Just to chime in about people's concern about the dexterity issue, I see it as something that should certainly be there as a mechanic, but it shouldn't be something one seeks to level to a significant amount. The fact that it is more useful to use level points for other stats merely lends to the possibility of dex being gained from items, spells, armor, and natural abilities. There is also some very good potential for having heavy armor actually reduce this stat to conform to the realities of immobile armor, while light or enchanted armor would greatly benefit the wearer. It would be great to see some thief or archer champions, assuming that archery is affected by dexterity as one would think, have proclivities towards a high dexterity.

All in all this is a great improvement on an already great game so keep up the good work.

I think this combat system is better, but is still very weak.  Rolling a random number from 1-n with an opposing roll is so so random that it can easily frustrate players.  I almost prefer no rolls where everything is predictable.  Best melee system I've seen is Warmachine.  It has a roll 2d6 roll + combat stat opposing the the defenders defense stat.  If hit, damage opposes opponents armor value.  This system has one fixed value and one random value with a fairly small range of values.  You have to insure you have ways to handle very nimble opponents and heavily armored opponents.  With the new system, you just roll and pray.  Seems very weak to me.

Is there somewhere in the nebulous land of "Lets consider ideas" the possibility of adding units that can tap into your mana reserves to cast "specialist spells"? Something in the line of magician units in MoM.

As for the rest:

the idle pop up thing... if it checks and pops up every turn, might need a per city toggle for turning it off, if there are no option to build something to "create wealth" or similar...

Generally sounds like a big leap in the right direction.

But from what you describe it may still not be far enough and now would be the time to make the changes - at least in the XML structure...

According to the above:

1. Weapons have an attack rating and strength is added/subtracted to provide bonuses.

2. Armour has its own rating that isn't modified in any way.

3. Accuracy is only affected by your level.

4. Dodge is only affected by your dexterity.

OK. So this works for very general melee weapons.

But what about ranged weapons and specialist weapons?

Archery is more naturally a dexterity/accuracy stat than a purely strength stat. How is this modelled?

What about poison daggers and other 'special' damage calculations?

What about the different types of damage (pierce, slash, blunt etc) and the different types of armour (leather, cloth, scale, plate etc) and the various bonuses associated with each?

Even if the 1.1 system doesn't make use of this shouldn't the XML be prepared ready for this sort or functionality.

Will items be allocated further variables such as (and not really thought through):

So weapons, items, armour etc can be tweaked to suit situations.

An example:

Woodland Bow

baseAttack: 6

attackType: Ranged.

attackType: Pierce

attackerAccuracyModStat: Dexterity

attackerAccuracyModStatFactor "((n - 10)/3)" (Applies a dexterity modifier for the accuracy on top of the level)

attackerAttackModStat: Strength

attackerAttackModStatFactor: "((n - 10)/4)" (overrides the default strength calc for damage)

attackerAttackModStat: Dexterity

attackerAttackModStatFactor "((n - 10)/2)" (Applies a dexterity modifier for damage)

damageAgainstArmorType: Plate

damageAgainstArmorTypeFactor: -4

So the bow gives a bonus to creatures with high dexterity but has weak damage against heavily armoured defenders. There should also be default bonuses and penalties for attack types against specific armour types at play as well.

I still don't understand why you complicate things so much. Just have Attack and Damage as two separate stats, all problems solved. I don't see how this new system will add anything but more confusion.

Exciting stuff, looking forward to next thursday or so also

One thought on Charisma, I like the new utility of the stat but it *could* have some use in battle as well; Charisma could modify unit morale, maybe affect unit initiative as well depending what tactical systems are added eventually (sort of like command abilities in some of GMT's ancients boardgames, influincing order in which units move and/or how many you can move in an impulse or round, etc). 

It really all depends on the random number generation. I think the only reason people prefer a NdX system is simply that the distribution gives a much higher probability to the mid values than outlying values. Consider, for a  2d6 system, P(2)=(1/36) and P(7)=1/6, where as in a 2-12 system using a non biased numerical select, P(2)=1/11 and P(7)=1/11. Using the NdX method, you find that your values are fair more predictable since the outputs are 6, 7, and 8 are the most frequent values in the space. Yet, if you look at how the new combat mechanics work, a NdX system would or any system using a bell curve distribution would result in undesirable probabilities. Consider that even slight difference in one of the two compared values would result in a incredibly low probability of the small valued side overcoming the larger valued side.

It's been mentioned previously that the Sovereign and children don't have an upkeep cost. Heroes do.

" In order to balance weapons we have to know strengths exact effect, previously we couldn't create high attack weapons because strength had such a huge impact that it was exponential.  Making strength more linear allows us to make weapons more varied.  Now that we have accuracy and dodge in we can create big weapons with high damage but penalties to hit, or small weapons with bonuses to hit or speed, but low damage.  We have more range to work with."

Yes this is key previously the linking of to hit chance with damage made for very dull flat unit design and battle, I remember a 15 minute battle with a golem, he mostly missed me I mostly missed him.

I believe essence is becoming a boolean flag for a unit. If you don't have it you can't cast period. This is because the mana pool is becoming a kingdom resource. No longer will you have units with individual mana pools. For champions spells will have a minimum intelligence requirement to cast too, but not for your soverign.

Question for devs. Does minimum Intelligence apply to your children too?

Does the formula for HP gain [Hit Points = 10 + ( (Constitution / 5) * (2 * Level) )] only apply to heroes? I've always been under the impression that the HP gain for normal units -units you build and NPC monsters- was a percentage of there HP total per level up.

One thing I worry about is how will heroes HP totals scale vs the higher ranked normal units (vetern, elite, ect). I would be pretty insulted if my 25-30 Constitution hero had less HP then an elite unit of the same level as the hero. If I knew the details involved I'd run the numbers myself to do a comparison......Can anyone else shed some light onto this issue?

