I recently got into FE beta and have collated a number of observations and suggestions below following many hours of early-mid game play.  No comments for late game. I realise some of the points below may be duplicating existing threads - in which case I'll edit this post as I find them elsewhere.

Firstly - I think there's so much potential in this game - much of it is realised in the existing mechanics.  I had great fun playing with the various factions and restarting to try different approaches to the game (hence no late game comments!)  

Note that this is from the point of view of someone who hasn't read any manual (if there is one available) nor played earlier versions of this game – the point of view of basically an uneducated noob. This will be many people who buy the game anyway when it launches, so it may be worth noting opinions of both experienced players and ...others too.  Saying that, TBS is my love and I've played a lot of Master of Magic, Dominions 3, Total war, Warlords, HOMM etc so I'm not totally clueless.

Strategic map Mechanics:

-       Unit stack grouping: there needs to be a toggle to group/ungroup to make it easier to see what’s going on. I should need to move out of a square to reorganise my stacks - bad practice when an army of hostiles are on your doorstep.

-       Mana Regeneration at the strategic level: There appears to be really slow mana regen between turns.  This does not follow if turns are meant to represent months/seasons. Heros should recover 100% mana each turn, with multiple fights within turns subject to some level of regen.  Maybe even in-battle regen (possibly already in there).  If strategic-level mana regen is to be kept, IMO there needs to be clear indication in the character description of the regen/turn and perhaps some items/spells/abilities that improve it. 

-       ‘Turn button’:  there were several times when the turn progresses without my explicit permission. This was obviously tied to unit movement where I right clicked on another square, implicitly commencing another move (turn).  This shouldn’t happen – especially where I cannot tell (easily, visually) about my remaining moves.  I want to use up my move then switch to the next army, not have the turn click over while I’m playing around with one army.  

IMO:       

• The turn button needs to be a more major button in the UI.
• Default option of no turn change unless it is hit.
• Perhaps a 'see enemy move' option to better break up turns?

-       'Explore' didn’t work a few times for my scouts (but others it did, weird...).

-       'Relative strength’ indicator of different factions:  In one fight, the other faction had like double my strength.  However upon engaging, most of their armies were made up of pioneers.  The slaughter was horrible/most satisfying to watch.  Surely ‘weak’ armies should be disregarded from the total faction strength number?  

-       It is not made clear when a hero who is recovering in your capital becomes ready to rock.  It should be a message at the start of a turn or something notable.

-       Rally points:  is there a way to set an rally point for an army being produced in a city? I couldn’t see one. Even just 'move to city X' would be useful.

-       Regenerating trolls (even just one of the tough buggers) are clearly not a ‘weak’ army. Please increase their rating to ‘medium’ by default.

-       Unit details:  I really need to know current health, current mana level (assuming glacial turn mana regen is retained as I criticised above) and current experience.  These details are not in all the character and character detail windows. Some details are in some windows and not others.

-       City build queue:  it would be great to be able to drag and drop items, or reorder using an interface button. Also see the progress on the current item vs the total cost (eg whether I’m 50/80 finished or 5/80) so I can know the trade-off for disrupting the current build order.

-       Healing squads:  it wasn’t clear whether regen of squad members was occurring, of it you need to do anything to enable this to happen.

-       Scroll or spell of escape didn’t work to take my hero’s army to the capital. Could this spell not be cast in the strategic map too, for a quick return home?

Tactical battles

-       A (steady/slow) side scrolling screen would be great by default rather than just the left click pan.

-       Unpassable squares in the grid are often not marked very clearly. These should show up better (visually).

-       I want to change weapons mid-fight, eg my ranged hero pulling out a sword to move into melee... is there a way to do it?

-       The relative character sizes of units are not quite right IMO. Ogres vs heroes/units seem good, but then a dragon is like the same size as an ogre. There is also the issue of trogs vs humans – they appear the same size, yet the trog hero is supposed to be massive etc.  Where the relative sizes of things in the strategic map are OK to be clearly out of proportion, I think tactical maps greatly benefit from more ‘realistic’ proportions. Dragons should take up two squares.

