My ideas:
Void Gate: In Dominions II the Rlyeth nation has a strucuture called Void Gate that enables a commander to enter it and try to call a cthonian beings from Elsewhere. The summoner could be attacked, sucefully summon and bind a being or nothing happens. You could get extra units or lose tempo or a important mage. I think it would adds even more strategy and flavouyr to the Octopus Overlords or another faction. The chance of sucefully use the void gate is proportioal to the dimensional skill of the summoner. A powerful mage has a higher chance of sucess, however if he fails your loss is bigger.
Waygate: In Wheel of Time there is the Ways that could be used to travel long distances in short time, however the ways are tainted and a evil entity devour most of its traveller. The waygate is a nice resource that could be opened by a unit and be used to travel to another opened waygate. There would be a chance, proportional to the Armaggedon Counters, that each unit would be devoured by the screaming evil cloud in the Ways. It would add strategy, I could try to sneak a spy to open a waygate located deep in the enemy territory, and use it to surprise attack the heart of the enemy realm, or lose important units in this maneuver and be counter invaded by the enemy using the opened waygate. Risk is part of strategy.
Psychic Warrior: The trademark of this unit is the Ego Cutter trait, which simbolizes a psychic weapon wich the unit uses. When it fights a unit there is a chance that the unit lose a trait, however it not lose a level. Its aim is counter the mod valorization of high level units.
Taint: It is a trait acquired by units which where touched by dark creatures, like demons, or which visited unholy places, like the hell or any number of dark structures. It works a little like disease, however each time the creature is tainted it gains another level of this trait, there is four levels of taint. In the first level the unit suffers a small penalty, -10% to -15%, nothing really crippling. In the second level the penalty disappears, and the unit can learn taint powers, slightly better versions of some normal combat upgrades. In the third level gains the label demoniac, and gets a extra bonsu proportional to the Armaggedon Counters. In the forth level it gains the trait "lost one", which gives him a big power bonus, and turns independent attacking everything in the neighborhood. Further taint increases the taint level, and the bonus given by the "lost One" trait, and the ability to taint other units. If a realm attack other with tainted unit, because its big bonus, soon he will find himself fighting tainted enemy units, and if the war longs too much both would find themselves fighting an army of super tainting barbarians.
Districts: They are city structures which increases teh output of structures of the same class as it. For example, the scientific district would increase the output of every scientific structure in the city. Their objective is to further promote city specialization.
Great Houses: City structures which increases its effects proportionally to the number of the same Great House build in the same empire. Is a different way to organize your empire then the districts. It rewards you to build the same building in each city. If you lose one city every city loses power, but only a little. When you lose a specialized city the damage is greater, but more limited.
I hope my ideas helped.
)
But then iwas wondering: Will there be chicken golems?
