It seems like tactical combat is the hot topic at the moment, and I have to agree, tactical combat at the moment is bland, and in some cases stupid... So I was thinking about it a little bit, and come up with some ideas, which might be interesting... so here we go:

1. First of all I would like to see smaller squares in combat, I do not really like when you attack an unit it just run closer and then you attack it.

Units should have different sizes and those units should take more squares, at the moment smaller units run arround in squares if you attack them. But if you make smaller squares, you would be able to make bigger units take more squares, but also special abilites and also spells which can damage several squares away would look much better. Units running arround in squares are just stupid. Also this would make tactics in combat more interesting.

2.  Tactics. I would like to be able position my units at the begining of the combat, so I can put my archers back, and meele units at the front etc. You can even make it skill for heroes, as it was in HOMM for example, but I would really like to see that.

3. Make two different stats for attack, spells abilites, and the other one for movement. That really make sense, then you would be able to make units which are fast, move far and their attack is low, or other way arround. It also make sense for cavalery which should be fast but can not really attack more times each round.

4. Ranged attack on tactical map, please, remove it. There is no reason for it.... I know, this is in civilization, but then again, there is no reason for it in elemental, you have tactical combat, archer units have already advantage to attack from far away, there is no reason to give them more advantages on tactical map. Also, people which will want to play on max, will be using this as much as they can, to weaken enemies, which at the end means more micro at the tactical map, and slower turns overall.

5. Different attack types, and resistances.... Few days ago, I was playing R.U.S.E beta... and i think, they had one great idea. There is always problem with this system, as it makes deciding what to attack and when with given unit. Ruse made it really nice, if you choosed an unit and hovered your mouse over another unit, it poped up a tooltip which told you how good or bad was your chance to deal damage to it.

I would like to see something like this in elemental, I do not want to check every single unit, for their type of armors, and then rememeber it. There can be tooltips showing you what is ideal target with your unit and what is not. You can even make some tactical overview where after pressing button it will just pop out what is best target. It can be color coded or icon based (icons over the unit) basicaly telling you, what is good idea to attack and what is not.

There is really no reason to always show all statistics at given time, as it only makes everything more confusing. You can simply show only type of damage which units does VS armor which that unit has. Same for spells.

6. Equipment (this is going to be long one)

I would like to see more diversity in equipment. You have put alot of work, to customizing units, and I would like to see this pay off. I would like to have swords, which do thrust dmg, maces which do blunt damage, spears which can reach further targets etc... And also I would like to see different armors with advantages and disadvantages... Like heavy armored units but slow, and light armored and fast and so on...

Lets say, You will make soldier which has base stats 10 for movement, 10 for attack, and 10Hp (only examples)

Default movement cost per square 2.

Default attack cost 2.

Now you can move 5 squares with your basic soldier, and attack 5 times, With no equipment at all. Which means fast unit with pitty damage.

Light armor +1 cost. (Low protection)

Medium armor +2 cost. (Medium Protection)

Heavy armor +3 cost ( Heavy Protection

So now your soldier with light armor(1 + 2 default cost) will move only 3 square away.

With heavy armor it will only move 2 squares (2 + 3 for heavy armor) 

If you will make better trained units, their based stats will be higher, and they will be able perform more attacks, or move further. For example Elite soldier can have 14 movement speed, 14 attack speed and 14 Hp (again only examples).

And same goes for weapons. You can then give different weapons higher requirements for attacks like:

Sword +1 (Lower pierce(slash) dmg)

Mace +2 (medium blund damage)

Axe +3 ( high slash damage)

Now, you can see where I am going, I would like to see equipment to play bigger role overall. This way you can make some uber stuff and artefacts which can be really strong, but their attack cost will be much higher. And same for armors.

This is very basic stuff, which i believe can be implemented really easily and can make huge difference in diversity and customization. Of course, I did not touch things like different ablities based on types of weapons:

Sword can have pierce attack which can cost more AP. Maces can have stun attack. You can have short bows, shoting more often but not that far, and long bow, shoting less often but much further etc...

This are things which I consider as must for this kind of game. I do understand that other opinions can be different, and this is only my own vision how things should work. So no flaming please .

Also, excuse my english, I hope, most of you will understand my ideas, as english is not my native language, which makes me so sad very often, as I can not share my ideas more often.