This game is getting good now. Thanks for persisting everyone at Stardock.

I've had one crash (Debug error file here) and one freeze but loading the auto-saves took me past these points.

What I particularly like in 1.0.9o are:

1. The tactical battle UI feedback on to-hit and damage.
2. How the wandering monsters collect together and intelligently hunt you down.
3. Having different starting spell books for the sovereigns.

The issues/tweaks I've see so far are:

1. All the new turn messages appear all together and you can't act on any but the last one.
2. Playing as Capitar with the extra troops allows you to rush early and take out one or two neighbours too easily.
   (EDIT: Largely fixed now by nerfing sentinels in 1.0.9p but would still like to see more city protection)
   Cities need some sort of basic protection such as:
   1. A stationary garrison that reflects the size of the city
   2. Starting cities start at a higher level and the player can choose some starter buildings (Level 3)
   3. Cities can only be attacked by players with a minimum attack value. Eg 50+ to attack a level 1 city, 80+ to attack level 2 etc.
3. There are too many shards in the game. Would prefer these to be rarer. Perhaps a setting in the options would be the answer.
4. Ambient sounds are not specific enough to the terrain. I only hear the bird twittering loop. Would be nice to have wind near mountains, waves near shorelines, frogs and insects near swamps etc. Also wandering monsters should make noises. This seems like a small unimportant point but it would go a long way to make the game world immersive.
5. You need some sort of city summary screen when choosing to build at a city. Instead the UI gets rid of the useful information and shows the current building queue. Means you have to leave the city, click on it again, work out what you want to do, then start building again. Even if the summary screen stayed active if there is nothing in the queue it would work.
6. Why is there a 'Conquest' victory condition? Won't the game end once all opposition are accounted for? Doesn't seem needed.
7. On the main map, when you have a unit stack selected it would be nice to have the cursor change to show passable and impassable terrain, and also slow terrain such as woods.
8. The random guardians spawned in cities should be race-specific troops instead of just random monsters.
9. In tactical battles please don't update the hit-point bar at the bottom until after the results are shown in the animation.
10. In tactical battles if you mouse over shards at the top of the screen you get a message 'String not found'.
11. In tactical battles, is the to-hit figure working? And why bother with decimal places? It seems that I have many more dodges than the 85% to hit figures would statistically allow. Noticed this particularly when enemy is attacking Familiars who have a dodge factor of 8 yet the stats show a high 'to-hit' for the enemy.
12. Against Umbar in a tactical battle, they only cast 'Pull of Earth' over and over against my strongest fighter. After the first hit this should be enough. No combat spells cast at all.
13. Can we have a summary of the spells affecting specific troops and what the consequences are?
14. In the shop it would be great to be able to see and manipulate the unit's equipment. At the moment you need to:
    
    1. leave the shop
    2. check the equipment
    3. work out what they are wearing you want to keep and what you want to buff
    4. return to the shop
    5. make your purchase
    6. leave the shop
    7. re-open the equipment screen
    8. change the equipment.
15. There are not enough spells in each elemental spell book yet - but I do like the way this is working much much better than before.
16. Pacing not quite there but improving. There are some basic research that should be easier to get as an example.
17. Can't see how to get caravans any more. It says to research Diplomacy but I can't see caravans in the list. (Playing as Capitar). (Fixed in 1.0.9p)
    
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    EDIT: More notes from 1.0.9p:
18. Ice Elementals don't draw mana
19. Would be nice to have a 'Coming of Age' popup when a child matures.
20. Need an easy way to locate heroes and champions. And double-clicking a unit in the Dynasty window should take you to the unit on the map.
21. Midnight stones give a tally of all the midnight stones owned by your faction in the inventory summary window rather than just the number carried by the individual.
22. Some items don't show in the Items screen yet appear in inventory depending on the unit selected. Eg. My sovereign and all his relatives can't see the Journeyman Cloak in Items (or in the shop) yet other champions can use it. Should be greyed out with a cross if there is a reason a unit can't use an item. And it should explain why.
23. In tactical battles in the unit card displayed in the lower right it would be better to show combat speed instead of movement.

Thanks again. This is getting close to the game Elemental has the potential of being.