This is a very interesting thread with very nice ideas, I'll contribute a few of my own as well even though I have no knowledge if it would be hard to implement. First of all, I like several specific ideas mentioned here, like having a zone of control near units that dont allow other units to move more than 1 adjacent square. This is used in other games like Romance of Three Kingdoms XI, Medieval II, and some others. The other thing I liked is attacks of opportunity, I'm not sure if I understood this correctly but attacks of opportunity could happen if someone tried to move past your "zone of control" while ignoring an unit?

My proposal would be that both this mechanics could be added, but not ALL units could do it, we could put the Unit Design to use on this. For example you could design an unit a "Zone of Control Pack" or "Attack of Opportunity Pack", but you couldn't choose both because they would occupy a mutually exclusive slot. Im using the name "Pack" because thats what came to mind, but it could be an ability that you could choose or a piece of armor, or an accesory that you applied during the unit design. This in turn would lead to more interesting unit designs and more options during the process of designing.

This would open up more possibilities on spells and types of units, like ninja type units that could ignore zone of control and hit your back lines undetected. Spells that allowed units to ignore zone of control and all that kinda goodies that could make you think a bit more before making your next move.

If thered' be both zone of control and attacks of opportunity, imo every unit that has a melee weapon should have zone of control. Attacks of opportunity could be a special ability from certain weapons or such. Maybe fast weapons allow attacks of opportunity if unit didn't move during it's turn or such.

Invisibility spell for ignoring zones of control

Perhaps just expand on the "Retaliatory Strike"(RS) idea already in place in game. It could take somewhere between .25 & .5 AP's per action and be usable just like a AoO.

In the row of 3 example,

A B C

X Y Z

A-C attack Y = X & Z get an AoO(RS) at 25%(arbitrary) damage on A & C respectively, B can select any of the 3 but only gets 1 despite there being a possible 3 opportunities in front of it for AoO(RS)

X attacks A = B gets an AoO(RS)

Y attacks B = ABC get AoO(RS)

Z attacks C = B gets AoO(RS)

If the #'s of troops involved increase it doesn't matter, as each AoO(RS) is based on adjacency to all enemy troops within a 1 tile radius. Ranged units do not get a AoO(RS)'s

For automation have a check box "always use AoO(RS) if available. Otherwise, the player has to do it oh manual.

I just wanted to say that I think these ideas are pretty cool, but I'm wondering if they are getting too complicated.  I'm really a fan of keeping it simple, so what I am wondering is if these two adjustments would be enough to keep it interesting.

1.  Doubled attack power for all units that are not being attacked themselves.

2.  Can't move more than 1 step through an area of control.

As a side note, number 1 should be enough to keep archers from just focus firing.  I think you would want to use them to engage every enemy unit first.  Once you have effectively used suppression fire on everyone, then you could use the rest of your ranged units to focus fire.

I am really looking forward to a complex and realistic mod to address tactical combat. I think this is something that should be a community effort and if some kind of consensus could be reached would benefit the game greatly. Especially for those that want to actually have to think about their moves in tactical combat...

Well I understand where you are coming from but I don't like adding things that don't make sense and massing attacks is something that should work.  The problem is that it is too easy to do, not that it shouldn't be as viable.  There are a few things you can do to accomplish something similar and would feel right.  (Didn't read all the posts so forgive me if others have already said these things).

1) Units can't easily move through/by another unit.  Add in zone of control and/or give units a free attack if they move away from you.  This will make movement more difficult and will make it harder to dogpile on a single unit.

2) For ranged units make them behave more like they do in the real world.  A unit fires a mass of arrows and hits an area.  So some miss altogether, some can hit nearby units, etc.  The further away the more inaccurate.

3) Require line of sight for some/all ranged units.  In a real battle you won't see archers at the bottom of a hill firing on the other side of the hill very often as they can't see it.  Also your own friendly units make it harder to see the enemy.  Just because we, as the general can see them shouldn't mean that all our ranged units can see them too.  Obviously helps as less units will be able to fire at whatever they want.

4) Units with real advantages and disadvantages against other units.  This would end up reducing dogpiling as you will want as many of those good match-ups as you can get and some matches will end up not being worthwhile or dangerous and will be avoided.

There are lots of other things that could be done but I think these ideas fit in with the style of this game easily enough.