In my mod I am moving most tactical health regeneration over to a 10 round timer, ie it stops working after the unit has acted 10 times. It doesn't remove the problem with units filling up health by idling in easy battles, but it should put a stop to those who use it to build super-high initiative units that go in, fight, then retreat and kite until they are full health again.

thats a good idea

with monsters i think its possibiel to give an enrage timer so after x turns they gain some movement and initiative etc so fight is gonna end 1 way or another

tbh i dont think kiting is a problem at all

single players are not competitive, i never exploit nor use anything i find too op becasue i want a challenge not winning

i have no problem winning in single player games i want to lose, i  mod things to be harder, why would i want to exploit kiting and stuff? would just be boring to me

I'll toss my idea here too:

Have the tatical map decrease in size every X turns. This allows units to initially kite, but with a time limit, as eventually they must duke it out in melee.

After thinking about it, I'd like to see all tactical combat per turn effects happen at the same initiative tick, instead of being tied to the target's initiative.  I feel like this would make spells and effects quite a lot easier to balance in the long run.

I really hate #3.  Ranged damaged is gimp. I also feel that regeneration as it is, is very weak.  Kiting seems a lame tactic, so no I am not defending it.  Anyone not able to go toe to toe with something should bring more units.  I could go for 1,2 or 4. 

This is exactly what I'm talking about.  This way super-fast units won't pop regen or poison faster than slower units.  Then these spells can be more easily balanced, which they need to be.

1. Seems okay. The only problem I have is, switching weapons on the fly isn't a thing. Having archers who are suddenly incapable of melee after getting one or two attacks off will dramatically nerf ranged attackers. Against stupid AI this isn't a problem, of course, but in other situations it might be.

2. Every direction? Then you can just deploy fast-moving, suicidal tackle units to shut a person down and prevent his armies from moving so they're pinned for your suckerpunch. I don't like it.

3. No.

4. Ranged units, sure. I run into a fair amount of spellcasting units after getting into the vicinity of Strong. The whole point of the game's post-apocalyptic backstory is that magic is rare, I thought. If everyone and their dog on the overland map can cast spells it interferes with the setting.

5. That's silly, because there's no situation in which regeneration's small healing is superior to taking an action that inflicts damage, unless the unit is crying in a corner of the map while the meatshields duke it out.

I do think it's absurd that Regeneration heals 1 HP per turn in combat, but only 1 on the overland map, however. Units with regeneration should, logically, be restored to full health each season. The fact HP comes back at a rate of one every 20 seconds or whatever an initiative round is during combat but somehow slows down the moment the adrenaline stops pumping to 1 per couple months was poorly thought out.

Increase the mana cost, the level requirement, or make it only castable on single-member stacks, but make it restore all the HP on the overland map. There's really no other way to balance it besides removing it altogether, anything else just leads to 'optimal unintended behaviors' like idling in combat for teh healz.

On a related note, Death's vampirism equivalents aren't even remotely as good. 3 HP whenever an entire stack dies for Rosoln, for example, is silly. 3 HP per member of a stack, okay. Killing a stack of 3 militia for a 9 HP yield is still downright anemic, but I'd take it. I'd prefer 5 or 6 HP per head. 3 HP for killing a 50-HP stack of soldiers, though, is practically useless in terms of sustain value. Add to that, Rosoln melee units taking advantage of the faction vampirism have no substantial Defense and are prone to getting whacked quickly anyway and you've got one of the most useless Race advantages. Ironeers and the Altar have it way better, to name a few off-hand.