Once again this is mostly just speculation but:

Firstly, the lower you take values the less room for variance, and the harder they are to balance. At 2 Hp any bonus hp from leveling mins out at 1 or %50. That's a huge bonus per level. Health amulets or training will be rediculous as well, even if they only add 1 hp.  

Level 1: If your base unit has no armor then say clubs are 1 dmg. Thus it would still take 2 shots to kill another group(2*4=8). What about staffs? You have to increase them by 1 so their min dmg is 2, but now your one shotting groups. You could add a base defense of 1 to units to help compensate for this, but staffs will still oneshot more than not. Luck and first attack are what matters, so I hope the tactical AI gets improved.

Level 2: Armor is divided into 4 pieces thus the min armor value for every level is 4. Thus lets say that cloth armor gives 4 defense. Dmg has to be slightly higher than that so lets say 5A for spears and 4A for axes and 1D for shields. If we add training the unit has 3 hp(3*4=12). This new unit could kill level 1 units all day without breaking a sweat. It would always one shot them and is unlikely to ever take dmg. Plus any attempt to add a base armor in level 1 will make this much worse.

Level 3: Continue the trends from level 2, but worse.

Problems: Game will become even more of a military tech race. Spam high armor troops to win will be even more important. Once someone reaches the next military tech all prior units are %100 useless. Most weapons will be useless, and tactical combat repetitive. AI will suffer because it won't grasp that there is only one real way to design troops, units not designed this way are next to useless. Units are extreemely fragile and likely to die in one shot. Only way to try and preven this is to boost defense as much as possible.

My Reccomendations: Boost base hp to 3 or even 4. With higher numbers and higher HP to A+D ratio game is much easier to balance and we can avoid all the problems listed above.

I have to admit that I don't understand why you are making these changes.  I think it would be a good idea to post the reasoning behind the changes you are planning, as it currently looks like arbitrary changes. 

Things like making trained units have only 2 HPs, just makes units easier to kill (also makes training almost useless, as almost any attack can do 2 damage.)  This wouldn't change anything about fights, since both sides would have the same issue.  If you are saying that training is taking the place of squads, then I can see why you are doing this.  Although it takes away from the strategic options you have while building your army, and in a 4X game that is usually a bad idea.  We don't want this game to be as simple as Civilization.  There is a reason I prefer Gal Civ to Civ, and it has to do with the additional strategic options that Gal Civ gives me over Civilization games.

I wonder if Essence will operate such that powerful spells can use it as upkeep (static, not per turn) or instantaneous spells can cause a temporary hit to it with the stat bonus adjusting accordingly. Now that I think about it, my guess would be yes to the first and no to the second if it operates like the other stats in the xml.

Still, I really like this. I'm very glad that it's making a comeback.

nooooooooooooooo (i klicked the butom when i hear these)

Sorry if this has come up before but what about gained experience based on damage dealt? With maybe some general exp for just being there.

• Death of a sovereign will cause the rest of the faction to go over to the faction with the best dynasty connections

Shouldn't the son (or daughter..) of the slain sovereign succeed the throne.. or at least have some say in the matter..?

Note to self: Don't share change stats with community prior to a beta release. lol.

Lol ya..... I am going to have to agree with you there. Especially just one stat without any background

You removed the AI changes!

I am beginning to wonder if we aren't looking at units in Elemental slightly improperly?  Currently, each icon on the map, in a squad of 1 to 10 pieces, is regarded and treated as a group of 1 to 10 individuals.  This kind of got me thinking back to strategy board games, and that Elemental is slightly more abstract in it's tactical implementation.  This also got me thinking about, "why even are all 10 people in my squad getting a chance to attack?"  So, based on my above thoughts I was wondering if increasing the number of people in a squad just shouldn't affect the squad stats, and not treat each icon as an individual?  Would a logarithmic increase to stats be more appropriate?  You have your base squad, centered strangely around 1 icon.  As you research more increased squad sizes, slight, but gradually increasing stats for the squad are introduced.  HP's are the only thing that are a little dubious to me here, but STR, DEF I would think would. 

Even further, this stats should be in comparison to an opposing squad.  If two squards squaring off are of equal size, no bonus to Attack and Defense.  At this point it should boil down to equipment and experience, Vets versus Recruits, Plate versus Leather, Swords of War versus daggers.  This could also open up other research areas, namely formations for the squard, though most would probably have to be more ambiguous than, "Wedge Formation."  It would be more like Loose, Tight, Defensive, Offensive.  You could treat them as special abilities, as discussed in one of Frog's journals.  You click on the ability and it lasts based off the unit experience level, and/or combat.  Formations could be treated as, "being used," once contact with the enemy has occured.

