Hello - here's a list of lots of things, small and large, I've found while playing (a lot) over the past two days that seem to be a problem. Many I think are small oversights or mistakes. I'm sure others are reporting similar things, but I haven't had time to read everyone's suggestions. In no order -
Items:
Magic item balance is whack. First, you unlock a sword that costs 2250 to buy in the shop. But, I can't forge it for my troops. I think I should be able to. Next magic armor is unlocked. I usually get this far before plate armor, as warfare has ~2x as much to research as magic. In the shop, all shields only cost 50 gp. Even the legendary shield. This must be a mistake. All shields shouldn't cost the same. And all armor seems to cost significantly less then weapons, but with the legendary armor in the shop, it's a real problem. A legendary helm gives 9 defense, but only costs ~100 gold. The padded helm is like 30 gold for 2 defense. That's ~3 times as much gold for 4.5x more defense. While the sword gives 20 attack and 0.25 combat speed for 2250, as apposed to say the broadsword, with 10 attack and 1 combat speed for 185 gold. That's 2x the attack, less combat speed - and 12x the cost. Clearly this is wrong.
The leather greaves. For level 1 armor (padded), the helm, greaves, and armlets all have 1 defense, and take 5 gold 5 materials to manufacture on troops. For level 2 armor (leather), the helm and armlets have 2 armor, but the greaves still have only 1 armor. Shouldn't it also be 2 armor? Also, these items cost LESS to manufacture for troops then the padded armor. Shouldn't it be more?
Healing nectar vs. salted pork - Why would I ever buy the healing nectar? They heal the same, one costs more. Also, I tried using the healing nectar in battle, there was a potion gulping sound, but no health was restored.
Dragon balance: I know the dragon is supposed to be powerful. But Sarog is really easy to get. It's not that much to unlock those level quests, then if you get lucky and get that quest, you've basically won the game. Nothing can stand against him for a long time. The dragon breath is especially overpowered - 96 damage to any enemy at any time? Over and over? And I always go first in combat, so their most powerful unit always can be killed before they act. This is way too much.
Squads - Definitely overpowered. If you're going to insist on making this one bit of technology so incredibly important, at least a) - let me group units that already exist into parties, and 
make the AI actually build decent and partied troops. As soon as I research squads and basic equipment, I can make a few units with ~15 attack and ~40 defense and go steamroll anyone, instantly. Boring.
Resting troops - It's a small annoyance, when I have a damaged troop and then move them into a town to rest them, but the town gives them an hp bonus. The problem is partly that the heal bonus is constant (5 hp/turn), but the health gain is proportional. The unit was just missing 10 health, then I move them onto the town, and suddenly they're missing 20 health (say, 80/100 instead of 40/50). Now it takes four turns to heal them, not two. Gee, thanks hp bonus, that was a real help. This whole mechanic seems flawed. Also, I'm pretty sure I've had damaged squads with 4 units move into a town, gain health, then only have 3 units. Is the health gain not scaling correctly or something?
Memory leak - after playing the game for a while, it gradually slows to crap speed. Restart fixes - for awhile. No, it's not the win7 64 bit drivers - I'm on XP.
Magic seems especially underpowered. Or maybe it's just that the squads and legendary armor for so cheap are too overpowered, but I still think it's underpowered. I started trying to cast 1st level offensive spells on a darkling with maybe 1 defense and 4 health. My sovereign had 11 intelligence. Sometimes the spell just missed. When it hit it only did about 2 or 3 damage. That's pretty pathetic. Then defense actually helps block magic, so it's only going to get worse? Even if I spend all my character points into intelligence and double it, I can do 6 damage then? If I hit? Higher level offensive spells aren't that much better. Str and Dex scale attack and defense proportionally; Int seems to be linear. The summons are cool - although now the book of summoning is forever to research. And then all the summons are junk compared to squads of troops, since those are so overpowered. Enchants are cool, but 2 attack? 2 Defense? That's not a lot. I haven't seen anything that made me think, 'damn, that's really powerful and cool'. At all.
And can I please, please have options to speed up tactical combat, turn on or off animations like when I autoresolve kill an enemy, and also an option for whether or not my champions/sovereign will use magic when autoresolving combat?
Suggestions - Allow units to gain special abilities as they level. Make champions rarer and worth more. Let them level into really powerful, and unique troops. Let bards get buffs, etc. Right now they get stronger just by str and dex and gear, really. Not a lot of variety, and after you research some basic equipment, not a lot of change either.
Add more research to other lines besides warfare. Right now if I spend as much time in say, adventuring as I do warfare, I'm getting the quest of mastery before I even have battle hammers or advanced archery. That seem wrong to anyone else? Plus, for really big and long and epic games, I hate running out of stuff.
Have unit/creature levels affect their attack/defense too, and not just their health. And add special abilities they learn at, say, level 5 and 10 or something.
Units that buff/heal other units, and have other special abilities (ie equipping the medical pack doesn't just add health and regeneration, but also a 'heal' ability or something).
I know that a lot of changes and balance upgrades are still forthcoming. The beta ended without us ever really balancing a lot of the content - exactly the opposite of a beta for, for instance, starcraft 2, where months are spent fine tuning small balance adjustments to give perfect polish. Not having this stuff balanced or fully complete will hurt the early reviews a lot, but I know that there's more changes coming and also it's expected that the modding community will pick up the slack too. In a month we'll have a largely different game - I'm thinking of this first month as sort of Beta 5.x : balance and content. So hopefully suggestions are still welcome.
- Kirk
