I have been extensively testing combat and I have found it to be both the best part of the game and unplayable in many respects. For one, counterattacks seem to causing crashes as well as AI uses of certain creature spells (spiders are the crashiest).

The biggest problem is that heroes are unable to gain enough constitution to survive a single strike from an enemy of the same level. I suppose that we have levels in the game to get a quick glance at who is going to win a fight, so  it seems reasonable to expect a level 6 hero to at least take a hit from an ogre without losing literally hours of time leveling that hero. I mean can we really call them heroic if all they do is run up to an enemy, get one hit, and die? That is no hero; that is a matyr.

The current way to win is to put all your important units in the back of your lines and send out a unit or two of soldiers to strike down whatever your wizards can't kill. Then you get creature wizards and you out them behind your soldiers too. The whole goal is to not let any of your heroes die, so they can level and get more mana and attack speed. Everything else is expendable. When the enemy gets a turn you hope it runs straight at your front line so that you can get as many hits without moving. It is actually really fun to play this part and if this is what you want tactical battles to be like I am onboard, but lets polish this so that there are a few more ways to win. Like calvary rushing a flank, using a range system for archers so that I cant just pick off things from range, getting the AI to use archers better, making that damn ogre with the avalanche ability killable so I don't have to sacrifice any more women and children militias to defeat him. There are many ways to make this a little me varied and it would be nice to see some army vs army battles as I have yet to face more than two real armies and I play this game 6hrs a day.

The broken issue that most of the player I have seen post on here is of course tactical battles and the lack of planning before a battle. I am confident this willl be changed in the next BIG update and many have already posted about it so I will not go into it here.

All this said, I play the game 6hrs a day because I feel immersed by the story it allows me to create. I love the aesthetic and the general feel of my kingdom.

Great job guys! Great job!