What it will take for me to purchase Dom III

[Sammas]

Even with the bias toward magic, Dominions still has far more content and depth in it than any other game in its genre.

But yes, I too think it could be even better if national troops played a role throughout the game (configurable PD? more spells enhancing national troops and troop production? better gains from XP?).

At the moment, to lessen the power of magic, you need to make research harder, reduce magic sites (on large maps), and ban or limit clams, fetishes, and blood stones.