So in the case of the new spell resistence, persumably someone who gouged int would be far easier to kill via physical attacks then trying your luck with magic.

I agree with your point; if the reward is not worth the point investment then dex will be a stat that I will always drop to 5 at char creation.

Why is that limit needed? Just because everything your familar with has it? Intelligence counts as a limit on the power of spells everyone but your soverign can cast.

Also not having a limit on spending per turn is more strategic, as mana will accumulate over turns like gold. If you use it all up in one turn then you'll be vulnerable for a while afterwards and may also be unable to sustain some summoned units and enchantments, if you where spending more than your mana income per turn. It's a resource to be managed.

Would you want units to have a gold you can spend per turn limit? Or your city to have a material spending limit? Mana is now a kingdom resource that's what you need to get a full understanding of.

No that's your private obsession, they never suggested at any point there would be new quests in 1.1, so know they haven't added what you asked for last week, shocking.

What spells they can cast seems like a very big difference to me.

e.g. If I have a champion who can only cast level 1 spells and his up against one who can cast level 5 spells who is more powerful and has more options.

How high a level spells a champion can cast very much impacts their power.

I would also add that the concept of essence is still in the game it's just not a stat any more, your soverigns essence still brings life to the land and it still acts as a boolean flag to allow you to access the kingdoms mana or not.

You make more than a few assumptions here;

1 - That Intelligence above 10 scales with spell level in a linear way. For example you may be able to cast level 1 spells with 10 Int, level 2 spells with 15 Int, etc. They haven't said how it scales with spell levels a champion can cast only that it does. I imagine they would want to make it very hard to get a champion to the level where they can cast the really high level spells.

2 - Going up level infinitley is easy, as experience to go up a level scales with level this isn't true and can be tweeked such that maxing intelligence and raising other stats to high levels is almost impossible during a normal game. Because hit points now scale with level I imagine they will want to tweek required experience anyway.

On the subject of skills which someone asked about, I believe they are being seperated from mana and spells and given a cool down instead, which makes more sense and you may be able to spend points on skills rather than stats at level up in the future. I think however that will be post 1.1 so I'd be interested to know how skills will be handled in 1.1 with the global mana system and boolean casting, are they just being taken out for now? That would be a pity but I'd rather have them taken out and re-implemented properly later on than have a broken version limping along after the 1.1 changes.

I think it is a mistake that Accuracy scales with the level and Dodge scales not with the level, because with every level Dexterity will be more useless. The following formulae would be better:

Accuracy = 15 + (Level * 3) and Dodge = Dexterity / 2 + (Level * 1)

Does Spell Resistance work in the same way as Dodge? If yes it should have the same formulae as Dodge:

Spell Resistance = Intelligence / 2 + (Level * 1)

On paper the skills overhaul looks good.

I am a little confused by the combat mechanics and the whole basis on RNG (Random Number Generator). I would prefer to see the roll to hit ACC vs DEX with the random factor and then STR and DEF resolving the damage down in a constant fashion.

At the moment it still seems hit and miss. You have a chance to be missed, then you still have a chance with a highly armoured char to roll low and have a huge chuck of health being taken off with a high ATK roll from the other side. Leading to one shots again.

If there is a roll, then it should be in a certain threshold so that if you always get half of your DEF, so if have DEF of 10, then you gain a roll of 5-10. The same for ATK.

I agree if Accuracy scales with level and dodge doesn't then dodge is only of any use against low level oponents. They should rethink that, although it does scale slightly I think the scale descrepency is to much and will stop people investing in it. But I also understand that they want people to hit more than miss. Missing 20 times in a row is boring. So I guess the balance will be thrashed out in the beta test.

You are right, there is too much luck in the tactical combat. The following formulae could be better:

Damage = (1 to ATK) - DEF

An Attack of 10 against an enemy with a Defense of 5 would inflict 0 - 5 points of damage.

Because just having one value each eliminates almost all means to balance weapons, armour, and stats.
It's as simple as that.

Castable Spell Level based on INT:

I think that this is basically the right approach but character level should also figure into this.

Maybe the max spell level that a character can cast should be level x 2.
It shouldn't be too restricting but having lvl 1 nerd characters running around casting Meteor Storm doesn't look right.

If balanced right it would also encourage not putting all points into INT, nurturing the diversity of champions.

For instance, if you get 3 points per level but only 2 would be "useful" to put towards INT (if you just want the max spell level for this char level), then 1 point could be distributed elsewhere to create a "better" character. Or put it towards INT regardless for the damage bonus (or whatnot) for some spells...

Please explain.

1000 games before Elemental have used the very well known formula with Attack, Damage, Defence, Hit points and Resistance with great success. I don't see the point in reinventing the wheel.

Without any sort of differenciation, all weapons only scale vertically.  The "higher" weapon is always better than the lower one.
That's a one-dimensional progression and yes, it does work for 1000 simple games.

When one weapon can have a higher chance to hit but lower damage, weapons don't automatically become obsolete as soon as the better one is researched.
By your simple ruleset, damage alone would make the ballista one of the best weapons in the game for all purposes.

Now hitting a single man with a ballista would prove quite difficult so it would have a lower chance to hit. But if it hits, the champion turns into champion kabob.
That's a two (or more) dimensional progression and allows for far more depth in the entire combat system.

Right now the tactical combat system has practically no rules so it's abysmally boring because you can not make any interesting decisions.
Well, you can execute uhh... tactics like "move forward and start swinging".

I think it's still a boolean, you either have it or you don't.  You'll still need to (I believe) imbue a champion to have a unit have essence.

INT maybe should be a cap on tactical magic.

Would children of sovereigns be int-limited on spells (said sovereign's weren't)