I like the Planetfall system with all the regions, but I wish they didn't look like a bunch of pieces of a puzzle, with rounded borders. I wish they were more realistic.
Also I wish I were able to choose the exact spot where to build a city, not generically in the middle of a region... And I miss the fact of building roads and bridges.
I also like the overwatch concept in tactical.
Overall I hope AOW IV will be darker and more realistic than its predecessors. "Migrate" a city means genocide, make it more clear (I mean Dark)!! Orcs and Dark Elves would maybe be happy when that is done... But then their evil alignment would make everyone more likely to hate them.
Orcs and Dark Elves are Evil, they are happy when a war starts. Why should they have a low morale if their leader is hated?
I really hope races will go back to their standard alignment. Orcs are Evil and that's it. It really made no sense seeing good orcs in AOWIII. I never though it was cool seeing an orc dressed up like a catholic priest WTF!!
Dark Elves must be there. Period. They MUST.
Halflings are annoying. It really makes no sense to me seeing them with an organized army. But whatever, the devs like them so I am sure they will stay. To me however they should just be a curiosity, a bunch or rare units with special skils not a whole race of units with "luck".
I believe units that fly should drown if they end their turn on water. Until that gets implemented there won't be any use for boats EVER and the whole game on sea will be useless. Instead if you want to cross the sea it should be that you MUST have a boat as it was in real life in the middle ages, period! Having city on the coast brings all sort of income/ fishing, trading etc... I play all Age of wonders game with no boats and I am fine. Well, I shouldn't be. Also disembarking in a port instead than on a beach, should allow to immediately move instead than wasting the rest of the turn.
City should only be built next to a source of water like in the real world. Sea or rivers.
In AOW 1 there was a rating system for the leader according to their achievements. it was pointless in single player but kind of cool in multiplayer. I believe the first player that accomplishes certain tasks should be elected warlord by his people, then king and maybe later emperor. Maybe only one of the players could be emperor, the first one to achieve a special task. From that point on that player's name should always have the 'Emperor' prefix to it.
Or maybe since Planetfall is so heavily inspired by Masters of Orion 2, look at the political system in that game. At some point during the research it becomes possible to choose what kind of form of government to follow. Democracy, Kingdom, Theocracy, Empire... each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Sure if a player becomes King or Emperor that title should appear everywhere in the game when interacting with other players. Maybe not all races should be entitled to every form of government. A democratic Orc nation would make no sense, but maybe they could have as an alternative a council of Elders like some barbarian tribes, or a shaman ruler. Make things as they are expected, don't waste time creating Orc cherubs, those are only funny the first time you see them.
Democracy would give many advantages (high morale? Technology...) but maybe a player would be forced to behave more diplomatically and maybe act partially following the choices of a council of elders... (cannot declare war and attack in the same tirne.. be forced to do quests etc...) - I mean that according to the kind of government chosen the player would be more or less able to act freely.
Certain games allow to continue playing after the leader dies. His successor would take his place in that case. Probably a younger character with less experience. Maybe if a player manages to marry and procreate the whole family should be dead before the game is lost. Total War implements a system like that. It works nicely.
I really liked the fact that the Elves had invisible cities in AOW2 (maybe the Dark Elves should too)
Dwarves should be able to create constructions that are visible on the map and to setup mine fields. Also as is tradition in Fantasy stories, they should have a hard time dealing with Elves? racism is an essential part of the fantasy genre, why change that?
THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT to create variety in these games always has to do with limitations not with being able to do everything every time. I believe a few things should randomly not appear in the research tree. For example in Planetfall I always use airplanes. If one game suddenly didn't allow me to research the tech to get them I would have to come up with options. Alternatively like in AOW2 there should be a section where it would be possible to limit the use of certain armies optionally before starting.
Too often the problem I end up having with these games is about how repetitive they are. It is a real pity because there are so many options and so many different things can happen, but if it is left to the player he will always tend to do the same things more or less. Choices should be made early in the game and things should happen that would force player in specific directions. As Planetfall is now even if I pick one race I will still be able to use other races with no penalty (at least a malus should be applied to an orc leader who tries to use dwarves, their machines should not work occasionally and stuff like that) - Limit players, make random thing unavailable in certain games...
Also I want to be able to build spectacular landscape elements and buildings that are rare to show off in multiplayer. Monuments to myself, towers, dams, artificial lakes, look up the 'seven wonders' for inspiration. multiplayer in a game like this is all about showing off. (XY becomes "Emperor XY" from that moment on throughout the rest of the game , XY can build a colossus (a giant statue that looks like him...)
