enough yet to find an opponent heavily entrenched in a portal world, maybe it just doesn't happen with the current AI. Having the possibility of a lord starting off in a portal world would for sure provide a chance for you to find yourself dominant on the main world but the underdog in a portal world.
d) More incentive to explore those portal worlds. There already are some fine incentives (new powerful troops, resources, etc). One of your opponents owning one of those portal worlds would add another incentive to go into them. To kick them out.
e) Quite probably a longer game. The game I outlined above would certainly have been lengthened and made more interesting had I encountered the twist where my final opponent had the larger share of his troops and territories in that portal world. The game's fun, nothing wrong with it taking longer.
f) The AI isn't as smart as most players. Sad but true, but oh well we should be proud of our human ingenuity. But if a lord started off in a portal world, assuming he managed to not get his butt handed to him (natural selection), he would quite likely have a nice advantage from being right on those juicy resources and powerful unit possibilities. That, again assuming he survived the first rounds of the game, would give him a boost that might help make up for the human being smarter.
g) I like the variety reason so much I'll just put it again lol. Variety is nice!
I'm aware of some balance issues this would create. If the player started in a portal world, it would very likely be way harder than when he starts in the main world, for the first part of the game. I'd accept that risk, click the option, and be ready to adapt to the more hostile beginning, and either try to survive and exploit the portal world to be stronger faster than my opponents, or if I couldn't hack it, pull out of there and hold the portal for later while I slowly built up in the main world (by the time I got there I would be less developed than the opponents, but again, the AI isn't as smart as me so I wouldn't mind having a disadvantaged start). On the other hand, if an opponent started in a portal world, it would have the same issues to balance. Either it would handle it and become stronger faster than the others and the player, it would run and have a slower start, or it would get beaten up so bad it wouldn't constitute a threat ever. +++variety. +++not knowing what to expect in terms of your opponent's strength. Those are positives and add to the emergent play.
3) DO SOMETHING TO MAKE TROOP TYPES MATTER MORE, FOR LONGER INTO THE GAME
I noted a few occasions when I would encounter a unit type that the units I had couldn't handle too well. I liked those moments. Having to figure out what to do about unit X or unit Y. Typically when it's happened I have had to use certain spell types or manufacture certain units that are 'good' against the target while keeping my other units away from that kind of fight. That creates the need to think and use strategy. Unfortunately, for me it hasn't happened enough, and when it has it tends to happen more in the early stages of a game. Later when troops are levelled up and oozing perks and buffs and pwnage they just hammer anything regardless of unit types and elemental/resistance types. When that happens it feels like half the challenge has gone. I wish I could give a good suggestion for how to preserve the need for strategically picking which unit types go against which unit types, but I can't think of a simple single thing that would resolve it. I'm tempted to think along the lines of just making those stats matter more in fights, take the elemental attack type effect, the elemental resistance effect, and just multiply them a lot until the meaning of them holds, even after levelling units a lot and all the buffs and perks. That'd probably do it but would perhaps make it way harder at the start of the game should the player encounter one of those units they didnt have the unit types to take and unless the necessary means to get hold of the required units were available it could spell an early game over. I'd be okay with that, plenty probably wouldn't be. So... in short, sorry, I haven't an easy solution to that little issue, I just point it out, that towards to mid and endgame, unit types, the resistance types of the enemies, etc, don't seem to play enough of a role in determining outcomes anymore; the player's powered up troops of all types can just pretty much flay whatever they meet, and the challenge is diminished by it.
4) MORE DLC!
So far the dlc has been very cheap but does feel like it has broadened/expanded the game nicely. That's a rare thing given that for most games, DLC is usually overpriced and doesn't change much.
5) MORE QUESTS, PERHAPS MULTI-STAGE QUESTS, AND/OR QUESTS WITH MULTIPLE WAYS OF RESOLVING THEM (WITH CONSEQUENCES), AND/OR QUESTS THAT ARE OFFERED ACROSS ALL LORDS ON A 'FIRST TO COMPLETE THE OBJECTIVE GETS THE REWARD' BASIS (FORCE MORE CONFLICT).
It's okay to get a quest to kill *this* unit. Or *that* unit. Or to build *this* city improvement. Those are okay, they're in the game. They are mostly the only quests you get. There could be more to quests, with some quests of a more complex nature spicing things up a bit.
Imagine getting a quest to kill *this* unit. Same as we already have, right? But wait, there's more. The unit you have to kill is a *boss*. Not just a powerful named boss unit either, it's one that you will definitely *not* be able to beat if you just head off and fight it. The quest says you get a reward for killing the unit however you wish to, but suggests you should defeat *that* miniboss first to obtain a scroll with the knowledge of how to do it. You track down the miniboss and find it's already dead, because the quest was offered across all lords and one of your opponents rushed to do it and got there first. Your enemy has the scroll that reveals the secret of how to kill that juicy boss unit. You open diplomacy and demand he gives you the scroll. He says no. You kill all his troops in the immediate area, and one of them has the scroll on it (you maybe could see which one when you hovered your cursor over it, or maybe there was an icon above it denoting it had the scroll - different ways of implementing it of course). Now you have the scroll, and it adds information to the quest; that the target boss unit is in X portal world, is vulnerable to fire, and can only die from melee attacks delivered in the same round as 3 missile hits, otherwise it stays alive on 0 health until that type of combo is delivered. Oh. So if you'd rushed at it without knowing that, yeah it would have owned you unless you are a lottery winning type and happened to do that coordinated attack by chance. So now you have to develop those unit types and coordinate that attack. And you get something juicy for doing it. That's a quest with more to it than kill *this* unit. It might not be that exciting and might well be massively flawed, but you get the idea. Quests with multiple 'parts' or quests with sequenced objectives. Not all the time, just now and then amongst all the more simple "do this", "do that" ones. Quests that unlock other quests maybe. I'm sure you know how it works, plenty of examples in plenty of RPGs of sequenced objectives and multi-pathed quests and questlines/series. Some types might fit the game more readily than others, some not at all, but I get the feeling for sure that the quests side of the game could be spiced up plenty and enrich the game enormously. And quests that are open to completion by rivals as well on a whoever does it first gets the payoff basis could add ways of creating conflict between lords (civ5 AI hates me building all those wonders...).
