Something is more and more clear about what made MoM such a great game.
Choices. Matter.
In Mom : When you created your wizard, you had to chose your books and traits. And you were done with it for the whole game (sometimes you could get more books, but that was very scarce) So you were researching only the books you had chosen.
In Elemental : it's so easy to research new books. So the initial choice doesn't really matter. And as you can research new books while your reading in the books you're already owning, you research spells at a very fast rate. If you want a spell, you have the choice to get it. In MoM you had to be creative with what you had chosen at start.
About shards :
In MoM nodes gave you magic points that you had to split between skill learning (how much mana you can use per turn), research and mana creation. So you had to chose. You researched a very powerfull spell ? Too bad you didn't think about the mana you would need. Enough mana ? you can only use 10 per turn. You uber-spell will need 180 turns to complete. Too bad. You had to really think ahead. A big fight in 3 or 4 turns? Everything in mana to be sure ou have enough to cast the spells you would need. A very difficult global spell to cast ? Raise your skill to cast it fast.
It mattered because mana, how much mana you can spend per turn and research were tied.
In Elemental everything is separated. You can have a very high research in spells, a very high essence value (how much mana you can use. It's not per turn, but it's the closest thing to the magic skill of MoM) and a lot of mana (Tried 4 heroes imbued ? With 80 mana each ? Too bad the combat system is so weak that it's not so overwhelming). So in Elemental choices doesn't matter. You can have everything. Only time will do a little difference. But it's so fast to get what you want that it doesn't change anything in the way you play.
What could Elemental do ? Let's take the global mana pool Brad talked about, let's take the idea as things must be tied and that choices matter.
What do we have ? Shards give mana. Cities (or some heroes) give arcane knowledge. Essence says how much mana you can use. All of those things aren't even related. First : use arcane knowledge to enhance the Essence of heroes. You can't upgrade it at level up, you need to get the hero on a city with some "Arcane research". After being imbued, the hero must stay one turn in a city with arcane knowledge. To get a second point of mana the hero must stay for 2 consecutive turns, etc...(Maybe if the city is a big center the hero can earn essence faster, it could even be a trait to chose on the level up of city). Maybe you can still earn some mor epoints in level up, but you tie the ability to use more mana with you cities. So you have to do choices. Each turn you stay in city, you can't fight. But ! You can cast global spells (you don't need to move to cast them)
Shards : like in MoM, they must be a critical resource. Enhancing spells is a good thing, but it's not enough. They should allow some more things to do. Maybe borrowing the idea of MoM isn't enough. Shards could be places where heroes can earn new powers, or where you can cast powerfull global spells (global flooding should be cast from a water shard)
But it's not enough. It shouldn't be only for powerfull thing but also for mundane magic things : maybe earning fire/water/earth/water points that you can use for special effects inside your borders. Faster roads if you have an earth shard, enemy movements reduced to 1 movement point inside your borders if you control an air shard.
But it's not enough. You should be able to change a little your spells. You have 2 earth shards ? When you cast a spell you can add for 2 more mana a 10% chance to reduce defense of target for INT/3 turns. You have a water spell ? You can add a silence effect to your spells : enemy mages will have to spend twice the mana to cast spells.
But it's not enough. The more time you have a shard the more acustomed to it you'll become. You spend less mana when you cast spells from that element.
But, you don't have choices to do ! So unless giving all of that to players, let them chose !
So let's sum up : when you control a shard, you earn some mana each turn. When you have controled a shard for 50 turns you can chose one perk : enhancing spells ? Place to cast global spell for cost divided by two (then four) ? Additionnal effect to your spells ? Additionnal effect to newly created units ? Other ideas ?
EDIT : I forgot arcane knowledge ! At the moment you can use it to be able to chose more powerfull spells for research or research. It's still a two-way choice. MoM was insteresting because it was a three way. So add another use to arcane knowledge : use it to craft magical things, use it to add duration to strategic spells that target cities (like brilliance) If you use enough arcane knowledge you could change the spell to become permanent and free the sov from the mana upkeep, use it to spy on enemy spells, use it to enhance global spells, use it to create glod from it if you have chosen the "alchemist" trait at start (like in MoM), etc.
