[0.912] My expert evaluation of the progress so far

Agree with all of these.

Combat needs more stuff to make it less of a stats game.

More weapon factors-

Spears do +25% attack to mounted units, Blunt weapons have a chance to knock prone single-figure units (prone is underused as it is), Axes do bonus damage vs leather armour, sword units sometimes parry and reduce enemy attack by 30%.

Fire damage can ignite opponents and do 1-3 damage for 1-10 turns unless opponent saves vs defense. Cold damage can half enemy inititive for 1-10 turns, lightning does more damage vs units with metal armour (x1.5 for 1 items, x2 for 2 items, x2.5 for three etc).

Flanking. If friendly unit attacks enemy and then an friendly attacks from an adjacent position the enemy should recieve a defence penalty. Or bring in facings but that might require some fundamental changes in the tac battles.

Cavalry charges. Mounted units if attack in a straight line three squares or more they get an attack bonus unless vs spear units.

Terrain- Entering trees gets defence vs archers and cavalry etc. Were terrain bonuses in WoM? I can't recall.

I quite like combat as it is because it's reminiscent of MoM ; the only thing I'd like to see more polish on is how the AI uses spells in tactical / overland combat, which is natural because the game isn't finished yet. 

If people do want more sophisticated tactical combat rules, I'd like to suggest a checkbox for 'new-school tactical combat' or something similar. There are lots of games with complex tactical mechanics (like the HoMM series) and I've found that there's beauty in simplicity too - I'm actually an 'expert' in computer-related things (as the OP starts off by saying) and can identify, for example, when what appears to be a sophisticated AI is nothing more than a complex decision-logic tree. As a player it's more irritating to play against pseudo-complex AI because it feels like the game is pandering to my need for complexity and failing, due to hard-coded decisions which are just as predictable as a less ostentatious version.

I'm playing a game of .912 on Hard and the game world I'm in is not static or boring. I have been in a drawn-out battle with another Sov which started off as a bit of a cold war as we both churned out units, then eventually I was able to take one city, and his downfall had begun. Monsters did attack him and I both. 

Diplomacy; I've been able to forge alliances with other lords that are compatible with me. They persist and are useful, the treaties seem to work ok.

Just wanted to give a different perspective. I also believe that simplicity is key and if a product gets bogged-down in complexity, it never gets better, only worse.

I agree with most of it, somehow anyways, to momosa:
I personally do not need the Combat to change radically, I would like it if autocalc worked (it does not figure out some units cant damage the others for example). Also sometimes In combat I lose to completely random events, my melee units starts 3 thousand meters away from the enemy archers being an example.. where sometimes its only 1 thousand meters .
Also combat for me needs a reason to use hammers, and axes

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Poor unit selection - those little cirlcular highlights and highlights with arrows, what do they mean exactly? When i click at the enemy now, who will charge him? Just my sovereign? Everyone? No one? I can't count the mistakes I made by poor selection of units. Who is selected should be immediately, visually clear. Sadly, it isn't.

Running away from battles - I understand there were some changes, first only attacker could (?), now no one seems to be able. What a pity - running away was such an important part of medieval warfare. Pursuit of scattered enemy forces was extremely important. The running rabble could regroup and fight another day - or be cut down by light cavalry (who was important for the task). Retreating noble could rally a city to his support and present an unpleasant, prolonged siege in enemy territory - or could catch an arrow between ribs. Fugitive prince could beg the emperor about the injustice - and could return with thousands of troops as a pretender to the throne.

Unclear quest information - "explore the butcherman lair" - that's what I get? Couldn't I even have a peek? No, I could not, supposedly. So off I march, and I encounter - two butchermen, as expected, who I dispatch easily, and Ulrich the Unknown Undead Upstart, who chops me to ribbons with his huge axe. Even the Monty Python knights could shout - RUN AWAYYYY, RUN AWAYYYY... but not me. RIP. I understand the auto-resurrection and the battle wound/scratches system was made to alleviate the pain, but I don't like it much. Combat should matter more, rewards should be greater, running away should be allowed. 

Battles are still bar-room brawls - sadly, nothing in the game resembles armies, formation or true epic clashes of forces. Only Total War games made it with reasonable success so far (bar the horrible AI). I know this won't change, but I cannot convince myself I am commanding an ancient and powerful empire - it's me, the awesome Elemental Lord, Helga with a huge hammer, and her 16 cloned cousins with pointy sticks, grouped by four. That's it, that's our military. If we don't build a pub this year, we may hope to double that.

I don't think  sovereign overpower, it's just right, you just pick to had sovereign to do solo to do more exp level up and much faster, now if you had sovereign with hero or unit, level up much, much slow, than doing sole, it's just trade off, but however, I do think basic unit do need more buff and less time training in city, that is lot of work to get that unit to join sovereign, not only that, maybe more move point for basic unit? That's where problem, unit like spearmen, is so waste time and not that useful in early of game.

And hero should had a potian to remove whole wound thing, should buy easy in shop, not rare quest, though I do like that quest lady making, though rather she should gave potian to boom your heathpoint perment...

while those problem for basic unit and here, that cause almost every one do sovereign sole because those hero and basic unit is not worth it t taken to battle with sovereign, because once hero dead, then add up wound, unable to heal, most rather not use hero in order not to get wound for hero so here useless unless someone had to careful, or had fun get thier hero get too many wound. but most people don't find fun, I'm sure, proof lot of people do sole with sovereign, basic unit is so slow to move, and training taken lot of turn, and low heathpoint, that casuse almost everyone want to do sovereign sole, because there is no downside but wait a turn for sovereign dead, even you had to wait 40 season to sovereign come back when he end up die a very high level vs very level monster.

Kama, I don't think you can get the combat in a game to resemble anything realistic, that will work wonders and really make you think its a real combat... Its a game! you shouldn't set your bar that high

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Not true.  I occasionally catch glimpses of baddies fighting it out in the wild in .912.  Just last night I saw an ogre kick some water shrills' butts! 

It might be rare, but interaction is there.

What makes you an expert?

I would like to see a future expansion focused on tactical battles modeled after the system used in WarHammer miniatures wargame rules. Rules where units must make an initiative check to move and flanking attacks affect combat odds and units can panic and run-away.

I think what would make the world feel more alive is to have an actively generated quest system.

Little things like rescue noble, etc, should pop up once in a while with a dialog.

No capiche.  Merge this with the other bazillion "experts"  

I would love to see more of this. Heck, any of this in my games. Would certainly liven it up a bit, seeing bears, spiders, and such brawling around in the world. Talk about feeling threatened by the world! 

-- that, and the creatures would end up leveling quite a bit more making them more of a hassle. Which could be good. Or a Creature-faction trait could be added internally which reduces exp gained by attacking other creatures.

I don't think memory allocation, or re-allocation, is one of Stardocks stronger points.

As far as I can remember, they never fixed the out of memory error people were getting with Galactic civilization.  Or did they?

Thanks, that was a blast to read and i concur with many of your observations.

Especially the issues with the unintuitive user interface could become a major problem if they only get tackled half-hearted.

New players won't even notice all those wonderful gameplay additions if they constantly struggle with the interface.

And i'm not talking about "dumb console kiddies nowerdays, no attention span, willingness to immerse themselves etc.", for example if i hadn't some UI experience from other strategy titles and Vanillia Elemental, the interface here would seriously confuse/frustrate me.

While I'am not agreeing with all points of your post (The game is doing pretty well while AltTabbing) reading it makes me smile.