I would like to see the AI Sovereigns have a personality trait or characteristic, there was another thread about this somewhere.  A couple of them that I mentioned in that thread were:

Maniacal--doesn't matter what is going on, they hate everybody and will attack everyone

Aggressive--feel the constant need to expand their territory

Passive--feel taking care of their kingdom is most important

You could even break down personalities by what they research the most.  Military vs Magic, etc.  I think if each sovereign behaved differently each time you could really have in depth game.  Examples a Passive Adventurer, a Maniacal Militarist, etc.  You could assign each Sovereign a specific combination or have them randomized each game.

I like some of the ideas here. Keep adding.

Good Golly Ima gonna get my recipies!

Ok, in all seriousness, I'm having trouble keeping up. In one thread you state CIV is a COMPLETELY different game and really shouldn't be compared to Elemental (which I agree with) and now here you're on board with ideas people have extracted from watching CIV movies.

There is no way in hadies I'm going to presume to understand your job Brad, but while I think it's great that you want to put some ideas from players into your games I think you also should build the game YOU want to build and let it stand on it's own merits too. Good ideas are good ideas, no doubt about that at all, but as a newbie to your forums, I find myself leaving more often than not from flat out exhaustion of all the "This is what's wrong" "This is how you fix it" "It should have been this" "I want x" "Why x game will always be better than Elemental", etc. etc.

I want to see STARDOCK's vision of Elemental, not constant pandering to everyone who drops an idea on what THEY think it should have been. I'd encourage you guys to accept feedback, but maybe ask specifically for the feedback you want rather than the free-for-all list of demands from everyone. It makes the place gloomy and depressing when all I ever read about is how wrong this game is and how it should have been and what needs fixing. It doesn't have to be fanboy central either, dissent is good when done constructively around a stated direction Stardock is looking to take.

By the by, since I have your ear for a moment, I bought your book on the Kindle. Not a bad read, congrats on your accomplishment! Now if I can just get AMAZON to let my Kindle run iPad apps......

Just because they're different games doesn't mean they can't have similar features.

Also, yeah, the book seems pretty okay thus far.  Curious how the "book campaign/characters" will feel compared to the actual book characters.

Unit Designer: The ability to Rotate the Model so we can see what it looks like all around. I would suggest by clicking and holding the middle mouse button down while in the display window.

Tile Editor: the ability to move pieces around the way it worked in the Gal Civ 2 Ship Designer. I also can't copy pieces or move them by just dragging them around in the window. It would be a TON more user friendly if you could make that happen pls

No, read the rest.  You get 'points' before the game starts.  Stuff costs points.  For simplicity, let's say you get 100 points (which is adjustable).  Cities cost 30 points, rank level 2 costs 10 points, a 'peasant' costs 5 points and level 1 techs cost 20 points.

The game starts in 'pre turn' mode with my hero in it's original starting location.  I have an editor up in 'pre-turn' mode where I can buy and place stuff with my points.  I can only place stuff in my field of view, so fog of war still applies, I don't see the whole map.  So I decide to buy a city and place it near my starting hero, this may or may not reveal a bit more of the map.  I then use more points and buy a second city on the fringe of my view near another resource that I can see.  I know have 40 points left.  If I choose to 'rank up' the cities, I will have 20 points left with which I can buy a few units or a tech.  Once I'm done buying and placing stuff, I hit the 'start game' button and the game starts as normal, except now I have a few cities, a few units, and possibly a tech or two...

A simple example, but you see where I'm going....

That's actualy a fantastic idea for MULTIPLAYER games.  It would make them much more streamlined and get rid of the slower early game (which isn't really conducive to a multiplayer experience).

Yep, that's basically the whole point, to get to the 'meat' of the game quicker.  Again, it's not my idea though, it's ripped almost word for word from Civ 4.

Oooooh, you got me good there! Here's the part where I fall into a depression and cry that mommy wants me because some random 1 or 0 in the world didn't approve of what I wrote and tried dinging me with a trendy word..........Whaaaaaaaaaaa!

Or not.

1. The game does need random AI personalities.

1. A semi-aggressive AI kingdom, one that simultaneously threatens two cites, takes one , then offers and accepts a peace treaty while it encouraging other AIs to attack you while it builds up its army before attacking again to take another city.
2. A fortress - swiss style ai - that builds a super strong city while forging trade relations with surrounding kingdoms. Woe to the player that attacks this AI and incurs its wrath.
3. A burn and pillage AI that seeks out weekly defended cities and razes them to the ground - like the Mongol Hordes or the Huns.

Here's a few options I'd like to see added:

1. ARROW KEYS HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL SCROLLING!  Seriously, this is such a common strategy game convention, I'm shocked it's not a part of Elemental.  Scrolling by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen and "dragging" the terrain works fine, but allowing us to use the arrow keys will give us the ability to use our mouse and keyboard simultaneously.  The carpel tunnel can be a killer without it.

2. NPC Monster Severity Options.  It would be neat to have a slider, when starting a new game to decide how often monsters spawn and how aggressive or intelligent they are.  This way we could create games to focus purely on faction-to-faction play, coop monster hunting, or a combination of the two.

3. More Unit Customization.  I know, I know, Elemental already does this pretty darn well.  But I'd like to have the same options from sovereign creation for unit design.  So if I want my warriors to be a certain skin color or all have purple hair, I should be able to do this.

Definitely want this, while we're at it, wasd scrolling is nice too. 

Otherwise.... the standard map generation options in games like civ and galciv would greatly benefit elemental. I also would like to see the ability to change things like the number of heroes that can be recruited on the map (not necessarily an exact number), the number of monsters generated over time from the adventure tree/rate of increase/advancement, and amount of resources on the map/basic placement (scarce, average, plentiful; balanced, random, geography based)