Anything you want pertaining to designed units

I'm hoping you can dress up and switch the gender of your armies.

swan knights =p

cavalry archers

dragon knights a la warhammer fantasy battle

I'd also like to see heroes of a certain type boost the ability of regular troops of their type, like a scout improving arcers and the like.

I would like to see real different kind of weapon and different effect.

Pole arms should have the advantage but be slow (it takes longer to give a second hit). They should also be able to make fall other units.

Flail should nullifiy the advantage of shields.

Axes should weaken shields, and have a fear effect.

Swords should have a higher critical hit (they were more pierce weapon and with only 2 cm in the body you could reach vital areas)

Slashing swords (like cimitar or katanas) should have a higher hit speed (because of the particuliar form they were faster weapons)

Bows and crossbows should be deadly, but hard to use.

So I'd like to see units with those kind of weapon.

PS :  Oh and friendly fire please

Hey how about some cool units like

Chariots- Powerful first attack (impact hits) and then weaker attacks from that round onwards.

Hopilites- Dudes with gaint spears forming close ranked formations(like the classical greek armies)

Skirmishers-Small groups of archers who runaway when charged

Ghosts- Weak units that can only be hurt with magic weapons

Beserkers- High attacks, with lots of damage, but slightly uncontrolable.

And any changes of Dwarves with cannons, and muskets : P

Definately this. Chariots are incredibly cool and every game should have them. Especially those games where the technological progression is below gunpowder-level.

I would like either a unit or just the chaneller to be able to conjure up fantastical units, like swarms of insects, ghosts, controlled animals etc ... And of course: Elementals!!!

I would love if units always came in singulars, but had very very different power levels such that an army could consist of 600 archers and 400 heavy infantry with a cavalry wing of 300 horsemen, mixed and matched into squad to best cover your front.

At its lead would be great commanders and heroes, such as your channeler and his retinue of wizards and lords or singular summoned beings who by themselves would be monsters of legend.

(I'm just a dreamer, I dream my life away, oh yeah)

The part I consider important is that your army is counted down to the last man. Helps my enjoyment at least, I don't have much love for the Heroes of Might and Magic, Civilizations or Age of Wonders way of doing things though I like those games for their other merits

I thought channelers were the only wizards in the game, the only one with access to magic, if they added wizard units, they should depend on shards to power the abilities instead of being able to generally just draw effects out of the air like Channelers, and I don't mean harvesting mana from them for there own internal reserves, I mean they should geniunely have a piece of magic shard with them when casting. Then again maybe I'm being to harsh with magic with what little we know of the lore, if it was that harsh for wizards with magic, how improbable would it be for fantastical units to survive in that world with there powers intact, if magic was so hard for non channelers to use.

I guess this topic is now invalid... the new dev journal says they are making it a sandbox in how you design your units,

Ah not in the least, you just move away from 'I want rangers' to 

- I want to be able to warp my minions (not only equip soldiers but transform the soldier as part of his training) into half demons, half animal, half ... (excluding ling, maybe)

- I need lots of mounts, not just horses (Brad mentioned griffins) - including elephants, chariots, gorillas, ... and although much of this might be modable:

- I would really like undead versions of all living things to be animated after battle.

I'm thinking of changing the topic what abilities and equipment, clothing, and mounts would you like to see.

More accurate now. I'd love to be able to give an elite unit spiffy bling armor that gives a morale bonus to nearby troops.

I'd love to see pegasus knights, but that may because I love warhammer.

I want to be able to get a dragon mount for a hero, but only after a hellacious amount of effort, and as an upgrade for an already awesome hero.

I want to have necromancy that lets you replenish the ranks of skeletons and raise zombies behind your enemies, but I do not want to be able to have a unit's training count for the necromancer. Instead, I'd much rather have necromancers have levels, where their level of 'raise dead' or whatever effectively gives the raised unit a week of training from a starting point of -2 weeks or so, with an ability to take more time/use more power to add a week or two worth's of training so that it takes a damned good necromancer to raise an elite unit easily or a mediocre one a lot of effort, rather than any spud who happens to have a unit of royal guard die nearby.

Neat ideas guys! I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been covered. I think we should go over the list and be a bit more specific so im going to start a new thread to cover the exact mechanics.

Now we can never have enough ideas so keep em coming. I like to refer to other posts.

I would like units to be able to stealth if you train them for that ability, I would like them to be able to have Green Cloaks that increases the effectiviness of the stealth ability in forests, or if stealth works like MOO 2 or Civ 4 Space Game Mod, then increase the speed of the units in woody area's.

