I hate always counter attacking.  And it wouldn't work well in a game with glass cannon soldiers.  Every attack would be a suicide.

They should reduce attack damage or increase too. And if not, then it should be a suicide. Because melee combats definitely can't be resolved like this. Melee combat IS about BOTH sides of similar quality taking similar amount of damage. A group of ten people can't make one melee strike and kill another group of ten people without taking similar amount of damage from them, it's ridiculous.

I do believe free counter-attack should be a perk, not a given.

Locked in melee is a poor idea, in my opinion, as it removes freedom from the player, which i dont like.

I would however love to see something like an "Attack of Opportunity" system where you provoke a *melee* counterattack  by moving  out of any square adjacent to a unit with a melee weapon, providing that unit is equipped with a melee weapon, and has not already counter attacked anyone else since its last turn.

That adds an entirely new tactical layer to combat, helps to combat kiting and casual first strike tactics. The battlefield becomes much more like a chess board.

However, I honestly dont know if that sort of thing is easily within the game engine's technical capacity at present. Also, the designers seem to want to keep the battle under 3 minutes, and might not favor anything that slows them down  by making players think more.

I even think the defender has more time to observe and decide and therefore has a better reaction. But all these things are SOOO negligible in melee that I don't belive we should think about them at all.

The notion of retaliation is paramount to any turn based tactical battle.

Some units should have the ability to retaliate to the first hit in a turn, but shouldn't retaliate to the second, third, nth hit in that turn. Other units should have the ability to retaliate one extra time per turn, while others should have the "no enemy retaliation" characteristic. There could also be a spell that gives one extra retaliation to the affected unit for that turn or a chance to retaliate every time until the end of the tactical battle (ex: the affected unit is given a 20% chance every time it's hit to retaliate again, until the end of the battle)

A general "locked in melee" approach makes no sense though. One should be able to lock units in melee by surrounding them or by casting specific spells. There is also the possibility for some types of units to have this ability built in (think of the dendroid soldier in Heroes of Might and Magic III - every time it hit an enemy, it had an x% chance to root that enemy to the ground and the effect lasted until dispelled or the dendroid were killed).

Or I have another idea:

Spears have first strike against mounted units and mounted units have first strike against not mounted units... that would make some sense.

That rather seems like a mod already.

I just think about such a situation in "real" life: if a group of people are engaged in melee, they definitely can't just show their backs and move without receiving some additional casualties from those they are in fight with; even if they are not surrounded, disengagement from melee is not an easy task.

Sry, misread your post. My Bad

I still think that counterattack should be a trait and not built in to all units (unless only from defensive mode), that goes double for "locked in combat".

It seems very unlikely that the Devs would change so much of basic tactical combat.

I get where the OP is going with this. MoM had simultaneous attacks and so does HoMM. There is a good reason for it. Currently whom ever gets in the first hit has a big advantage assuming most things are equal. So it becomes a predictable tired waiting game to see who can move into position first. This usually is the player because the AI doesn't prioritize that way yet. Battles shouldn't work that way. There should be a risk inherent to a melee attack. I mean realistically unless it's a suprise attack there is no way some someone is going to just stand there and let you take a free swing at them. Am i right?

Maybe this can be countered with "First Strike" traits that prevent a counter attack if you kill the unit first and "Fear" traits that prevent retaliation on the more powerful units.

Game implementation wise though I think they way it currently is is fine. It does give more strategic depth to movement at the cost of realism and to be honest too much will have to change to balance things to work as the OP suggested. Standard units though do need something they can do in between marching to their deaths. Maybe an automatic defend option so the first striker doesn't get that much of an advantage.

The "always on" first strike lets melee feel like ranged combat. To me it boils down to have a action points based system (like many other games have for good reason). How about some costs:

• move normal tile 1AP
• move difficult terrain 2AP
• Attack in melee n AP (consumes all AP for n strikes each costing 1AP)
• Defend in melee costs 1AP for each attack (maybe 1/2 AP?)
• Leaving combat should cost 1AP  + AP for movement (and maybe add a free strike with a accuracy penalty for the left beck enemy)
• Range Attack 2 AP (so fast Archers could move a bit AND shoot)
• Cast a spell: spell level*2AP -> even multi-round spells fit in this
• Abilities should have some cost too
• Haste could modify this instead of yet another initiative bonus

I know its done this way a lot but this does not mean its a bead thing. Also it allows to pin down a unit by attacking it so much that there are not AP's left when it starts his(/her) round.

Also i like the perks "firststrike", "always strike back", "no retaliation"...

To fit the charge situation, just give a strength bonus to the group which arrives in combat for one combat round. This should fix that without the *cite* ridiculous attack for free concept. I think the imagination should cover some seconds of fighting (with many strikes and parry's)  instead of a single strike.

well ofc the strategy would be about searching the best tradeoff, for example attacking damaged units or starting with tanking guys to reduce the counterattack and then the assassins to finish off them

also there are (will be) skills to use and there could be a perk about a "real" first strike where the unit having it FIRST deal dmg and after the dmg is dealt (and so eventually the opponent dies or if multi figures get reduced in dmg) he will take the counter back

I agree with both of these issues :

First strike is too powerful, so we need either counter attack, either base HP being much higher compared to damage than they are now to mitigate this, or anything else to stop the tactical battles from being a boring exercise of counting spaces.

Archers being able to kite from melee without penalty, and having endless amunition is a problem too. It allows  a single horse archer to obliterate a complete stack of ennemy footsoldiers (but as it would not be able to retreat when is ammunitions are depleted, that would lead to another problem).

(edit for typos)