The 'wouldn't it be cool' idea sounds like it might be essential!

MAGIC TECH TREE: Magic Tech tree is kinda barren. I feel like I get all the spells anyways so why research into magic?

Why not have the majority of spells only unlockable through research?? Then you would definately feel motivated to research Magic.

And what if you could focus on different schools of magic, fire, ice, wind etc within the research tree. The more you researched the more latent effects each spell could have - slow, DoT, miss turns, longer duration, increase in power etc...

As it stands I can just research spells independently from the research tree while the magic research tree only gives us shard usage it seems.

WAYPOINTS/TURNS: Need to see a waypoint line from your unit to the destination on the map and how many turns it will take. 

Sometimes it takes several tries to select a unit and give him a destination by clicking on the map. Overall clicking is somewhat unresponsive and somehow my unit always become unselected. Just clunky.

UNIT DESIGN: Need a reason to design your own units. As of right now there are none. Need to have advantages and weakness for armor and weapon types. Therefore choosing the right type unit to design will be important. Def vs slashing, blunts, piercing, etc. 

TACTICAL BATTLES: Need to be faster. Speed up the animation to make the battles quicker and snappier. Why does the entire army move at once? Have individual moves instead?

CHAMPIONS: Scale them to the late game, and balance cost to equip and purchase. Give them more viability within the gameplay.

ITEMS: Give items more umpf. Make some weapons have first strike or can attack twice, some attack slower but more dmg, bleed effects, or additional effects. As of right now you just chose items with the highest dmg. No choice no fun. Give us a reason for what we chose.

CITY BUILDING: Basically with each new city I just click every building I can build and plant it in my city. I don't even care. Cause there is no reason too. Everything needs to be built so I just build it as fast as I can. If this is the case why not just make building cities cost more and bypass placing buildings in the first place if everything will eventually be built? No fun. Give buildings more reason or choice. Right now I just feel like a monkey placing everything down. Since I can only place one of each building - least that is what it seems - maybe some buildings we should be able to duplicate? So we can specialize cities?

DIPLOMACY:  Dead tree... let's plant a new one...

PACING: The overall pacing of the game actually seems too fast. I feel like I speed through research, and learning magical spells. At turn 200-300 the game is kinda won for me. I have everything I need - up to like lvl 6 magic. Could change once the AI gets off its butt.

Loving the game already, even with the odd crash.

Have great hopes it gets even better in the future.

I agree except for 4 and 7.  Love complex tech trees and the UI for unit size is OK by me.

The good news: the last few days have seen significant improvements, and 1.06 shows how great Elemental will someday be.

The not-good not-bad news: lots of balancing is still needed (gameplay, UI, making essential Elemental features like essence and shards truly shine, showing why Elemental isn't just a rehash of MoM/etc. but is a significant step beyond).  I won't list specifics as we've been doing that during beta and there's tons of threads/posts/good ideas already suggested.

The bad news: what we have now is a public paid beta.  All of what's been done since release and for the next few weeks (if not month or 2) should have been done before release.  That the game doesn't crash for some, or that other games are also released before they're ready, or similar excuses do not excuse/justify this too early release.  The only excuse/justification for this release is that you painted yourself into a 'Feb or Aug' corner, with Feb being too late and Aug being too early.  I can't say you chose wrongly between the 2, but can say getting yourself into a position where those were your only choices was a big mistake and one I hope you can avoid in the future.

I want to re-iterate the good news: Elemental 1.06 shows how great a game it will be -- a classic of this genre -- and how dedicated you SDers are in making that come true.

Get some rest and take some time off -- you've earned it and this isn't a race, it's a marathon.  We can wait (ignore the men/women behind the impatient curtain...  ).

Awesome! Get some much deserved rest!

The game is fantastic as is, even with the bugs.

Keep up the great work and I cant wait to see what you and the community have in the future for this wonderful game!

Once the late game slowdown is fixed I will be a very very happy camper hehe.

This is the most fun ive had on a videogame in years, thank you stardock

While I acknowledge my topic being not the most critical at the moment: https://forums.elementalgame.com/393581 <- features huge design change suggestions.

Fear not, this is on the tweak list.

Excellent feedback on all points, gang. Thank you so much! We'll be taking a hard look at everything that's been mentioned for future updates.

Thanks for the round up and I look forward to seeing what your own opinions on what you want improved/added in the future are! 

Great to hear!

For ultra low-level rigs such as my Core2Duo 2GHz laptop with Intel 945 graphics chip, would it be possible to have tactical battles in Cloth Map mode as well?

One odd bug BTW, is that after svaing the game, when hitting Back to game, it doesn't return to Cloth Map, instead it goes to some odd in-between 3D mode.

Guys please check out master of magic and the wide range of units in tac. battles. Notice how they all have all kinds of different abillities, strengths, weaknesses and things that set them apart. First strike, flying, made of ice... stuff like that

Happy to hear that... I'll give the game a few days before I jump in hardcore and start working on my review. The schedule we publish on is more informal than magazines/sites so that should help get a better feel for how this game is going to play.

Emphasis added:

Don't forget about the Warlock from 3.5.

The list sounds great. Thanks for all your hard work. Enjoy your well-deserved time off!