Hi there, devs and fellow gamers.  It's exciting to see so much of this game's potential shining through.  Though most likely these points are being discussed elsewhere, perhaps some of my input will be of value.

--Game pace

Lessening the maximum armies in a stack truly helped.  Battles are more manageable, and the player has to more carefully choose which units to bring.  Especially in the early game, the pace is quick/involving while still having depth and choice--a nice balance.

--Prestige and city conquest

The higher growth helps the pacing, but the unchecked expansion has a very one-dimensional, unrealistic feel (especially when taking enemy cities). No empire can grow without logistics/infrastructure cost, and a strategy game should be no different (though the initial prestige penalty was far too steep).  There exists plenty of middle ground between choking off growth and letting it be free of cost.  I suggest something along the lines of a penalty-free group of cities (maybe based on map size, like 3 for small, 5 for medium, 8 for large, etc), then applying a tiny but increasing growth modifier to simulate the blooming complexities of a larger empire.  This penalty should creep up, but I suggest never exceeding 60% or 70% (no empire stops growing completely unless it's being destroyed).

Having no penalty for a conquered city seems unnatural, and a chance for strategic choice is lost.  Do I keep the city intact and deal with the hard feelings and slight burden for the increased resources, or do I raze it and lose any boost?  Balance and good gameplay should always be about strategic choices.  Examples of this problem include an empire getting free use of the Beacon of Hope (oops, heh), or having several "unique" buildings, or buildings from both factions that perform the same function (like twice the workshops/labor pits, or worse yet, training facilities).  In this way, conquered cities can quickly outshine even the faction's seat, and that boost helps make the rest of the game a foregone conclusion (ie, no longer challenging/fun).  Ideas: an initial prestige hit that loosens with each passing season, taking several years to fully convert; needing to leave a military unit stationed there at all times (no growth or building unless the new owners enforce the peace, and a retaken city gets none of the restrictions); making each building type count regardless of the alignment; and specific benefits of the opposite side (like the Beacon of Hope or Sion Temple) be destroyed on conquest.  Requiring more maintenance-type costs for captured cities makes the choice more strategic, or certainly less of a no-brainer.

--Magic balancing

It's humorous to note the subtitle of this game, War of Magic, and then realize that magic in this game is worthless, with few exceptions.  I see efforts to tweak it in the patches, but nothing close to balanced (and given the title and import of channeling, a concerted effort ought to be made).  I'll explain several of the instances in hopes it helps.

Intelligent requirements are set crazy-high for many spells, yet the leader seems to be able to cast anything (my low-intelligence tweak-assassin raises mountains and teleports around like the best of them).  I suggest a realistic range based on the level of spell and make them apply to everyone (for example, 8-12 for first, 13-18 for second, 19-25 for third, 26-34 for fourth, and 35+ for fifth, and the higher spells should be worth investing in or else few will bother).

The Teleport spell went from costing so little mana that I used it whenever I did not feel like walking, to being so cost prohibitive it's like the devs saying "I don't want you using this spell until the endgame." In fact, it now costs the same as a much higher and more powerful spell, Call of the Titans.  Surely a middle ground, say around 80-100 mana, is more appropriate.  This game makes you sweat blood for a little mana, so that must be taken into consideration when considering costs (it should not be so rare that it's a defunct game mechanic--heh, what war of magic?).

Scaling is the main issue for combat spells, both to account for the skill level of the caster and for the game's difficulty level.  Arcane Arrow does this pretty well for all but the game's highest difficulty level, rewarding the caster for leveling in intelligence (which is really magic affinity/ability rather than traditional mental capacity); almost all the other spells are worthless, giving no reward for bothering to learn them.

For example, Touch of Entropy is a level 4 spell, requiring a bunch of time/resources to research, yet for a disproportionately huge amount of mana and having to be right next to the enemy, it does a flat 30 damage (and by the time you reach this point, Arcane Arrow can be doing almost that amount from any range).  Many creative solutions can fix this problem, like making Touch have a range, but be progressively stronger the closer the target is to the caster (say, 30 damage at 5 spaces, 35 at 4, etc.).

Many spells from the other schools can be treated this way to give them usefulness (worth expending that precious mana).  Buffs and summoned creatures should scale a bit in power with game difficulty, and could scale based on caster power (like Stoneskin, though a fourth of intellect is hard to justify the cost, when the typical stack at that point in the game can have 30+ armor).  This kind of revamping needs to happen to make this part of the game viable.  Ideally, each spell should justify the expense in a certain situation (and the great luck of having shrines and the related spellbooks should add on top of a caster level, not be worthless except as mana founts).

