Tasunke

indeed, im not asking for arbitrary bonuses for certain formations, but the ability to change how the soldier's in a given cohesive unit are orgainized (say in a square, rectangle, triangle, or winged/wedge) could hold a great impact in the battle. Even say, an inverse curve/ concave formation vs an outward bubble/ convex formation could be interesting .... concave could try to lure the opponents in ... while convex could be a useful "psuedo wedge" formation for elite troops, although

yea, It would be nice for simultaneous movement ... although If they start automated, and its a good automation, it should be hard to tell when its "just the computer" and when it is the human player making a move. Of course if you CAN wait n see, meanwhile your people are on their automatic route, and the human player can give feints ... since its simultaneous even if you do wait for him to move before you move, thats just playing defensively, you lose the advantage of initiative but gain th

all he is saying is that defense will have a 10% minimum (maybe attack too?) ... so that if a unit is out-classed in stats on the scale of 10:1, then scratches will be impossible. I think, maybe a critical hit could do some effectiveness (two max rolls in a row, or something) as in 1 damage, but no more than that. And thats talking critical hits. One thing to keep in mind though ... is that if its truly an ancient dragon, elephant/rhino hide will be the LEAST of your worries, think cl

good idea for priceless units to play important roles in large armies, but to not be cost-effective to field all-elites.

I think we have decided that army-size limits, and "units" will not be instated. (most likely we can't have an army of over 10-20,00 men, or whatever would fill a 2-3 mile wide battlefield, but basically no tightly restricted rules for only wielding small armies) Also, real time tactical battles does not equal RTS, its "continuous turns" a la Baldur's gate, so no matter how many times you click, you will only get to have so many attacks per *round of action* or something. Usually one

yes, special abilities + increased morale, and a possible increase in endurance. I also like some-one's idea for experienced units to gain a "unit commander" which can send out a morale boosting "rally cry" (perhaps once per battle, or twice even if its a long one), and whose death might cause the unit to lose significant morale and effectiveness ... a possibility. I liked this idea because it gave a personalized figure-head to units, that could possibly even be married into t

It was already stated that the two armies were to be considered roughly equivalent ... it depends on game design. Now if we were to use a comparison like HOMM, there would be a one-tile stack of 200 dread knights, a one tile stack of 1000 footmen, and a 1 tile stack of 50 paladins. Time spent moving about the battle-field would have no usage here, neither would endurance, morale, flanking, or formations. There is more flexibility for various outcomes when each indivudual soldier is it

sounds decent, (stealth capabilities) ... maybe in the form of high-end equipment which translates all training into stealth as opposed to extra HP? and type of equipment depends on where they can hide the best? Of course, if you have read my environmental type post, then you should know that various human factions should get a racial bonus in their homeland, perhaps by being easier to hide in the woods, or the mountains, or the desert, or the jungles, or the snow, depending on

yea, the enemy shouldn't have to be completely destroyed imo ... it'd also be cool if there was a "prison capture" ability for some large percentage of people killed in close melee, at least if said unit is routing. decisions to deal with prisoners (and possibly what to do with the dead bodies) can hold diplomatic consequences as well as possible character traits for generals/family members.

We should consider the battlefield Anyways, with 1000 foot-soldiers, you would flood a good portion of the battle-field with your troops, and your 50 paladins can move about the battlefield at will, striking the 200 dread-knights where their morale and/or fatigue were the lowest, hoping to cause some strategic route or something. Equally, the Dread Knights could cause a route in the 1000 foot-soldiers, and fight-to-kill the 50 paladins. However lets assume these paladins are m

being able to ignore auto-resolve results kind of sounds like its delving into the area of too player-friendly. maybe if you could only do one such "cheap auto" once per 5 turns or something ... or if it were a spell.

