I had fun (surprise!), but exploits need to be fixed.

Scrap everything and just implement a D&D system for all units. If there was a 4X Fantasy TBS with D&D units and combat, it would wipe the floor with everything else for that reason alone.

Following up on Istari's excellent suggestion, I too would like to see a D&D system for units. Also, make the game an MMO/scifi/fantasy/fps/rts/rpg. And I want to play it on my iphone (in 1920x1200) and my laptop (640x300).

Oh yeah, I don't like North Korea. Can you guys take care of that as well?

PS. the drivers on my laptop are from 1995.

I appreciate a satirical comment as well as the next guy, but I don't see what's ridiculous about trying to close exploits?

Elemental has already conquered (patched) World Hunger (food), Overpopulation (population as a resource), Disease (wait.. there werent any epidemics).. anyway, North Korea is doomed (They were already decimated by James Brosnan in Die Another Day).

I like the idea of armour degrading after each hit in a battle. Means even the strongest enemies can be brought down if you have enough units that will last long enough to wear away their armour. Could work nicely as the OP says.

Armor degrades, have magic to repair armor, or magical self repairing armor. It gives magic another spot to actually be useful, while making it to a single guy in platemail can't just laugh off a 1000 man army with clubs.

I wouldn't have armour degradation stay after the tactical battle, that might be irritating. But armour with magic to absorb extra hits before it starts degrading could be quite neat.

armor degradation would be neat, but let the armor return after the battle.  I do think it needs to recover gradually, sort of like the wearer is repairing over time.  Not just poof its back.

You only need exhaustion. Bring in your energy bars!

Perhaps make it come back over time if you're in the field, come back faster if you're in a settlement, and come back instantly if you're in a settlement with a certain structure (blacksmith?).  That way, if your units are in an aggressive posture, there is a risk of counter-attack, but your units defending fortified city aren't left exposed.

tbh, most of suggestions i make for how to do the combat system tend to be D&D based; it's a very good system for this kind of thing. though there's some things i wouldn't keep (i currently like the distinction between dodging and blocking dnd lacks). generally though, the D&D system of random number + stat constant vs. difficulty just works, a lot better than 1DN.

Three suggestions for armor/weapon balance:

1. Armor might work better if there were two values. You'd have something like 3/30%, where the first number gets directly subtracted from the damage roll, and the remainder is reduced by the %. That way, sufficiently wimpy weapons still aren't a concern, but anything else will get SOME damage through. Since parties/squads have a combined attack value, this would mean that a group of soldiers are always a threat, even if they're only wielding pointy sticks. For squads, only the first number would add up, so using the example above, a party of four would be 12/30%.

2. Separate weapons into bludgeoning and edged. Bludgeoning weapons have a lower attack rating than an edged weapon of the same level, but the defender's armor rating is reduced by 50%.

3. Lower a units armor rating based on how many hostile units are in adjacent squares, maybe 10% for each (7% for parties, 5% for squads, 2% for companies, since multi-soldier units can better protect their flanks). This opens up a lot of interesting tactical possibilities. Stay close to provide mutual support, and get nuked by an AOE? Or spread out and maybe get picked off one at a time. Those hordes of wimpy spiderlings would actually make you think twice instead of being a mop-up exercise. As it stands now, I can take a unit with just enough armor to repel a spiderling and a bow, let myself get surrounded, and pick everything else off over the spiderliings heads, while nothing else can reach me.

I had fun too, though at some point it was clear I had won and it was basically just a repeated 'next turn' until the necessary research was complete for my Magic victory goal.  Once I successfully research Equipment (so I could build armored units) and Teleport (so that there was no longer any real worry about positional logistics), the rest seemed far too easy.  A horde of spiders is much less frightening when you know that they can rarely even hit you.

I hope the person at Stardock that works on balance will not take offense about what we're saying. But it seems a lot of people agree on this forums that the equipment value balance is really off. It doesn't integrate with the rest of the game, it doesn't correspond to the game's mechanics in general. And since the AI plays the game as it is intended, exploring all tech options, a player prioritizing armor tech will win every time, without real challenge. 

I still prefer the way Master of Magic did it:

Each attack point was a chance of hit, each defense value was a chance of defense.  This gives a nice curve of distribution of damage values as opposed to the version that Elemental had at release with the "I one shot you or do nothing" effect

10 Damage vs. 10 defense.  If each point of damage only has 70% chance to land, and each point of defense has 70% chance to work, you still have your 1 in a million opportunity, but it really is one in a million.  More realistically you most often see 6-9 damage vs. 6-9 defense, a.k.a. 0-3 damage dealt.  The odds of getting 10 on damage side would be 2-3%, and the odds of a 0 on defense side would be 1 in a few hundred thousand, for roughly 1 in 10 billion chance of hitting for full damage.

70% used as examples to show how you can tighten the equations to reduce chance but still have some give.  If it's more like 30% (which Master of Magic used baseline) you see much larger variance on damage and the uber hit potential is more common than 1 in 10 billion

I don't see the current armour situation as broken, just a little overpowered as well as underutilized by the AI still. IMCO, the bigger issue is lack of focus in AI tactics when researching. So focusing on the other aspects of the blink archer exploit:

Blink:

• Limit the range to 3 squares. That way a 3 combat movement unit can shoot and jump 3 squares, a 4 combat movement unit can move one square, shoot, and jump 3 squares. They can get cornered or else attacked this way.
• Increase mana cost

Archery:

• Limit the amount of ammo that can be fired.

This doesn't prevent this tactic; it's still a strong tactic. It just limits its effectiveness. The rest is in the AI focusing on military or magic and creating stronger units.

This is the armor system Mount and Blade Warband uses. It's a quite good one, and similar to one described in a post above.

Slashing is used on fast high damage weapons, and they'll perform best against lower levels of armor -- but because of their high speed, good reach and high base damage output they're also generally useful in hand to hand combat.

Pierce weapons are best when they're slow and high damage -- like, say, crossbow bolts and arrows -- because the soak is decent and the percentage reduction is low.

Blunt is usually coupled with either crush through -- which allows you to hit through blocks with an overhead attack -- or knockdown -- which does what you'd expect. It's generally best on a fast weapon with mediocre damage -- since it gets hit hard by percentage, but slips right through soak. Crush through weapons are also generally very short, so you have to really get up in someone's face to pull it off. That said, if you can actually manage an overhead attack (the slowest kind) at close range, you've got a good chance of either killing or knocking down the target.

The system works well because it allows for lots of equally effective strategies that work in very different ways. Someone slashing weapon is going to focus on minimizing your ability to attack through blocking and lightning fast strikes, because their weapon takes a few hits to kill if the target is in decent armor. Someone with a pierce weapon is going to focus on hitting you hard when you're not looking -- and since pierce is often on polearms, they'll generally also want to maintain distance on you. And anyone with a blunt weapon is a madman screaming DEATH FROM ABOVE!