I'm positive to the idea, but I would like to know more about what you're after here. If you lower the stats of units will you not end up with only cosmetic changes? Will 4 units will be as powerful as 1 unit is today?

They also changed minimum squad size to 4 (except for giant units i would assume).

This makes the combat closer to Master of Magic's system, which is awesome! 

Hard to judge this without more information, but I enjoy rampant baseless speculation too much to let that stop me.  

This change by itself it seems very weird.... That would actually make groups of 4 have lower health than groups of one and 4 times the dmg? Dmg still drops as units are killed? Getting first strike is going to be really important! Really one thing about this that does scare me is that at 2 hp a unit armor values are going to really really really matter. If you thought that armor to dmg ratio was the only thing that really mattered now this seems like it will be much worse!

I hope your not thinking that you can implement base units of 4 without rebalancing the rest of the game.....

Honestly this would seem to do the exact opposite of my tactical balance mod: https://forums.elementalgame.com/406349.

Also I did post some ideas on simple things that would greatly improve mini factions here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/405145

I second that. were headed back in the old direction of one-shot kills. For other vets just recall the base of 5 hp and how easily soldiers died.

Now what would make me feel good about this is an overall reduction in training time/simultaneous queue. If soldiers died quickly but i could replenish them quickly, I'm not as concerned. Where as if I lose my army and it willl take 50 turns to rebuild, I'm not a happy camper. Nor could the AI rebuild meaning after I crush their army, I can just take everything.

However +1 for this

Civ V made this change and it has done wonders for the game.

Thanks for the updating change log Frogboy.

Changes to unit health definitely has one positive outcome: heroes and sovereigns are definitely going to be far more important now.

Yeah... it seems a very strange change on its own. What's being done to prevent 4man units getting oneshot by everything? It really feels like one step forward with 4man units, and one step backwards with changed base health.

I thought I would also mention this about training time. This has a lot to do with how the economy of the game is structured.

Total War

Training

• In the total war series, the basic units (peasants, militia, light infantry) could be trained in 1 season (turn).

• The more advanced units (knights, gun users) took 2-3 turns.
• Units can be replenished of their number (normally 1 turn).
• Larger Cities/Castles can train more than one unit at a time (most I've seen is 3).
• Can build structures in cities and castles to give produced units veterancy.

Economy

• Provinces (cities + surrounding buildings) generate money.
• No unique resources
• Upkeep strongly determined by two factors: militia and advancedness (yay new word)
• Militia and advanced units cost lots of upkeep (although in cities, militia have little upkeep, just not meant as a roaming army)
• City customization is very limited. In fact building in cities is limited.

Cilization V

Training

• One unit at a time.
• Can take dozens of turns because the resource is hammers generated from the surrounding country side.
• Units can be upgraded to the next tier (1 turn + cash).
• Can build buildings to give produced units veterancy.
• Can instantly buy a unit with cash.

Economy

• Cities get their resources from the nearby hexes (up to 3 away).
• Unique Resources
• Upkeep is rather small per unit (and is always the same for all units).

Elemental

Training

• Units trained one at a time
• Time per unit based upon the technology used to build the unit (good)

Economy

• The city gets its income from the surrounding special resources and the buildings within the city.

In Total War, lots of units are always flying around. Most of your cities are producing replacements for the units getting wrecked on the field. In Civilization V, a slower paced game, the units are produced over normally 10 turns (depends greatly on game settings and the city terrain/size etc). If you lose a unit in the game, your hurting a lot more than if you lost one in total war. You can rush buy a unit but its costly.

Now as for elemental, your training time starts at 3 turns (i think, i play epic so that may change it). When you start getting squads and training skills, the time really shoots up there. Now i'm getting the feeling that people want more units so we could make something kinda like a hybrid between total war and civ (in terms of combat numbers, not gameplay). To that end, I would propose the following

Changes

Training Buildings

Besides wonders, I would make a training building that is repeatable for a town. Make it reduce the training time by 10% and take lots of populace (20 maybe more) to run. This way I can make a military city that can train those larger units more quickly. The other option (little more intensive to implement) is to add a "training" resource to the city. The city size would give a base value for the training resource and these extra buildings would add to it. Then this training resource is used to "Train" the units in the queue. If you have played Sword of the Stars (SOTS) this is how their system works.

For example, my peasant has a training value of 2 and the light plate swordsman has a value of 10. If my city produces 8 training resource a turn, I can get 4 peasants a turn or most of a swordsman. I just picked numbers for this example and obviously they need to be adjusted.

Upgrading

There are two parts of upgrading, the armor and the skill. I feel that maybe both should be able to be upgradable (at least the armor). So if a unit is back in a city, you could click upgrade and a list of your designs pops up. The cost for upgrading could be something like c = (new - old) + new*0.25. After all the solder needs to be trained with the new equipment (that's why the extra 25%). As for training time, maybe half of the new training time. Oh and most importantly, upgrading a unit should enter the unit into the unit training queue. This would prevent someone from buying a cheap unit and then "upgrading it" to get a high level unit quicker.