I would like there to be Bows, and I would like there to be abilities to choose with bows like poison, it would be neat if they added some dragonsbane poison or anti-channeler poision to make them more dangerous then ususal around those that are able to wield magic.

I would like Spells for the channeler that can convert sentient beasts particularly dragons into friendly units if you put the repeated effort into it till it succeeded.

I would like there to be wonderous items for things along the lines of Excalibur was to the King Arthur story, whether something like that was channeler only or if it could be used by heroes too I don't care.

Doh can't edit my above post so I will double post... if a moderator could merge this with my above post that would be cool.

I would like a fantasical unit creation process where you can make your own fantasy units like you could give Angelic featurs with Air and Life Magic, or Demonic Features with Fire Magic.

I would like to see this Fantasical Unit Creation Tab have options creatures other then Human to be the base template, so you could have something that resembled those uber worms in MoM, I don't know if something like that would infringe to much on the beast faction, but we aren't meant to play the beast faction anyways so,..

again can't edit so if this could be merged with the above...

I would like to be able to customize how my unit looked without stats if the item I wanted to use to make my unit look cool didn't come with a bonus.

Wait what? Can you explain exactly what you mean?  So if you wanted to give your units +1 axes but could only make +1 swords, you could make them look like they were armed with swords but with the stats of +1 axes?

Sorry its just your wording is a bit confusing. Personally I feel that things should be WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. Its important that you can be able to identify the strengths and abilities of enemies on sight alone. It would be rather confusing to see swordsmen and only discover that they actually have maces or something when you reach melee.

Oh nothing major like cloaks if I wanted to have my character decked out in lamellar but didn't want to see the helmet I would like the option of putting a hooded cloak over that so I don't see the helmet on the unit, the cloak wouldn't provide the bonus on the head in that case the helmet would, but the hooded cloak would just provide ascethetics.

Edit oh by the way we can edit in this topic now I just needed to lower the word count in the title.

Will we designing them on a paper doll?

Skirts and pretty make up!

Perhaps it's my Saints Row and Fable gaming but an army of cross-dressing swordsmen is surely going to give +morale or something.

Well if any unit is possible, how about a Dragon riding Champion. Or a unit of fire throwing gecko capable bletching fire 20  feet. Or a elephant with a cannon on its head. A flying Disk for your mage to ride .

Swarms of rats, to weaken up and destroy lesser foes. Munch minions munch till those elves P*** off.

A Troll phalanax, yeah they maybe big and dumb  but if you tell um to hold a spear and stand together surely that would work. 

The Chosen -Frenzed, heavily armered swordmaster, you got no control over them, they just attack anything close to them. Of course they are hard to hurt and kill almost anything they attack but your enemy could lure them away from the main battle and hammer them with missle weapons.

Warmachines, I know their some people here who don't like fantasy  mixing with gunpowder but i'm not in that camp. Cannons, Trebuches, Bolt throwers, A goblin thrower  , troll thrower , a cat-apult .

Hordes of wolves lead by a 'packmaster' wolves attack and panic the enemy but only as long as the packmaster can control(until he dies) them after which they go crazy and attack everything. 

Armerd bears armed with Giant Hammers.

An undermining machine, think Giant drill powered by steam. made of hard nasty brass, used to drill under cities walls.

Lizard men with scales as hard a steel, blades sharp and strenght unmatched, but who are not skillied at swordfighting (i don't need to parry when i can smash your sword in one swing).

Super Halfling Slingers wiith admantium weapons, Got go with the classic.

Pox throws, evil men in capes who throw bottles of bacterial culutres at the enemy, no damage done but enemy unit is weakened.

A molten iron chariot, a chariot carring a big cauldron of moltern iron, it charges and spills it all over itself and the unit. Chariot dies and unit gets melted .

"so you could have, something that resembles those uber worms in Mom"  , awesome Idea the only thing greater than a Great wyrm would be  a hero riding Great Wyrm or having a cannon on its head, or perhaps two.

I think i'm getting a little carried away with myself. Of course this is what I'd really like, and though i don't want to jynx, it i have a feeling most of what I put above would not be capable in your generic unit designer, but it is fantasy. Anywho Can't wait for the June beta(?).

Equal opportunity I say.

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Imho the most important thing is, how the combat system works with those customization options. If it doesn't make a difference if I equip my troops with axes or swords, then it's just cosmetics which would really be a waste.

But if it makes a difference, I would want pegasi, swords, horned helmets, chain mail and blond female troops for my invincible Valkyries.