--Sions/savage strike

In stark contrast to magic use, the special, no-retaliation attacks like Savage Strike are game breakers.  The smallest stack of Sions can do 360-ish magic, not-resistible, risk-free damage.  Add that to magic immunity and faster-than-most speed, and the unit is nearly invincible.  Not only are they relatively cheap compared to other mercenary groups (even ones that take longer to research and more luck to find), but they can be built in any city.  As far as I can tell, the "good" factions have no comparable unit; the smallest unit of Sions can easily take out a dragon, the top mercenary unit of the other factions (even though a dragon is incredibly tough to research and find, and more expensive to train for their limited tricks).

The tendency when confronted with such a broken game mechanic is to overreact and break it the other way (making Sions another useless endeavor), so I hope the devs will consider these suggestions.  I think of the balancing act between archers, mages, and fighters like rock/paper/scissors, where each one is strong against one type of unit, but weak against another type.  Sions break that mold and have no weakness (other than a player's strategic weakness).  It seems to me the sprint feature on Sions is broken (as of version 1.4, I get an effect but no increase in speed), and I recommend removing sprint from the unit entirely.  They should be weak to archers, in exchange for being immune to magic (mage killers) and highly damaging to melee units.  In addition, I'd alter Savage Strike, either making it half of the attack rating and still a first strike move (with no retaliation), or make it double the attack rating (instead of triple, where it is currently), and allow the opponents the ability to fight back, even when being killed (just like a standard melee attack--this strike is still a melee move, right?).  Both of these suggested changes keep the unit viable and incredibly powerful, without making them invincible.

--Bows

Archers are another broken unit type, though progress has been made toward balance.  A stack of archers can still take out any other unit without risk, so long as they have enough distance (especially on "hard" or lower difficulty level, though I have no real problems on the level under "ridiculous").  The most obvious and realistic fix would be to greatly increase the ranged dodge chance of shields.  This would make archers deadly against any shield-less unit, and be vulnerable to the heavily armored sword-and-board type.  Even Hollywood gets that right, when you see fighters hiding behind their shields to survive a rain of arrows; the larger the shield, the more likely the warrior takes no damage from arrows.  For gaming purposes, the dodge chance should never be 100%, but over 50% would certainly keep players from winning their games with only archer units (and in that same vein, for the magic spell Wind Shield to be worth learning and using, it should increase the dodge chance substantially--perhaps capped at 80% on a single target, or increased 10-20% on all units--2 varieties of the spell?).

--AI

I realize the AI is a work in progress, and I long for the days when it will give the same level of challenge as GalCiv's AI.  At the moment, beating the AI feels like beating a quadriplegic retard, an amusement that loses its shine for even the harshest of bullies.  Giving them more units only means more experience/levels for the player, since those extra guys often wait around passively for the player's convenience.  It should be noted that I only play on the second-to-highest difficulty, so these experiences aren't with a handicapped-on-purpose AI.

I have played a couple games where an opponent waits around and doesn't expand from their initial city (they seem to use pioneers as scouts rather than settlers).  I have seen them settle between two valuable resources (3 spaces away from a gold mine in one direction and fertile land in the other) and not expand their city to encompass either of them (taking the city and reforming it to include those resources was pitifully easy, nor was it in the early game--I already had more than 10 cities).  They even stand outside my undefended city, picking daisies until I make them push up daisies--and I dared them to take it!

When the AI becomes more appropriately ruthless/cunning, remember to tone down their sizable freebies. *grin*

--Nitpicks

Processing an auto-attack takes movement, but tactical combat does not.  This ought to be consistent one way or the other (why not have each battle take a portion of a turn, since they take time--often more than simple travel).

In the tactical combat UI, for some units the "Pass Turn" button is too close to the little arrow for more options.  It would help greatly to organize that field so the most viable buttons are showing rather than hidden under a pop-up menu.

Movement calculations seem off with the first agility tech.  This often shows a boost (from 2 to 3 for most basic units) and works in the wild, but when moving along roads or through cities, the units often get no further than they had before the agility tech.

Pathing into and out of a city is often terrible.  When exiting a city, it would be an improvement to have the unit begin from the closest tile in between the city and the selected location, rather than a seemingly random or inconsistent spot.  In some areas, inability to follow the road leads to annoying micromanagement (or wasted turns).

In character creation, the disadvantage labeled as "stupid" really should be more appropriately titled.  "Inept" is a decent replacement, but there's better ones around, especially if you focus on magic affinity rather than labeling it "intelligence."

There still exists the most annoying of bugs where the normally reliable cursor will click on the wrong spot in a certain section of the map--this can be frustrating and sometimes dangerous.  Possibly related to this is the cuss-worthy bug where you click on a destination tile, and the unit paths off in the opposite direction or back into the city it just left.

That's all I can remember of my recent experiences; I truly hope the feedback helps.

Gorde, the old GalCiv1 fan