Well, I will start with the smaller stuff. It is easy to add, but will make the game more enjoyable.
1) More single player content. Campaign is not enough, and multiplayer is mostly empty. This is the most important point, and it is in the "smaller stuff", because some random arena battles would be enough. Just something to train on, to try different combos and army building strategies.
2) More animals. Two factions is not enough in my opinion. You have insects and sylvan, but sylvan are mostly european forest animals. Why not add faction based on geographical regions?
Polar, Desert, Swamp, Jungle... The list can go on. Some factions will be more suited for quick combat, some for slow and steady pushing... You can even add new campaigns based on that. For example, global warming is forcing the polar animals to move south and clash with the sylvan. Also, the abilities should be really different. Currently only few units have them at all.
Some ideas for animals and their specialities:
- Wolves with howling that buffs the attack of nearby units for the next turn.
- "Gust of wind" of owls/eagles, which doubles the movement of one firendly unit for the next turn
- Passive ability for ants. For each other ant in the chain, gain +20% attack/defense. If there are 5 connected ants, each of them gets +80%
- Bears that can provoke target enemy (or all nearby enemies) to attack only them.
- Butterflies which upgrade grass tiles by adding flowers, it makes the defense of all insects on that tile higher until the end of the battle. Reload: 5 turns.
- Sacred elk with passive healing for 10 point evey turn for every nearby ally.
- Beavers which can destroy forest tiles and open the way for your army where the enemy is not ready.
I can write as many as you need, I have a lot of ideas for units.
3) Descriptions of abilities should be available in the "army building" window. Currently you can see that a unit has an ability only in battle. I want to be able to see it outside too, with good explanation how this ability works. Description is needed for general mechanics too. What are those combos? How do they work? What about crashing and piercing attack types? What about unit sizes? There is no explanation ingame.
Description for the units themselves would be greatly appreciated too. The do not have to be BIG, it can be 1-3 sentences. For example:
"Arnold. Playful little squirrel, who is always ready to help others. Not a good fighter, but can heal friends with his magical acorns.".
It will add a bit of deepness, the game will not feel so empty like it is now.
Will write other ideas and feedback in the next post. There will be the "bigger stuff", which will require more time to implement.