so is there a point on why i paid $10 for shipping me the CD version? Hope that has some goodies in it. Can i downgrade? Not sure its worth owning the CD anymore.

Not a fan of the races. So human are the only race in the kingdoms, while the empire get a bunch of unique races?

Well im sure modders will do their own thing anyways with the lore, since its mostly cosmetic. So gamers will have many options to choose from. Just keep doing a good job making the game mechanics better. YA!!!

Sounds great. I like the change with intelligence effecting essence.

While I like the intention of this feature I have a problem with it.  Not all enchantments should be equally hard to maintain.  A spell that gives a unit +1 to an ability should be easier to maintain than a spell that protects an entire city.  Why not have each have a maintance costs.  A simple example is you have 15 essence so you have 15 maintainence points.  Haste takes .5 to maintain, protect city takes 2 so you have 15-2.5 = 12.5 points left for enchantments.  Not quite as simple but it certainly isn't complex and is a lot more flexible.  There are different ways to handle this but I would really like to see a system where not all enchantments are equal.  That will really limit the possibilities.  I just see scenarios where I really like having fast units but can't justify the cost because there is simply a better alternative.  Your current system is basically encouraging all enchantments to be equally useful.  If they aren't they will be suplanted and never used again.

On another note your spells could use some better names.  Names from D&D like Globe of Invunerability just sounds better than Protect Unit.  Dome of Protection sounds more impressive then Protect City.  Adding a few more fantasical sounding names will make them more memorable.  Don't go overboard but a few here and there would be nice.

great news i love the new sovereign design with alot of talents

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you've come up with for the tactical combat.

I have one question though, about combat length. Average combat length really isn't very informative. How many battles are small skirmishes? How many are clashes been actual armies? How many include powerful creatures and/or sovereigns or champions on both sides?

An average combat length of 3 minute might mean that 50% of battles last 1 minute, 33% 3 minutes, and 17% ~ 9 minutes. Or it could mean 90% of combat lasts about 3 minutes, 5% lasts 1 minute, and 5% lasts 5 minutes, as two illustrative examples. To be honest, I think you should look to games like HoMM III for combat length.

Early battles in HoMM often last deceptively long (but not tediously long), but they were nonetheless engaging and interesting because they still often required you to think. They were much more intimate, and every number in each of your stacks was simply that much more vital. Then you get to the middle game, where battles range from trivial and fast to difficult and methodical. The easy battles in the mid-late game stage lasted mere seconds. The harder battles in the middle stage could last a good 10 minutes. The harder battles in the late stage could last twice that long.

...So basically, my long-winded point is that I hope easy, straightforward battles will be pretty short, while large battles between relatively equal opponents will take significantly longer (at least 10-20 minutes). I also hope that combat between more than 2 forces is still in, as well as huge armies. For me, the "promise" of The Battle of Five Armies-like events was the single biggest selling point of the game, so I'll be quite disappointed if those features got axed somewhere along the line... (Quotation marks just because I know that there's no such thing as promises during the development stage, at least as far as what features will and won't make it)

One other concern about the changes to the magic system. If shards are now used to increase your mana cap, it seems like the ability to play as a small empire wielding a big magical stick is going to be significantly diminished. And that magical ability (at least in terms of mana, if not sheer power) is going to be tied inextricably to empire size. After all, larger empires will generally have access to more shards, and will certainly be able to defend them easier.

The balance to this previously was, in part, the essence cost of reviving the land. If you wanted to build up a large empire, you would have to spend more essence unless you have the patience to wait until the revival spreads. Therefore, sovereigns with larger empires would typically have less essence, which would translate into less magical ability. Now that essence is no longer used for anything but magical purposes, that is no longer the case. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but as it stands the only thing essence is used for now is in determining your mana cap?That's pretty disappointing, as it takes essence from being a very finite, very precious resource that forces tough, meaningful decisions on you to be some throwaway stat...

Sounds like you guys are continuing to make great progress on the game and are incorporating lots of great changes!

