Which is how I want my games, perfect

The MP possibility is nice (you never know if the whim hits you) but I could even do without it.

It's a matter of pacing control.  When you're the only one playing, you can control the pace of things.  When you have another human in a turn based game, it's different.

Also, a LOT of things make things very unfair to the point we've had to take them out of multiplayer until we have time to implement more multiplayer specific stuff (for instance, quests are ridiculously unfair in MP because if you get a quest that gives you a +3 sword early, all the skill in the world won't make up for that).

What I'm inclined to do is have the multiplayer version of Elemental split off from the single player.  This is what Blizzard has done with SC2 and it's a really good idea.  So the MP version of Elemental would get its own tech trees and spells and modified game mechanics that play better online.

When I have a bit more time, I have an idea for doing multiplayer tactical map games (i.e. the entire game would be focused around the player building their spell book prior to the game and then coming in and making use of their spells one by one to get the resources and mana and creatures and such they need to win).

For anything that is unbalanced in multiplayer, I hope it will have a settings toggle to turn it on or off. i.e. I would hope quests, victory conditions (ala Civ4), etc. can be turned on or off during the game's setup in multiplayer (and single player too, for that matter), based on what people want to play. I haven't played the beta (I only pre-ordered recently) but if things are already done this way, then never mind.

Shouldn't the mod community help solve that?  There's some great suggestions on the Elemental Ideas forum.

Well, here we have the eternal controversy: SP vs. MP.

I think that one of the first thing to define when designing a new game is where to focus it, and in this case it´s totally clear that the game
is designed specifically for SP, and I like it so!.

At this pre-release time, and if I were the Frog, I wouldn´t spend any time thinking in how must the game be modified for to get a better MP experience,
though I agree in to have it splited from the SP one: I don´t want bugs in my SP games coming from code specifical for MP.

I don´t know much about MP games but I think that the main requirement for them must be a fine balance, and to achieve this goal the better way is
making specifical MP maps, with no huts nor quests that bring the luck factor to the game; the same applies for the way to recruiting heros. So I
think MP games are usually more of a map/mod work than a coding one.

Please, let´s the Frog concentrates in give us a good AI and stability for the D-Day!  

Stardock has really never done multi player. Brad is all about the AI and that is ok with me. It would be cool to see a mod that makes multiplayer fun though. Id love a ranking system etc.

Please do not forget that there is also coop in multiplayer. And in coop, it is fine to have all those imbalances.

What a panty waist. You remind me of that commercial where the drill sargent is a psychologist and asks the guy if he wants a kleenix and then throws it at him and calls him a cry baby. hahahaha I start out playing every game on its hardest settings and rarely have to go down a notch. I learn on hard so there aren't anymore levels to go up when I defeat the stupid ai. Man crying over an ai being to hard is just the most funniest thing I've ever heard of.

Impossible?
Chess. Nuff said.

Humans can learn, yeah. But we are talking about games with fixed rules, nothing like the chaotic nature of real life.
An AI can very well be superior to any human player, in a game, with rules and limits.
Especially in turn based games, but sure, as the games get more and more complex with fewer and fewer limits, the AI also gets more and more handicapped, it simply cant deal with all the options.

I still have my hopes up for an AI revolution once quantum / photon cpus enter the mass market though, then again, we'd need a self-coding AI (which has been done several times).
Or even better, a global AI project, commonly writing a huge framework for a good AI which can be used and built upon for any need (games, military, whatever).
As it is right now, we're basically re-inventing the wheel everytime a new game is made (teaching the AI to move fowards, and jump), while say, the automobile industry has had a proper framework to build upon and modify for a long time. Dumb analogy but you get my point.