This is a long laundry list. I mention these to spurr discussion and improvements to the game.
FIRST OFF AND MOST CRITICAL! when you click on a city, have the radius show around the city where you cannot build another city. This way you can intuitively see what land has to be resotred, converted, outposted, cast the spell on etc. To settle another city. I know it's 5 tiles, but I had to look through several websites, and forums to find how many tiles was the minimum... I was under the impression that it was purely random for the first 2-3 playthroughs of the game, and it was frustrating. PLEASE don't assume a player will know these things without it being displayed in the game UI.
1) Cut scenes for Wild Lands to be mouse click dependant
2) Able to select enemy units during combat to actually see and read the icons, and information which is present but too small at the bottom of the screen on the mobs icon to read. If you didn't look on the world map you can't currently see it in the battle sequence.
3) A range fall-off for archery. Currently I can get mounted archers using the Bow with the racial ability (forget the one but it ignores 50% of armour) to hit with a company for 130 damage every single time... Overpowered. The range on the bows should be made so that after a certain point damage decreases by a percent or there is a greater chance to miss which is calculated after all the unit, equipment, spell and army modifyers. Ofcourse better bows have less penalty. In melee range Bows should also be unusable. and archer units have to move before they can fire. This would not affect magic range weapons. You see in a mouse-over what the penalty to range is before you fire.
4) Ranged units who spend equal to or more than 50% of their movement points should either not be able to fire, or have a penalty to chance to hit, as it basically is a running shot.
5) have certain battlefield terrain play a roll in obstructing all range attacks effectiveness by some degree. have the arrow icon show as broken in the middle to indicate that there is a penalty pending and a pop up showing how much or you can even hide that as long as I know that the graphic is there shwowing that some penalty will be applied.
6) A building you can send a hero to to have injuries cured. This building could be only unlockable in the research tree of specialization for a city, and the cure would cost Crystal, gold, and mana to perform, the more injuries one hero gets removed each successive repair will take more resources and more time to complete to a maximum of some # of injuries to be fixed.
7) A mouse-over pop-up for each enemy faction on the world map when you mouse-over their territory. When multiple ones are at war, the colours on the map are very similar and it's hard to see who is who.
8) A diplomacy option when you click on a enamy sovergn's faction in the upper right corner list: Send Envoy - The envoy is automatic like the trade routes, can be attacked etc. When the envoy arrives you can engage in diplomatic relations. Unless you are or the other faction is in the oposing person's territory, then contact can be immediate. Also when in another faction's territory you should only be able to contact the faction when within a city radius.
9) The ability to have a tech which creates graphical bridges over a river.
10) the ability to spend cash to create a road connection between two cities. I mention this because I had created a series of cities around this mountain range that had a sizable gap in the middle. The road went around the mountain, ofcourse, to connect each city. Then when I placed a city in the gap in the mountains, sort of in the middle of the circle. Only one road was formed north to south, and the center city was NOT connected by road to the city which was close, and to the south, so when sending units from the middle city to the south city, it would head North and all around the mountain along the road network taking 3 turns for a trip that should have taken 1 turn if there was a road between the middle city and the south city.
11) The ability to convert metal and a combination of Gold, metal and mana to Crystal in the alchemy shop at a horribly unfavorable conversion rate. (all three needed in the process)
12) Some better idea of what items are avaible in the shop at what cities. A menu of some sort. I often forget that a city is able to produce certain scrolls, or potions that other cities cannot, and only remember or discover it when I happen to use the shop when the hero just happens to be by the appropropriate city.
13) Removal of the "unlocks quest" from the hero magic tech tree technologies. They are legacy from EWOM.
14) *** When you start the game. I've had several start locations where I COULD NOT PLACE A CITY on any visible tile! I had to exit and start another game. Also, the game states you spent years wandering the wastes looking for the ideal place to found a city... WHY would the start loations in many of the games be sooooo shitty. 2/2/1 for example when the world conditions selected would indicate that a 4/3 would be more common.. I've also started with no resources when resources were set to balanced or even Dense. Your sovereign should pick a decent place. Maybe have a modifyer that improves the start location SLIGHTLY while preventing start locations where you either cannot select one tile which is visible or statistically a terrible location for the map conditions.
15) Add an option you can select for the sovereign creation which is say... Dowsing or something and you start with a better than map condition start location may likely provide. Have it cost 1 or 2 points or something.
16) I can't for the life of me figure out how to dis-enchant a non hero unit of a spell I cast. I open the units detail window and click on the spell right/left, etc. and no option exists, so I end up disbanding the unit. When you have a spell cast on a dragon, and you NEED to dispell the spell... Kinda sucks that you can't do it. Have it dispellable/able to be cancelled (i.e. Buffs you cast) from the details menu brought up when you click the units icon at the bottom of the screen.
17) I find items become garbage mid game that I find around the map. I've killed a Deadly MOB and received a broadsword... Or a herb that heals 30 hp... Make it random, but entry level items should not be spawned from Deadly MOBS. Even if a MOB camp was "Weak" at first and was left alone and it grew to Deadly over time, have the item randomization reflect that as well.
18) There are certain city types that generate income, research etc. when idle. Have these features selectable with infinite turns an nice ∞ in the turns remaining. You can have Research, Gold, -10 to unrest in empire, +5 production per material in empire, Mana, +some amount to a resource within the city's control. etc. You can see the city doing this, and makes it feel like you are choosing to do something with the city, other than just ignoring it.
19) Have the ability to rename a city before a default name is provided. It breaks immersion when I always rename my city: Nel'Rath for my custom faction and then in the scene that is default, before I can rename, it says the city is alberathemathrampth or something...
Also permit the ability to rename a hero when you first purcahse them. Renaming them afterwards kinda feels weird. I'm not their parrents... Hide their name on the global map just say "level 5 hero" until you purchse, and rename, or keep the default. This will help immersion.
20) Some representation what trading knowledge will get me. I often am unsure if trading for knoweldge for a category I'm not currently researching will be banked for when I switch, or if it is lost. How many turns will it save me on the next techs I have to research.
21) Permit me to select individual buildings when I zoom in on the city. I can see the graphically represented people standing, working etc. I'd like to know how much the +10% to guildar harbour is acatually generating atm. I may only do this once in a while, but it sure adds to the immersion of the game.
Edited* 22) I should have entered this earlier. Certain weapon types should be better vs mounted units. Namely spears etc. Currently every unit I make gets a mount. There is no drawback!!! A group of units holding spears should be good vs a mounted unit, likewise a unit with a lance should also have a bonus vs mounted units. Make me think before I default and give everyone a horse that I train
That's all I can think about at the moment. I'm not sure how much attention this post will get. But I honestly believe that these changes would be for the good of the game.
Bug I've noticed:
Sometimes the Swords that cross over a enemy unit and displays the stats stays a solitary sword, and no pop-up happens, Empire borders sometimes dissapear, Unit move radius graphic during combat also disapears when this happens. It happens every game, but saving, exiting the game, and reloading seems to fix it. Just kind of annoying to deal with all the time.