Veterancy

I would like to see in addition to health when units level, a small attack and defense boost (maybe accuracy and dodge instead). Or even better, we get to pick (although if we get large numbers of units, that could get annoying).

These are just some thoughts,

Jec

Base map movement increases. It would be great if that also applies to boats as well. It would make the boats viable for exploration\colonization.

I guess I am alone thinking that this is not necessarily a big deal. Since Units will have a base troop count of 4 instead of 1, the base health for this squad will be 8 instead of 10. This then keeps something similar to the current HP balance will also having units have decreasing effectiveness as they take damage. In general, it might be better to have a base hp of 3, which would result in a squad hp of 12, though this is something that can easily be modded.

I think that 1.3 would do well if there was an overall increase in content as well, though I think this is something the mod community can help achieve.

No, I too (at least in theory) also really like the change mainly due to the fact that heroes and sovereigns will now be capable of easily killing groups of units which will go a long way to giving the game some flavor.

What I think is raising red flags for people about the health reduction is the following

Current (1.1)

• Health: 10 base. (actually I started a test game as relias of Altar and it showed 12 from 5 constitution).
• Attack: 5 with staff.

1.3

• Health 8 (2 base * 4)
• Attack 20 (4 rolls of 5).

Without knowing the rest of the changes in detail (and playtesting), its hard to be sure of the exact result of this change. However from these numbers, it would appear that one-shot killing would be greater not just because of the lowered health, but because of the increased attack. Without early armor, the defender would most likely lose as 3 is the average roll for a 1D5. 3 * 4 = 12. 12 > 8 hp.

Something I would also like to bring up at this point is Brave and Death Worshiping. Currently they add a small percentage of health to a unit (and recruited heroes/sovereign) but with these small HP value, trained units will not see much of a benefit. If say we dropped the health down to 5 as a base (as it was in the ancient times), brave could add +1 and death worshiping could add +2 (with a pop growth penalty or something).

Just some thoughts.

That's actually what I'm most excited about.

2hp x 4 models (new minimum) = 8 Hps for the unit.

Assume then that leveling up gives each model an additional hp, and you can have a fully experienced basic unit with about 20 hps. (8+3*4)

More models per unit striking allow them to scale weapons WAY back and still retain their effectiveness, which in turn allows them to re-balance armor. YEE-HAW.

Only question from here is the rate at which tech will allow larger units. 2 more per Tech would seem reasonable, since that way your larger groups would need to be two techs ahead to be fully twice as effective (unlike the previous 4 times as effective for the first tech, then twice more, then half again), and the group tech is currently almost as silly overpowered as armor tech.

I'm starting to see something cool under all the crud being polished away. Thank you Stardock!

Yes, but - until we hear anything to the contrary, wouldn't you expect each of the 4 units to have the same attack as one unit does currently? So we're talking about 80% hp, 4x attack. That is, I think, what is scaring people - I myself really don't think it'll come to that, this is the kind of change that can't occur in a vacuum without other adjustments to maintain balance, it seems likely that Stardock will have a compensating attack/defense reduction and just hasn't listed it yet. So I'm not too worried, we clearly don't have the whole picture yet - just going to wait and see before I judge.

NO. A higher Attack and Defense to Hp Ratio is bad for so many reasons. Unit Hp should go up not down.

Whats your average unit going to have? 2 Hp and 6 Attack? HP wouldn't matter ever, only defense would.....

You are making the assumption that 6 damage will remain the standard.

I suspect that we will see weapon damages fall to the 2-4 damage range for standard equipment (for units. No idea how champions are going to change to fit this system).

Standard unit of four, 8 total hps, hitting approximately 50% of the time can have an attack of 2 and still require about two hits to kill a unit (but not discounting 3 or 4).

I have no fear that attack and defense states will be modified as a result of the HP change. However, it is difficult to discuss what these number should be without actually playing the game with the new hp and troop counts. Yet at the end of the day, all of these stats are readily moddable, and I would push for the addition of xml to modify how units level. Ideally, this addition would allow modders to specify not only a base level scheme but also schemes based on the equipment of the unit.

Edit: These discussion are also based on the base hp of a level 1 unit, and not the HP of a level 3-4 unit. If one assumes a very small hp bonus of, 1 hp per unit per level, then a level 3 unit would have 4 hp per unit and 16 per group. Thus, giving incentive to the player to level up his troops rather than simply build parties of fresh recruits.

Brad - please consider requiring multiple turns to cast the Spell of Making and when it is initiated, all players gang up on the player casting the spell. It is after all a spell to win the game so all other matters are trivial. I envision temporary cease fires with right of passage for armies. That should make for an interesting end-game when all enemy factions converge on the poor sap casting the spell. Just an idea.

Also - I like the idea of right of passage. This should make AI pathing easier. Right now if I'm walled in by a faction I don't have to worry about the juggernaut on the other side.

Games Workshop disagrees.

So all notable locations will be visible from turn 1?  I think that's really going to change the feel of the game.  In a good way.