6) ALTERNATIVE GAME MODES/TOOLS FOR MODDING THEM
I know it would be a totally different game but... in a different mode, perhaps via a mod made with some.. modding tools... I could imagine playing a campaign of scenarios of increasing complexity and size with different victory/objectives as I progressed. I could even imagine playing a mod that got rid of cities and lords altogether and had me taking a bunch of units on a jolly oldschool explorative adventure through a world of hexes into a dungeon of hexes with plenty much tactical/strategic fighting (fantasy wars, wesnoth - whilst playing master of the arcane I was reminded of fantasy wars; similar graphics, those hexes, similar unit vs unit stuff etc, and wesnoth popped into my head too in terms of some of the battle tactics), perhaps a series of scenarios linked together with units carrying over etc. Yes, that would be a different game - but what I'm saying is that the master of the arcane game engine could easily accommodate those types of games as mods or alternative game modes. Anyway, this kind of wish/suggestion is not really for what I'd like to see happen to the standard Warlock:Master of the Arcane game, cos it's fun to play as it is, a kind of Fantasy Wars/Civilization hybrid (not to detract from its originality, just noting some pleasant ancestors); but it would be nice to see either DLCs or mods that used the engine and lore and resources in other ways to make different gaming experiences... which would perhaps best be achieved with modding tools for those people far more clever than I that come up with such amazing things.
7) MORE EVENTS AND OF MORE DIVERSE TYPES
I'm talking about those things that happen every once in a while where demons spawn or rogues etc. I'm not suggesting they be more frequent (to my tastes they seem perhaps a little too frequent as it is), just more varied. Maybe look at some of the weekly events that happen in games like HOMM that for that week change how you might play or at least force you to take them into account. Such as BOOM famine this week, food production is lowered. BOOM the life festival is here for ten days, life spells and life attacks are at x 1.5 for ten days. BOOM season of conflict, distrust and paranoia sweep the lands, for 15 turns all relations with other lords are reduced by x influence points (which if close to war could lead to war, or if only just allies could break alliances etc). BOOM the lord of shmargelzargel has arrived from another dimension with his entourage and they are running amok fighting everyone they meet for x turns; kill him for a sexy artefact and x gold/god rep/etc. Etc. The more drastic types of event would be best kept very spaced apart and happen very rarely, less drastic ones could be more frequent, but overall the events shouldn't probably be more frequent than they are currently cos as I said, at least to my tastes, they occur more than enough already. I'd just like to see some different ones that have different types of impact than GO HERE KILL THIS CLEAN UP THESE SPAWNPOINTS or GO HERE PICK UP THIS LOOT, and every once in a while, very rarely, something that maybe makes the game radically different and unique compared to a different playthrough.
8) WORLD CONFIG- ADD RANDOMIZE OPTIONS
a) Randomize options for type, size, rival lord number, portal world number, with the results made known to the player before starting
b) As above but don't tell the player the results of those randomizations, let them discover it in-game through exploration as the game unfolds. Nice to be kept on your toes sometimes instead of knowing what to expect.
Maybe have the randomize options (random seen/random unseen) appear in each category individually (type, size, rival lords, portal worlds), so if someone wants to specify on one category but random on another, they can.
9) MAKE TERRAIN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Currently, you build a farm on a lava hex or on a jungle hex and the food productivity of both farms are equal. Not only does this seem counter-intuitive, but it also means that the player has less to consider when choosing where to send a settler and what to build on each hex than he might. Modifiers to city structures for terrain types would add another layer of thinking and strategy in deciding where to settle and what to build where.
10) INCLUDE TERRAIN COMBAT MODIFIER INFORMATION IN TOOLTIPS WHEN CURSORING OVER HEXES
Terrain modifiers show in the combat prediction part of the screen, but to get to that point you've already moved your unit to get in range of the target. If you could see those modifiers when hovering over hexes (which currently only pops up tooltips saying "Forest" or "Hill" etc) you'd be better equipped to decide where to move your units beforehand (and without having to memorize or look up what terrain modifiers apply to different terrain).
Some things to think about maybe. Love the game as it is, but I do see it as having more scope for juicy things being squeezed out of it, and that's a compliment too. It's fun now, and with some extra options and some patching and some dlc and some mod tools, I can see it having a very long shelf-life and a wealth of replayability. So, good job on the game, great work.
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