It may be a bit premature to question this choice (since we don't have the Tactical Combat system yet to play around with), but I'm really baffled as to why the "combat speed" stat would control movement in combat as well as number of attacks/spells cast.  All of the units will already have a separate "movement" stat that controls their movement on the overland map.  The "movement" stat tells you how quickly the unit may travel over a physical distance . . . why not use this as the movement stat in combat as well??  "Combat speed" seems like the perfect stat to use for number of attacks/spells, but it doesn't make sense to have it also control combat movement.

Simple example:  a mounted unit is fast and should be able to cover more ground on the tactical battle map than an infantry unit.  But that shouldn't also allow the mounted unit to attack 2x or 4x more often than an infantry unit.  Combining number of attacks and combat movement into a single stat combines two very different and unrelated concepts in a bizarre and unintuitive way . . .

I'm a little worried about tactical battles. When I first heard about Elemental, tactical battles were one of the aspects of the game I was looking forward to the most. Last week I read that the auto-resolve feature will be (or try to be) as good as playing a tactical battle out. This disheartened me because, from a designer point of view, what is the point of having them in the game in the first place if you can auto-resolve for optimal results? I would change the tactical battles so that a player who was better at the game could always achieve a better result than auto-resolve - in other words auto-resolve would always be a sub-optimal option. This encourages the player to play a core part of the game. The fact that tactical battles are hard capped at 3 minutes was the nail in the coffin - I really hope this is changed as I think this totally makes the battles a cursory and irrelevant part of the game.

He didn't say battles were hard-capped at 3 minutes, that's reading way too into it. He just said they're aiming to make them last around that long on average.

Sounds great, I do hope you can get a scaling option going for more advanced tactical battles so we can have longer ones. I envisioned the tactical battles not being HoMM length but more like advance wars length (where you have no factories to produce new units). I agree with some other posters' concern that maybe the tactical battles are being a bit sidelined. I was under the impression as well that they would be one of the very core parts of Elemental. I hope we can have truly epic battles between massive armies that take a good while to resolve. We'll see! 

Also, does the training of a unit affect its morale? 

I'm also a little put off on the plans for tactical battles  I understand some won't like long drawn out battles, but hopefully there are options for modders to change things around. I don't necessarily want thousands of units but I would like dozens. How difficult will it be to modify what defines a unit in these battles? Ideally it would be nice if several heroes, units are grouped on the map, that on the tactical battle they would also be grouped to one tile provided there were many units.

Ie:

Attacker has a group of 3 champions grouped together , on attacking a spider, a tactical battle takes place where each champion is it's own tile and moved separately. As there are so few units, it's fine to keep them on their own.

but if:

Attacker has a group of 25 champions (or one champion and 24 peons ) and they attack a nest of spiders, a tactical battle takes place where the unit of 25 is broken up into 5 "groups" in 5 tiles only. So that larger battles can take place, but not be crazy overly complicated. 

It's late, not sure if that made sense.

For me the tactical battles I am really looking forward to, but they only become fun if strat comes into play. Many units, hopefully units with special skills you can activate during battle, would be great. Or at least please don't hardcore anything so someone fine modder could replace whats needed?  

well see ... I don't see the Empires believing in the power of the individual ... beyond those individuals that they THINK should be in power. Otherwise empire units would gain exp (I would think). I mean, the Kingdoms seem to have the most vertical mobility ... and both kingdoms and empire seem to have some social stratification, yet kingdoms seem more flexible in that regard.

So im not sure about the power of the individual ... it seems more like the Empire is the power of the HIVE, especially when commanded by a strong individual, but that individual has to of been born above his lessers.

I mean, I see where u are going with this ... as in the Empire values sacrificing others for the individual, and the Kingdom sees sacrificing the individual for the group ... but I don't see that as meaning that "every" individual is important to the Empire, only the most powerful. I must say, though, that the Empires seem closer to Aristotle's republic with "golden souls" and "bronze souls" etc, with people given the job they are more naturally fit to without the ability to change position ... while paying close attention to the abilities and leadership of those with golden souls.

So I see what u are meaning ... but something about the way u worded it didn't sound right and was too easy to argue against? No offense taken, it just struck me as a bit strange.

well Tasunke i think that what he is saying is that the empires are an extreme example of Darwinism. sort of only the strong survive.  so the leader of the empires would be considered the greatest person, or the most powerful, probably mainly through conquest of others.  i could be very wrong in this though, its just what i get out of it.