-       Sounds:  the sounds in combat seems to be more dominated by the grunts of pain. I guess I’d like less ‘ouch, that hurt’, more ‘eat steel, sucker’ feel - more swinging axe sounds and deflections off shields/parries etc. Make combat sound more like a clash of steel in a fantasy battle, less a kinky adult film.  Think of the wives/partners hearing the game in the room next door...

-       It is somewhat annoying that friendly units cannot move through each other.  My hero should be able to push his way through a bunch of friendly archers etc.  It would be different if heroes were attached to a unit/squad (another idea?) or where there is a hostile squad on the far side of the archers.

-       No way to call a retreat? Might have missed that.

-       The ‘end unit turn’ button is a bit small, considering how much it needs to be pressed (we can’t assume people will always use available hotkeys, can we? That's not accessible UI design).

Research window:

-       Selection process: I found several times I accidentally changed research as I investigated other branches (civic/warfare/magic).  It should be much clearer in the research screen which research item you've selected to continue with and not subject to change just because you select a different tree for a look at the options.

Trade Window:

-       The ‘next character’ arrow buttons are way too small – easily missed for a new player. They need to be more obvious as they are a key part of the movement of items within a stack of heroes.

Balancing:

• Some of the mage heroes I’ve recruited seem pretty pansy and lack direct damage spells. There should be a scalable (but first level accessible) direct damage spell for each elemental line IMO – maybe something that increases with level - bigger fireball, area of attack drain health, thrown rock etc. Blindness and slowing is fun, but they don’t kill things. While I mention it, shouldn’t blindness more seriously effect ranged attacks?
• Archers:  These seem overpowered in early-mid game. Unfailingly accurate + high damage + easy access to kiting unit around the map.  They should be more limited somehow... maybe reduce the accuracy to single human-sized units (ie heroes), limit the move + shoot action, or reduce overall damage.  One  unit of archers shouldn’t really be able to slice up like three approaching melee units IMO, even if they lack shields.

General

-       Naming cities upon creation: It would be great to be able to name cities

-       Aesthetics:

• Representation of characters and monsters generally:  Needs a bit more cowbell IMO. Several of the characters and beasties look very conservative.  Perhaps that’s the design decision, but for example the dragons I’ve seen are not big stomping scary things with flapping wings and tail waving. More like a horse-sized bitey skink. Elementals and some of the magic beasties look great – just mainly the humans/trogs and certain beasties could do with some more horns/spikes/smoke...  more extreme rage, and drama.
• Strategic map: the aesthetic look generally great, though the square grid makes the whole thing look blocky... a hexagonal grid would be far more ‘natural’ I would have thought. Probably too far down the dev track to change this anyway?
• Tactical map - How about the crest of the faction on shields/cloaks and the flags in the cities?

-       Uncrossable rivers vs fordable rivers?

-       Other items don't appear on the main panel without scrolling down... it is easy to miss them for new players.  Shouldn;t you be able to heal others with them in the tactical screen (ie give hero X the healing potion?).

-       Rings of ‘+3 cold attack’: it is not clear in the descriptoin text whether this enables a new cold component of damage or can only add damage to an existing cold attack.

-       Epic Mounts? A Trog riding a warg chariot or a dragon would be awesome... plus the extra mobility for flying units would be very handy in late game shenanigans.

-       Healer heroes to reduce chance/severity of permanent injuries in battle? Maybe use more temporary disablement for sidekicks rather than ‘get broken leg trait, back onto 1hp for the next battle’). Maybe there are human healers... I've mostly played the Fallen.

-       Sidekicks:  Apart from the welcomed battle skills, battle spells and ability to hold items (eg increase sight range), I would have thought they could be more useful/specialist.  Eg Mount and Blade, where stats are substituted such as a sidekick with high engineering/tracking etc.

- Shards: without further explanation, the early-mid game use of shards is not well explained in the game (the manual would definitely help here). Just wondering if if could be a bit more obvious/described in the mechanics?

Over and out, I'm going to make myself play through to late game this time!