I was going to wait til Fallen Enchantress, but 1.3 might be the patch where I give Elemental a second shot...

This game does not need random events. There are a lot of randomn features in game already. Honestly i can't define a short list of things you need to change in order to make your game "cool". The main point is every aspect need to be reworked. According to your message 1.3 will be "beta" as well.

No single mention of spells?

I approve for the 1.3 changes but this game still doesn't seem very fun with the current spells.

1.3 Wishlist:

1) Buying items in the store automatically equips them.

2) Can "design" groups of items and then purchase/equip a group. Seriously, by end-game you're buying not only weapons and armor, but a shitload of accessories. Buying, then equipping each item separately is tedious enough for one champion, but for numerous it's simply torture.

3) Minimum distance between cities needs to be modifiable in an XML file. Preferably the minimum distance to settle and the minimum distance between buildings should be separate values. The AI builds cities too close and I always see them run out of space for buildings.

4) I know you've heard it before and are probably working on it already, but sov/champions need to gear properly.

5) Again, probably working on it, but the map editor is still buggy as hell and needs some TLC. It would be beyond awesome if we could place cities and peasants in the map editor. Placing buildings and other units would be nice, but that can come in 1.4 or beyond.

6) Force the AI to design units using armor in all four slots. That perdy hair may get the Forward Observers laid, but it doesn't do a lot of good protecting them from my Lord Hammer.

7) Separate game options for tech rate, arcane knowledge rate, and unit/structure build rate would be pretty nice.

Now a question, what omgwtfbbq spells were removed from the game? I bought it after 1.11 came out and I haven't been able to figure out why people complain about spells all the time. I admit there are a lot of spells I don't use often, if at all, but there are plenty that are good offensively and just indispensable from a utility standpoint. If it wasn't that any spells were removed, but rather they were never there to begin with, then I must ask what expectations exist. Spells are strong enough as is, if you ask me.

I've been only bitching for a while, so I'll say, "looks good"

I hope that the dynasty hand over thing gets fine tuned later, I think it should go to the highest remaining child not automatically to highest relation because then it simply becomes a race to marry each kingdoms first born.  I'd like the first born to automatically become Sov and be totally neutral so everyone now gets a clean slate to try things with new Sov. However, sooooo much better than *poof* dissappearing.

Still, all in all, positive changes.

I don't know if I agree with these completely. If I could have one change to the shop it would to replace the shopkeeper with a view of my own inventory. This would completely eliminate the whole process of going into the shop to buy, then going to equip your items, and finally going back to the shop to sell. The ideal would be to allow a user to buy, sell and equip all from within the shop interface. As for your second point here, this actually points out one of the things I personally don't really like about WoM. Having every single champion decked out in the exact same gear is a completely viable strategy, and I dare say that it might be the best strategy. I would be awesome if there was a reason to have some champions using one type of gear and another using some other type.

Honestly, I am torn on this one. On one hand, I think that increasing mod capabilities is a very good thing, and the first part of the probably wouldn't be incredibly hard. On the other hand, this particular change is fairly limited and would probably require a fair bit of additional work considering the game does not seem to make a distinction between the improvements and city hubs when determining the city buffer. In general, there are so many other mod changes which would have incredibly impacts on modability I would like before this one, that I simply can not support it. I think if your issue is that the AI builds cities poorly, then this should be addressed instead.

Spells were removed from the game during 1.09, but there has been a lot of comments since release about the lackluster magic system. From my perspective, the magic system is capable of producing spells and spell effect that are fun and useful. Yet, every spell is part of the same spell class defined by a single generic spell. Our generic spell is basically takes a defined target and a circular set of tiles and applies a set of effects. Using the generic, a great many different spells can be created - heal spells, summon spells, buff spells, damage spells, etc - but entire classes of spells are incapable of being created.

There are two good examples of spell class that are unable to be created to showcase these limitations. The first are spells which target one unit and jump to a nearby unit. This limitation removes the possibility of having spells such as a plague spell or a chain lightning spell. Our other example are spell which effect both the caster and the target. This limitation removes the possibility of having spells such a drain strength spell or any type of buff/debuff, though it should be noted that there is a life steal effect that can be used. These are simply two of several limitations that make the variety of spells in WoM feel small. If I could ask for changes to the magic system, they would be the following:

- Allow spells to have multiple targets selected by the player. This would allow for spells and abilities to be created such as a multi-arrow ability which allowed a single archer to rapidly fire shots at multiple targets.

- Allow spells to have a chance to penetrate a target. This would allow for spells and abilities to take advantage of enemy unit placement.

- Allow for spells to apply a random effect, selected from a predefined list. This would allow for spells and abilities such as a curse.

- Allow for spells to be apply certain effects to the cast and certain effect to the target.

- Allow for spells to have a chance to jump to a predefined number of targets

- Allow for spells to effect the dead. It would be super cool to have a spell that could revive fallen friends or summon the undead from fallen friends.

so you kill the sovereign and all their cities flip to your other main rival! - perfect! (you might want to have some UI indication of how the factions are likely to go)