Adding a tab in the game to be able to switch on the fly between the political and geographical view would be nice, without having to go through the menu (same for the "observe" option, but if there is a shortcut for that and I missed it, nevermind)
It makes sense for a SCi-Fi game that players have a general knowledge of the map, also that they have a general idea about where the enemies are (today there are sonars, radars... etc...). So I understand that in Planetfall it is relatively easy getting technologies that help figure out the enemy's position. That is also why I don't like Planetfall too much but it does make sense. in a Medieval Fantasy that WOULD SUCK. The best part about the classic AOW is that you move in the dark, knowing very little about the territory and the enemy position. The mystery is essential! Those spells that allow players to explore maps should be rare and NEVER give a complete vision. If maps are made of two levels, make sure that a player can only have spells to explore one of the two, so at the very worst one can hide underground (I am talking about multiplayer games obviously) - I mean if you are a master of Earth magic you could have an improved vision underground. A master of Air of the land above ground, a master of Water could see the seas and rivers etc... Nobody should be able to see everything, an expert player should always have somewhere to hide.
Even setting up "FEW" in the options there are way too many locations to explore and stuff to find. Next time I would go for a slider that let us choose the exact numbers. Playing on an almost bare planet could still be a lot of fun, and special areas and sectrors would become important objectives. As it is now, I don't really care about what i find or my enemies find in Planetfall sectors. Remember my usual rule: there are hudreds of units and optional things to find in this game, but thes SHOULD NOT appear in every game. Still discovering new units and places after having played for months would be a lot of fun and add value to all the work that has been put into developing these games.
If you want the infantry to be more useful, make it that only infantry can occupy cities. that was implemented in other games as well (I think Fantasy General) - Hi level units IMO should only be available randomly (maybe as an event when cities are happy) - Then you will finally limit their number in the game and have armies made up mostly of infantry as they should be.
I understand it is optional, but is there anyone who doesn't find annoying the overacting voice in Planetfall, that keeps saying "enemy down" every time the player kills a unit? Do you realize how many times we are supposed to hear that? It is like a dumb RTS, and if we turn down the voice in the audio options, we don't hear anymore the tech description (the voices of the tech descriptions are actually overacting too but the text is actually cool). And the noises heroes make? Oh gosh don't start me on those "UMPF" "OAHH" why? even in exciting situations they always sound bored!! :/
I wouldn't mind a tech tree for civilian technology like in Planetfall BUT the spell book is great when you have a limited choice of spells, and every time you finish researching one you get the surprise of what you can research next. Being able to plan too much in advance makes all game feel the same, struggling having to deal with what you end up having is what makes every situation new and entertaining.
In Planetfall Cosmite becomes such an important game balancing tool that it should be possible to FINE TUNE the quantity of Cosmite sources. It should be possible to decide their exact number in the options. This small option would greatly increase the replayability of the game by completely change the balance of units available. If AOW-IV were to apply a similar system, spmething like that should happen, and maybe infantry should have their own, more common, resource for improvements. IMO there is still the need to make low level units useful in the mid-late game.
The concept of "strategic locations" is great buit it has also been balanced all wrong. there should be a way to fine tune thir exact number. It is good that there are so many possible strategic location that could end up in a map, but they shouldn't all be there in all games!! Instead they should become unique and very powerful, and become strategic objectives to be destroyed or captured by the enemy. A player who gets one should become a target for how dangerous they are - if they are a weapon maybe they can be used once every ten turns but with devastating effects, or if they are a defense they should be almost impenetrable in a game they should be extremely rare ... but then again it is great that there are many options. Think of replayability, Planetfall is a fine game but to me it becomes boring after a while (it doesn't even have an underground :/) - The mistake the developers make in my opinion is always the same: they want everything to happen in every game... But then every game feels the same and there are no surprises left to discover in the next. Imagine instead if after ten times you have played in the 11th game one enemy gets a superweapon than you have never seen before and you have to deal with it in a new different way... wouldn't that be more interesting?
Also they should really consider to include the choice of government in the research tree. An "emperor" may be more powerful but if he dies the game is lost, but imagine if you kill a "king" instead thinking that his faction is eliminated, but in fact he had an heir, or maybe instead the player had formed a democratic civilization and someone took his place. That way maybe his enemy would have to get all his cities in order to get him instead than the capital and the leader... of course having to deal with a democratic civilization for a leader is harder, having to submit every decision to a senate before getting the funds or the approval for wars.
GAME BALANCE: I always have the feeling that the game is balanced for a medium map. That makes sense also because it is probably the size of map used by the game testers. Unfortunately in very large maps one always ends up with enemies that are not competitive at all in the mid/late game. I always end up with 50 cities and discover that in the same amount of time the last of the enemy AI player has only build 6 or 7. What he has done for 100 turns is a mystery. The developers should work on that, how I don't know because it is strictly a AI problem and I really have no idea what those players do while I don't see them. I know sometimes their armies go back and forth without doing anything but I couldn't say if that is the real problem. In all AOW games wins who has the most cities, that has always been true, so city building should definitely be the priority for the AI.
After a player o AI player has been eliminated, the remaining roaming units should be more aggressive. There was an option in the second AOW which allowed that. It is necessary to make quick hit and run victories a little harder to execute against AI characters. When they have a huge army next to their capital it would only make sense that that army would attack even if one captures the city and eliminate their king.
To be continued... I am adding ideas to this very post, in case the devs care about what I think) - Come back to it.