[Stossel]

A few things on my wishlist, some of which I'd bet would be ridiculously unpopular but, of course, they're my wishes.

Nation-based items

These would come in two flavors. Items that can be produced in great numbers but only available to one nation (gainable through trade and battle by others) and items that every nation can make but can only make 1. This way, you can gain more than 1 of these items but only through trade or battle.

Items of the first type would be like "abysian longswords" or "Ulmian necklace" which provides element resistences.

Items of the second type would be gem-producing items. My wish (and I'm sure that's all it will remain) is that gem-producing items be more expensive but produce more. I think that it'd be better for something like a clam to cost 100 pearls and produce 20-40 a turn and be semi-unique (1 per nation) than making commanders for sole purpose of producing gems. If all a commander is doing is being an item wearer it seems to me he's not really much of a commander, but that's really fore a whole different thread. Anyways, I think these big items would add to gameplay considerably without gem-producing getting out of hand.

The return of aim/target mage

This was mentioned much earlier in this thread and I wanted to come at it again. I think that this could be implemented a lot more safely. Perhaps the bodyguard could be increased in size for battle purposes, or perhaps the bodyguard could share in the effects of protection spells the caster casts initially.

To my mind, spellcasters should be powerful but troops should be a major checking force. If you want your mage to get off those nasty spells, they need to cast some protective spells and be guarded. Weakness of body has classically been a mage's balancing factor and I think that it needs to be maintained. It doesn't seem right that I can't target directly the beings which are completely destroying my forces. If protective spells need to be increased in effectiveness to compensate, then fine by me, but spellcasters in battle need this check IMO.

Make trinkets and lesser magic items cheaper and/or produced in numbers

Make the cheap weapon + armor items something like 1-2 gems or be able to make 3-5 of the item if it costs 5 gems. This way you can outfit mediocre commanders with mediocre eq to make them decent commanders, but for minimal gem cost.
I'd actually prefer the second system of being able to produce several of the trinket in one turn, else the cost of wasting a forgers time for a 1-2 gem trinket would be too costly.

Spells that take multiple turns to cast

Whether you add spells of this nature in or make some existing spells like this, I think this would be a good addition. If you have a spy in the province with a mage who's doing this, you get a chance to see if he begins, and then you can take action with spells or assassinations. Of course, assassination would be easier on a mage who's using all his energies on a large spell...

Chance for scouts to not reveal nation or reveal faulty nation

This is one of my favorite wishes. Give scouts a chance to not reveal their nation if they're found out. Then perhaps special national scout units can reveal faulty allegience, or another variety of scout would be one with only a mediocre stealth but NEVER reveals his nation. Looking at the unit in battle would help the player somewhat, but it wouldn't be a sure bet. I think it would add to the political flare to the game in MP.

More items and spells that strengthen troops

Heading says it all, though more healer mages would be cool as well.

Famous Troop Bonuses

This one is pretty far-fetched and would seem hard to implement. If you could get the ability to lock a group units so that they could not be separated from each other, then they could gain notoriety as a group, leading to these bonuses. You wouldn't be able add units to this squad but if the squad got famous they'd have a chance (maybe an order?) to attract followers (of a similar make and model of the units inside) to replenish the units numbers. Pretty far-fetched idea, but would be very neat to my mind.