Overpowered. There's been some discussion of this in another thread. Right now I think Crushing Blow is WAY too powerful.

I would reduce the damage to 50%. I had a similar experience where I used cheap warhammer infantry with leather armor from a powerful fortress to demolish a pack of Drakes.

Haven't ever encountered this myself.  If a town gets attacked by a large army/otherwise powerful foe, my militia goes down fast if I'm not properly prepared in other ways.  Crushing Blow or no Crushing Blow.

In terms of balance, there are plenty of other issues I'd like them to tackle long before something like this... like balancing classes (buffing Assassins), etc.

Hm... after reading it again, I don't know why you'd have that impression.  Seems rather clear that crushing blow and fortresses are two separate, equally-important points the OP has made -- both in regards to the militia.

As far as fortresses (specifically) seeming over-powered when used in conjunction, I could agree with that point.  One could also argue that's simply a matter of utilizing the game's mechanics.  Either way, that's another topic.

Which is perhaps the biggest let down of the games. I win after about 2 hours of playing in an 8 hour game.

All weapon are roughly equal with the exception of swords.

Other weapon special attack negate sword counter, being the fastest won't really make up for this. Shield bash negate counter too.

Regarding crushing blow, 1 or 2 crushing blow won't decide the battle, a couple however is equal to win/lose, depending on which side you are. That being said, relying on crushing blow has its own disadvantage, mainly if enemy have more units than the crushing blower, other lesser disadvantage is crushing blow doesn't get swarm bonus, it's probably a balancing system though since crushing blow itself are more than the swarm bonus (+100% atk or atk x2). Club weapon purpose is very clear to deal devastating burst damage to single target, in the beginning of the game, there are many target like that, especially neutral monster.

And i believe crushing blow damage is multiplied by 2 first then is reduced by defense, which is why even with high defend (like 50 defense) its damage can still reach 100 (equal armor and weapon tech). If the equation/formula is changed, like reduced by defense first then multiplied by 2, the dmg will be lower.

As to why club and spear being liked by most people is more of because they are available earlier than sword and axe.

@OP

Seems it's more of crushing blow being OP than the militia, just imagine a militia without crushing blow or a modified or weakened version of it versus militia with let's say spear, almost no different. Though in regard of this, i admit that militia can be an expendable suicide unit if the need arise, being fast to produce and has high damage (via the crushing blow).

Also this is perhaps because club is available from the beginning, if all melee weapon type are available in the beginning, i'd pick sword and shield, and club as back up unit.

Make Crushing Blow double damage *AFTER* armor check. That should fix it nicely. 

And if you think just CB is bad, try Tarthans Double Strike AND Crushing Blow... Insanely OP. Some shared CD for these on  the units only should probably fix it though. 

Oh and btw to everyone saying "only get 4 essence fortress and you win", up your difficulty. I modded a 5 essence fortress, and got my ass handed to me by Tarthan mages. Seen a full 9 army with 4 mages death squads before? Very fun. Now add double strike to those mages, and tell me how to beat them. I got owned in the second turn of actions, my army was completely obliterated in seconds (lvl 12+ sovereigns and heroes as well)

Those ranged death squads are craaaazy. (yeah it was my own former custom factions too coming to haunt me ) 

Nice point sjaminei, i forgot about double strike, yeah that one is basically crushing blow without being dazed in the next turn and available to all kind of weapons.

That being said, sjaminei problem is because of they are Tarth, Tarth ranged units are twice more dangerous than other faction (excluding any custom one), not because of you can pick nature cloak or any elemental resist buff, i mean Tarth can fare better against any elemental resist buff than other faction because they do 2x damage of other faction via double strike, hence why i believe sjaminei problem is because of he go against Tarth.

Regarding essence fortress, it's not because it is essence fortress, any town that has high essence and used with battle boosting enchantment (Like heart of fire and its kind) is OP, fortress being better because of it can boost the accuracy of the unit. This case is already exist since vanilla FE v1.00, at that time most people say Pariden being the weakest faction which i totally disagree because Pariden can exploit this essence the best (scrying pool + those 4 tomes), but the vanilla Altar is still the most OP faction.

Regarding crushing blow, it's not a problem if you just use 1, use a couple of it and it's overkill, much more than impale or cleave, this is only in ridiculous or insane (especially in insane) when enemy hp is very high, however in lower difficulty it is a different story. And another advantage of crushing blow is it can go against better teched faction, cleave and impale struggle more against better teched faction (especially lower weapon vs higher armor), but crushing blow will streamroll it, especially using elemental hammer (or using heart of fire). I don't need to play the game to know this, simply by looking at the math that crushing blow is damage x2 first than reduced by def is enough proof, while cleave and impale is directly reduced by def. The solution presented by sjaminei is exactly what i said, crushing blow get def check first then its damage is multiplied.

Another advantage of crushing blow is it has slow initiative, ok this is not the advantage of crushing blow but it's hammer weapon advantage, but because crushing blow is for hammer, i'd also consider this as the advantage of crushing blow. Being the slowest of all melee weapon, those that use crushing blow can take advantage of it by focusing on traits that boost defense (+3 hp and +10 defend when defending is good), why? because each combat units now start in defend mode in LH, being the slowest crushing blow unit will be in defend mode hence allow them to receive fewer damage than other weapon wielder, then when the crushing blow unit strike, other weapon wielder will always be in non defend mode, thus making them receive higher damage, add crushing blow to this and you know the result.