Well, in Medieval 2: Total War, the amount of each unit you could build in a turn depended on the size of your barracks/archery range. In elemental however, I think equipment production is the key element, and resources will not be infinite, so to wield better armies, and only the best units, you may find yourself severely lacking in numbers, and/or treasury. Multi-lateral resource acquisition will encourage multiple unit recruitment I think ... like soldiers with leathers + s

Yea, I like the idea of super-powerful dragons, and the general rule of minimums to be 10% of max. when I was talking about maneuvering units, I was primarily talking about army vs army The (dragons being super powerful) plus elemental being Magic: Total War ... is such awesome news to me. I would like to ask if we will see different ages of dragons (even though dragons are rare) ... like would it be more likely to recruit a fledgling dragon

I am very excited by the statements made by the OP .... hurray! :D For the record, I am of the type that usually plays out EVERY battle (unless its really, really late game and its a particularly boring war-front)

for naval battles, the sovereign should probably be able to ride a shark or a sea-horse, assuming that he didn't have a proper flying mount (like a griffon or a pegasi)

Or creating a mutated-creature design template could cost some essence, and training a Bearataur or what have you, would use up all your mana for the turn, or something. And would greatly deplete your supply of x creature or human, based upon accidental deaths and such (high mana cost at least) ... say for instance I wanted to fuse lizards or snakes with my soldiers (or regular citizens) in order to make lizard-people or snake-people. To make 1 lizardperson, probably 10 humans would d

As long as we can avoid the mindless type of "stack" from HoMM ... 1000 peasants attacking per turn with dragon-like strength? K -no thanks. Have fodder units actually be fodder, buying the elite units more time, while wearing at the enemy's fatigue ... and have morale be a penalty against excessive use of fodder unless they are highly well organized ... or otherwise coerced ... either by tortuous commisars, or by an archer division that will kill any who retreat.

the best formations are simply where you place your units in relation to each other, the enemy, and the terrain. If you have a nice hill, you might want the archers on the top, with foot-men ringing the base of the hill (or half-way up), while your cavalry are to the sides in the lowlands. In addition, if you march your army half way across the map and attack from another angle, they will have to move about their units to face you. A much more daunting task when each individual soldie

while an RTS might boil down to who can click the fastest, I do not feel the same way about real time battles. The battle will only ever consist of as many units as you start with (other than possible reinforcements from a nearby stack, to arrive at a fairly random time) ... and you start far enough away from the enemy that you just set-up the move orders and watch them go for awhile at first ... this is when you decide which terrain to use, and what over-all formation to set your forces in (

Either way, combat orders should be simultaneous. There should be some element of suprise when facing the enemy. In this way, you can't always bank on a battle going perfectly according to plan ... there will always be contingencies to prepare against, and potential penalties for not preparing against them. I think this also makes cavalry more flexible in general ... in North North African Campaign of WWII showed that a tank commander could be quite successful by doing little more tha

Wilkommen

If however, we are using units as multi-soldier cohesive military .... units .... and each individual soldier draws from the population pool ... then Men killed upon the battle-field simply do not re-grow, but must be sent from the population pool into the army. There are many ways to do that, including sending new soldiers by caravan towards the marching army, or sending freshly recruited units of similar type to later "rejoin." In such individual soldier based battle-sims, weakened

I think as long as Micromanagement is intuitive, its fine. Any micromanagement, more than likely, will devolve into the same basic steps, along several possible strategies, a billion times over. A good micro system makes it fun for a beginning player, the first time around. If I feel like im reading an instruction manual, with all wall-of-text in-game, of course it will be boring and make the micro even more of a problem. If it is intuitive, graphical, (possibly slider based), and FUN

I would like for the various types of weapons to be distinguishable in some way. Swords and Shields great for parry-ing, rapiers and short swords best at it (and possibly disarming?) Axes good at damage, perhaps highest damage cap, but more random, also, short axes good for De-Shielding people, aka grappling the shield with a hook of the axe and pulling it out from their grip. Maces/Hammers best at damaging opponent's armor, if at all possible. Or simply ignoring armor

yah, having royal children would be cool. It would be interesting to have a child be part of the battle/lead an army at a young age ... and for that to result in him/her gaining the "psychotic" trait ... a good start towards a Dread Lord/ Dread leader, if Dread and Valor are possible traits in the game. (dread causing fear in enemies, Valor increasing the strength of your own armies, if you have equal dread and valor you have none at all, therefore you have to invest in One for each g