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I'd like to tie willpower to mana recovery, and then you could have summons with mana upkeep, so you need more willpower if you want to keep a reasonable recharge rate. Problem is... should a wizard character really have to be spending their precious points on essence, intelligence and wisdom/willpower? Too many attributes. Maybe essence boosts should also boost mana recharge rates; so that it takes roughly a constant number of turns to replenish your mana pool; eg at 10 e

Just a hp boost would be reasonable. If ranged units were toned down, this would help. My problem is that it seems a waste of time to try to develop a champion for combat, because they're going to be rapidly outclassed by a party/squad of grunts, and because of the poor scaling of damage vs hit points (damage so high that alpha strikes are crazy). As I've stated elsewhere, its totally whacked that three 5/2 grunts in a party are as good as a 15/6 monster. Instead,

Healer. Improves healing rates of units in the same tile. Diseased. Reduces healing rates of units in the same tile. Plaguebearer. Any unit attacked in combat has a chance of becoming plagued, losing attack and defense and taking 1 damage per turn. Acrobat. Gains extra dodge bonus.

I think instead; how about a 0.1 reduction in mana recovery rate for each enchantment/summon you're maintaining? Or a small reduction in arcane research rate? Or have intelligence and wisdom limit the number of enchantments/summons you can maintain? I'd also tie intelligence into the strength of summons somehow (eg strength or health of the summoned creature); I don't think its right that summons should ignore intelligence completely.

There definitely need to be screens equivalent to the various Civ advisors; city screen, army screen, etc. I was surprised not to see these.

I agree that bonuses would be retroactive. Which is why a "10% health bonus to heroes" or similar is easy; it doesn't give a bonus to whatever health they have when you research the tech, it is a global modifier that lasts forever. If your hero had 12 health when you research it, they'll have 13.12. If they later gain +3 health, then they'll have 16.5. The 10% is a modifier applied to the base, and the game still tracks the base. The advantage of researching it

Totally agree. Also, there needs to be some way to clear up targeting of enchantment spells; if I cast stoneskin, then select a tile with units in it, does it effect every unit in that stack? Just one? Which one? How do I pick which one?

[quote] 100 spells would not make the game a mess. [/quote] I did not say that 100 spells IN THE GAME would make a mess. I said that 100 spells in your spellbook that you can choose from would be a mess. I think, like in MOM (unless you had all 10 books) you should not get access to every spell of a school each game, and you shouldn't be able to simultaneously learn every spell that you are offered the ability to learn. I could easily imagine the possibil

Put them in the same tile. Go to the giver, go to the item screen, click and drag the item to give over to the picture of the receiver, release.

Another possibility; have each shard reduce the cost of spells of that school by 10%.

[quote]the problem being that there is chance for a misclick, or a misfire.[/quote] So what? Its just one spell. And you'll learn the system easy enough, after a couple of misclicks you'd have it figured out. Very small risk of mis-casts for significant UI streamlining in terms of saved clicks. [quote] there needs to be a way to categorize them. [/quote] Yes definitely, as I said above. [quote] is that without some way to org

[quote]i think more specialization in champs should be the goal[/quote] I disagree; its lame when an archmage hero is easily assassinated in the first round because they have low defense and con. Its fine for them to be weak in melee, but defense and con don't just effect melee, they are also needed to stop them from instantly dying to magical attacks (which wizards should be resistant against!) or bowfire. I think gaining a level should always make you a little better a

Homm has enough spells that it requires page-turning, but you're only ever at most casting 1 spell per round, But it does both, you can either page through your spellbook to find the right spell, or click on one of the bookmark tabs to the right of the book that limits the displayed spell to just the relevant category (so there might be Earth, Fire, Air, Water, All; or Life, Death, Chaos, Nature, Enchantment, All). Another possibility; how about if you cast a spell, the

I definitely like class improvements; trader becomes a merchant, and so forth for other hero backgrounds.

Knockback Units attacked by this unit are knocked back a tile. Explosive. Unit damages units in surrounding tiles when it is killed. Tactician. Friendly units in adjacent tiles get attack/defense bonus. Elemental resistance/immunity, or to particular slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage weapon ty (half damage/immune to damage type X) Vulnerabilities; eg fragile takes extra damage from bludgeoning, flammable takes extra damage from fire damage,

[quote]But I'm actually interested in seeing the home-or-roaming tradeoff be an important, ongoing question in the game.[/quote] Absolutely, I think this would be nice. One way to do this and make it interesting is for being home to add to slowly increasing benefits, so that there is an incentive to keep the hero there. eg if he's there for less than 10 turns, provide +1 bonus, 10-19 turns, +2 bonus, 30+ turns, +3 bonus.

[quote] I don't think that's really possible while keeping the game fun. For instance, only 1 ranged direct damage spell? That doesn't seem fun to me. [/quote] Its definitely possible if you give spells secondary effects. Fire spells might set them ablaze taking damage over time. Ice spells might freeze them in place for a turn, or slow them down for a few turns. Lightning ignores armor, or stuns for a turn. Earth spells reduce armor values (for t

As far as UI, some ideas:: a) Separate out the tactical from the strategic spells. If I'm on the strategic map, I don't see the tactical spells, and vice versa. They take up too much space. The downside of this is the potential for player confusion: "I just researched this spell, where did it go?" b. Have some categories; either magic book (fire, air, etc.) or effect types (cities, enchantments, summons, offensive, defensive). If you don't like cl

I'm thinking of something Arthurian; or like the Fall From Heaven 2 Brigid; the hero trapped in the circle of flame. A non-travelling champion where you have to defeat in solo combat, fight an epic battle, or overcome a deadly obstacle in order to recruit. Or like the myth of the Sleepers; the Knights sleeping beneath the earth waiting for the day when they are called to defend the realm. That would make a great quest.....

I could see artifact equipment (costing crystals) adding say +1 strength and converting the unit to fire damage. But this kind of thing is meaningless unless we have elemental resistances and immunities.

I like the idea of Adventure techs that boost your Sov and champions. I don't think that boosting levelups is the right way to go, particularly because of the Magic techs that already boost essence. Suppose I have elemental techs that boost levelups by 20% and then I get another bonus 20% essence... my 3 point increase in Essence becomes 3.6 from the first effect, and then becomes 4.32 with the second. Though I guess we could make it so that it only worked for physical

[quote]I've seen the future and you're going to love their 2029 offering![/quote] Nah, I played that, its way too derivative of Sins of an Elemental Civilization III.

[quote]But more importantly than these, there needs to be variation in "theme" across the elements. Example: Fire has good damaging spells, moderate summons, weak buffs and curses. Air has good buffs, moderate damage, weak curses and summons Earth has good summon spells, moderate buffs, weak damage spells and curse. Ice has good curses, moderate buffs, weak summons and damage. Each spell can also have a probability of showing up in your spellboo

I agree that XP gains should vary based on some increasing function of the combat strength of enemies, and quests could have mild xp rewards. Taking cities could also give xp, or it could just increase the xp you get from the defenders of the city relative to how much it boosted their combat value. [I don't see any reason to gain more XP from capturing a city with no defenses than from fighting the same army out in the field.] Alternatively, have some kind of D&D chall

Oh, and another thought on parties/squads and how they gain power relative to smaller groups. The way these get more powerful is just too much. The benefit of these should be: a. the unit can heal to full strength (its original number of mean) as long as it has any health remaining b. it concentrates its power into a single tile and army slot. It should NOT mean for example that 3 guys A, B C that are all 5 attack/2 defense with 6 hit points are as good