Want to take advantage of it further? make a fast spear or axe wielder (focused on accuracy and initiative), 1 or 2 is enough, the rest is hammer wielder focused in initiative and accuracy and give it traits that give +25% damage against damaged enemy, add them together in a same army, when in combat, make sure all cleaver/impaler act before enemy units act, cleave or impale as many unit as possible, the purpose of this is to damage as many units as possible to make hammer wielder traits always trigger, therefore when the hammer wielder (crushing blow unit) act, it's damage will be boosted by 50% more for a total of 250% (thanks to the traits and crushing blow which multiply the bonus by twice) and this will guarantee them being one shoted (expert difficulty or lower) or one hit dying (higher expert difficulty). 200% to 250% seems not much, just 50%, but please remember that this 50% is calculated before applying enemy defend, so this 50% is not a joke, it's a different story if crushing blow damage is mitigated by defend first then its damage is multiplied by 2.

Being the slowest weapon is not always the worst thing, it has its advantage if you know how to exploit it.

That being said, i consider hammer, axe and spear being equal, my only disappointment is sword, its counter is easily negated by other weapon.

Militia is definitely OP, or perhaps, it's more accurate to say that armour is far to expensive in terms of production cost for its effect.

I mean, a chainmail unit probably costs like.... 300-400 production, and a terrifying amount of metal and such.

For kind of cost, I think you can recruit like 7-12 militia units? lol

And don't get me started on wages .

Plus Crushing blow increase your chance to bash.

I don't mind if sword have active ability.

Then the defender side do cleave or impale or crushing blow which negate the counter, weapon skill is not supposed to do this, i'm sure this is a bug. Because the main feature of sword is counter, with counter being nerfed (now 50% damage) and easily negated like this, i don't really find much use for sword, especially their tech comes much later than hammer and spear and axe (albeit axe also comes later than hammer and spear). Well, i guess i'll make some other thread for weapon discussion.

daggers are essentially swords for gameplay purposes (upgrade path, stats, abilites). so no, they don't come later than axes or hammers (all 3 are from the same tech).

you don't use swords for the counter, that's just a small bonus. the advantage of swords is the high init and the fact that they are one handed. a defensive unit with a shield and defensive trait can easily get to 30 defense with just leather armor, that negates most of the damage of early game attackers and low level critters. it's not mandatory to use defensive units in this game, but i find them rather useful, so i tend to use them quite a lot. 

the main advantage of defense units is that they can safely block the path of the enemy and shrug off the initial attacks. after the enemy wasted their power attacks and loses their defensive mode, your damage dealer units can easily stomp them. sure you can get away with armies of full offense units, but either you outgear the enemy and steamroll them, or you take some heavy hits and possibly even lose units when it's their turn to attack. with a healthy mix of defense and offense units, you can avoid this form of attrition for the most part. individual battles may take a turn or two longer than with a full offense army, but who cares - what really counts is how many seasons it takes to heal your wounded units and replace the lost units. in my experience, an army with a mix of tanks & dps has a lot less downtime.

I agree. But the finesse alone is the most important for blade weapon (dagger and sword) wielder. The initiative and mobility depends on how you want your sword wielder to function in your army. But finesse is almost always a must for sword wielder. +3 attack may not seem much, but it's multiplied by number of unit in a group, with company tech, finesse is equal to +18 attack (which is good). Fast and Bloodlust (+25% damage vs wounded enemy) is also good for offensive swordman. For defensive one either the +dodge (for dodge focused swordman) or +hp and defend traits.

That's used to be my style in FE especially when using Altar (who happens to have the best sword in kingdom faction). Also, Dagger comes later than spear and club, even if it's by 1 tech later, it's still later, though dagger + finesse= 9 attack sword (except against equal or higher int. weapon which none other than dagger or sword). The point of using sword is the counter and the ability to play defensive, because other weapon can do what you said, thus sword is losing it's identity and role, sword used to be the best weapon in FE that's because it can stay on defensive while countering, yes i admit it's not fair for other weapon, the 50% nerf on counter is a good thing, but the counter being negated is too much imo, do note that other weapon ability is anti counter. That being said i still play altar with almost all of my main units using sword.

Indeed, slow initiative two handed weapon is not good for tank, because as mentioned above, two hand doesn't allow one to use shield, and most two hand weapon have initiative penalty which mean no defend mode before being attacked by enemy. Because of this, sword used to be the best weapon for defensive play (the high initiative allow swordman to go on defensive mode before other weapon wielder can attack), and used to be the best weapon in FE (especially altarian special sword) because of that reason plus counter ability, yeah i admit once again it's not fair, that's why now in LH the counter damage is halved (which is a good decision imo).

Actually i'm content with sword which has no additional ability beside counter and initiative advantage, just let its counter works properly, i mean weapon ability like cleave, impale and crushing blow (especially this) must not negate counter. Just fix this and all weapon will be balanced.