AOM is my personal favorite in the series and I think trying to move AOM2 closer to the AOE games will lose what makes it unique and interesting.
One suggestion which I find very hard to get on board with is the Pantheon. I personally think AOE3 is the worst in the series and the homecity was one of the aspect I particularly didn’t like. Whilst I also like how AOE /AOM have a more complex economy than other RTS games, I think adding stone to AOM would make the economy a bit too complicated. In any event, it is good that you are trying to raise some interest and provide suggestions for the game.
I like the suggestion that god power should be brought to be used. God powers are such a powerful feature that you should have to sacrifice resources to use them. I think making god powers cost favour would with the favor cost scaling up for each age would be a nice touch. This could also be a way to add more balance into the game with the more significant god powers costing more than the less significant ones.
My suggestions:
The main thing I want out of a new AOM game or a DE edition is new civilizations and enhancements to the existing civs.
New Civs
I think the following would make interesting civs:
- Celtic
- Slavic
- Shinto
- Aztec (to your point on unique ways of raising favour. I think sacrificing units would be a good element for the Aztecs. The more valuable the unit, the more favour)
- And maybe native American mythology.
Enhancing existing civs
In term of enhancing the existing god, I think there is delicate balance between maintaining their existing features whilst adding new features. I put thought into it and I think one way of achieving this would be to increase the choice of minor gods for each age from 2 to 3 with the new gods having new powers and myth units. This will allow each god to retain their current minor gods (for the purists) while giving a choice of an extra gods (for those who want something different).
As an example, if we take Thor, we could have the following:
Classical Age: Freyja | Forsetti | + Idun (goddess of rejuvenation)
Heroic Age: Skadi | Bragi | + Freyr (god of fertility)
Mythic: Baldr | Tyr | + Sif (Thor’s wife)
There is enough mythology in the case of the Greeks, Atlantians (which is drawn from greek mythology), and Norse to provide each of these gods with new units, tech, and god powers. My only concern would be for the Egyptians where lore is harder to find and, of course, you’d need to do this for the new civs as well. The thing that is great about AOM is the mythology, so I think the more the better.
I do admit, however, that this could create more issues with balancing as it would significantly increase the complexity of the game.
Changes to the Titans
One feature I don’t particularly like in AOM is the titan unit. The titan unit is simply too powerful in my view. Not sure exactly how to deal with the issue - whether you omit them completely or tone them down.
Campaigns
I really enjoyed the campaigns in AOM, and I personally liked the Arkantos/ Kastor story line. It provided the right mix of fantasy whilst trying still trying to incorporate the actual mythology into the game. So I’d be happy with another sequel if they could keep it fresh. If not, something along those lines would be good. In addition, if they were to have addition campaigns for each of the civs which deals with their own individual mythologies that would also be cool.
Those are just some of my thoughts.