GalCiv2 is a bit of an exception, though. There aren't terrain features or anything to take up space, it's just empty space with stars orbited by planets and the occasional asteroid field. Especially if you set everything to be pretty abundant, the density of habitable planets is extremely high.

I think end-game channelers, especially on large maps, will be able to significantly overpower dragons. If your channeler is able to cast a single spell capable of devastating the entire world, he should be able to handle a lone dragon. Plus, who's to say you can't confront the dragon with an army at your back?

We don't really know, you could be right but since the dragons survived the devastation brought about from the last civilizations to utilize doomsday type spells I think one dragon could handle any type of spell a Channeler could throw its way and dish out damage in kind. As for threatening the dragon in person even with an army at your back there is a chance (in my opinion a very high chance) that the dragon would manage to kill you. 

If the voting is still open, I definitely support the dragons-almost-as-forces-of-nature take. I hope they are almost never involved in a combat, except in the very last moments of a truly epic game *or* as some analog to GC2 Mega-Events, e.g. having a dragon decide to curl around the city walls of your capital and take a nice, long nap. A super weapon or unit would at best have a chance of waking such a dragon up, and then you'd be back to square 1 about why you couldn't talk that great being into napping elsewhere.

But I don't want the good digression to take us too far from the OP because I still haven't seen enough talk about designing a basic tradeoff between an Extremely Fancy Unit and an Extremely Powerful Item. (I suspect the word 'super' has made some folks see Darkodinplus' idea as more extreme than it seems to be, at least to me.)

It definitely seems like part of the choice is just basic mana allocation, enchanting a unit vs. an item. But assuming that both are at least minimaly multi-turn operations, should one task be able to consume mana more quickly than the other or should the details be pure special effects?

***EXAMPLE***

Ok let’s use basically the same example as before Player A and Player B are going at it everything is pretty even, then Player A gets the allegiance of some magical beast that decisively tilts the odds in his favor.  Now getting this magical beast cost Player A both time and resources which Player B has used to invest in advanced infrastructure in 3 of his key cities. Now Player A rallies his army with the magical beast as a spear head to attack Player B’s land. Player B meanwhile makes use of his advanced infrastructure to train either 5 “Galaxy Knights” or 1 “Doomsday Knight” his custom build units that utilized all of his available technology and resources. Now the galaxy knights require such a large amount of resources and technology that only 5 can be built at any one time and let’s say it takes 4 turns to make 1 but they can be trained at any city with enough infrastructure. The doomsday knight on the other hand utilizes the production capacity of all 3 of his key cities and only 1 can be built at any given time and the doomsday knight takes 12 turns to complete. So 8 to 12 turns later Player A has made good progress into Player B’s land if Player B doesn’t stop Player A soon he is done for so he moves his army with 5 galaxy knights or 1 doomsday knight into position to confront Player A and his magical beast. Player A still has an edge in the coming battle but Player B could win.

Now as to how to distinguish them from advanced normal units I think the best way to go about this would be to include some sort of check box in the unit/item creator that would identify doomsday knight as a “super unit” or doomsday sword as a “super weapon”. Then the player could either assign some special attributes to the specific weapon or unit that would distinguish it from just an advanced normal unit or the AI could give it increased abilities and skills to some theoretical maximum. If everything was maxed out you could only make 1 and so to make five like in my galaxy knights example the special attributes would be 1/5 of the max. Now granted I have no idea what would be acceptable in this situation for special attributes but I would guess you would have general choices like HP +, Armor +, Damage +, etc and then some that would be unique to the type of unit / weapon you were trying to make or the research and magic you had invested in.

***/EXAMPLE***

This is about as specific and detailed as I can get given we are in the dark about what all is possible in the unit / item creator system. 

And then imagine if all that destructive power covering the whole world were concentrated, focused specifically at a dragon. Big difference. Regular, magic-less humans also survived the cataclysm, so that doesn't say much. Now, I want dragons to be extremely powerful, and rare. But I want channelers to be able to become essentially god-like. For most of the game any sensible channeler would do his best to avoid pissing off a dragon, but by the end of the game the channeler should be able to become more than a force of nature. And even if the dragon has a decent chance to ill you even if you have an army at your back, so what? If there were no risk then there couldn't be a reward.

The reason why Darkodinplus' idea seems so extreme is that it was proposed (don't remember by who) that such "superweapons" or "superunits" could be a way to counter powerful creatures like dragons. Then people argue that even a late-game channeler should be no match for a dragon. So you can see where that impression comes from...

I think enchanting units vs. items could largely be an aesthetic thing. The major difference could be that items would be transferable.

I personally think that if anything could rival a channeler, it could be a dragon.  I mean dragons are always renouned super beings.   That being said, certainly since you can only get 1 channeler, I would be upset if dragons were ase powerful as channelers AND you could get more than 1.   If they were super hard to get, then that would be fine.

Being transferable (and presumably durable) vs. fixed (and presumably killable) seems like a major difference in the, um, major sense of the word. If it isn't transferable, then it would seem like an aesthetic detail of an enchanted unit.

Which reminds me to wonder if major magic items should have some sort of hit points and defenses, with perhaps a top tier that were indestructible with the exception of completing a major quest. So, you caught the neighbor's Lord High Blood Paladin, bested him, and are left with Exsanguinator, one of the foulest, mightiest blades in the world. It will hold the attention of your neighbor's Blood Mages and lesser Blood Paladins and it will slowly corrupt everyone on your side who stay within its influence. You can abandon it, letting it find itself a new Lord High Mucketymuck. You can struggle to somehow lock it up without making your own people suffer too much. *Or* you can find the long-lost Blood Anvil where it was forged and where it can be unmade. (That One Ring story is awfully hard to get away from for some of us, apologies...)

Well what I meant is that the effects could be similar. At least when it comes to things like armor and swords and stuff. I'm thinking that enchanted equipment for use by regular soldiers will be somewhat different than creating individual items for use by the channeler or heroes. 

I think it's all a matter of scale, but as long as the scale and potential combinations of unit design is immense, there won't be any problems with players designing 'relatively' super units.  The problems come more from when super-units aren't balanced versus each other, or are easily reached through an exploit.  An unbalanced super unit = easy pwnage = the game lacks long-term replayability.  If there's a decent and fair gradient for all players to reach super units, then the super unit is just a reward for good play.

Well I think we all pretty much agree that if player designed “super weapons /units” are possible to create they should have reasonable (on a per weapon / unit basis) time, research, and cost requirements, it would be crazy to make them to easy to produce. If the player has the ability to pump virtually unlimited amounts of modifiers (HP, damage, defense, etc) into a X ring for example and then equips a unit with said X ring there you go super unit created. The player should also have the option to make a weapon, armor, and magic ring set that basically offers the same benefits as the X ring. I however would want some kind of limit on the quantity of units / weapons that could be created with such high modifiers. I also wouldn’t like equipment to break as GW Swicord suggested at least not easily. If equipment could break I want the option to repair equipment for some reasonable cost. Then the only way equipment would break and have to be replaced was if the player neglected maintenance cost for too long. 

I really like the idea of the dragon sending the player on a quest in order to get his assistance.

Maybe even make that assistance a time limited event....afterwards, the dragon returns to its lair.

Wow, you resurrected my super soldier / weapon thread like a phoenix from the ashes. Speaking of which it would be nice to get some info on this from the devs. 

Hehe, I actually didn't check the date of that last post before adding my comment.  But it is still a valid idea, so no harm done.

i want nazghulls like hero units that are weaker the further away from my channeler and can regenerate if killed (the further away from my channeler the longer it takes) The idea that you could have that sort of super unit sounds fun