On top of this, there could be researched special unit functions, like Sergeants, Grenades (like Steven Erikcon's Malazans use), etc.  You could also treat this as a special ability, thought a sergeant would be more of a constant-passive.  This would also make only Heroes, and Sovereigns  unique, individual units.  Did I make this at all clear what I am trying to get across?

That would be a shame. Some of the best discussions come when you guys let the community know what yall are thinking about/working on.

The problem with that is oftentimes we don't understand what the other changes are, as they aren't just in a vacuum.

That said, sometimes the playerbase can see things that are blatantly bad that a developer cannot see.

Base 2 HP means that 1 hit=death.  For a crunchy human that's not so bad.  I'm guessing this will make XP more crucial, as that's more HP, as well as armor and dexterity (dodging is zero damage).

I can kinda see a logic behind it, provided other variables are handled properly, and attacks can only kill one member of a squad at a time (with the exception of certain magics/abilities)

 Am I barking up the right tree, or do I end up in the vacuum cleaner?

The issue isn't that we were given information before beta. the issue is that the information was partial (I hope it was. I don't see how making a bad situation worse would improve the game). This change to unit HP and base unit size must come with other tactical combat changes, but we don't know which. Throwing us a bone and writing 2 lines about what changes will come with that one goes a long way into calming our fears.

We all should try our best to refrain from words like must and has to. There is something that most of us have neglected to even discuss or point out in this particular line of discussion. What about monsters? I know some of you out there are zealots from the beginning and seek to purge bring all under your singular banner. Yet, it has been my experience that faction v faction combat takes a little while to begin and more than few turns pass that your initial troops fight bears, bandits, and darklings far more than other faction units. Are these monster units going to have a base troop count of 4? If not then, a lvl 1 peasant with troop count 4 will actually be at and overall advantage to these units and will in fact level quickly. I personally have always liked the idea of having a real distinction between fresh and veteran troops, and I think if the level scheme is balanced well, there would be a reason to send fresh troops to guard against monsters while seasoned troop move to engage other factions in war.

I would like to point out that he said base peasant would have 2 hp.

I would take a moment to speculate that there are techs and items that will increase this, plus there might be some other types of base units/chasis types available - such as a golem, or goblin or knight or footsoldier or flying monkey.

I think it would be nice to have short humans and tall humans, and skinny humans and stout humans.

a tunneling type creature would be neat, something that could burrow underground in combat and creep forward to unleash a surprise attack.

Sounds like some very nice stuff is coming down the pipeline.

I can understand some of the concerns listed above, mostly having to do with whether or not this helps or hinders creating glass cannons.

What would interest me is this: Would training the minimum basic unit outfit still only (counter-intuitively) require 1 population, or would it require 4 population?

I agree, but probably it's simpler for them to do it this way, at least for this version of the game... Not perfect but better than  having the enemy cities disappear!

Overall I think these changes will be  quite good in terms of gameplay.

Way to go froggie!

Focus on the "why" at least as much as the "what"

if ( as I suspect) you are breaking 1 10 hp unit up into 4 2hp units, so that units don't get one shotted then that would be good to know.  If you are doing it for some other reason that would also be good to know.

Most of the changes sound good. Especially the things that don't change much but make the game more convenient like:

"World Difficulty will set the default difficulty of the AI players".

I think you should concentrate on convenience and polishing and make the chages to Fallen Enchantress.

It's easier to just keep plans quiet until the beta so that people can just play and see that the changes make sense or don't make sense and if they don't then they get updated.  I would have thought by now that people understood that there is a huge difference between 1 unit with 2 HP and a group of 4 with 2 base HP.  And as some observed, base HP != what you get in practice. But I can either spend time on the game or dealing with what-ifs. We're not going to have glasss canons.

Is base 4 with 2 HP going to count as 1 unit with 8 HP, or 4 units with 2 HP?

Worst case we'll just have to wait to see it in action- though I tend to prefer to like to know how a system's supposed to work to see if it's WAD, or if something emergent is happening (which may be good or bad)

Fair enough. We are overreacting indeed; if something's wrong with the change, we'll see it in the beta patchlog.

"Death of a sovereign will cause the rest of the faction to go over to the faction with the best dynasty connections"

Why not make the player the vassal of the conqueror to keep the player in the game.

Isn't it easier to just replace one sovereign with the next in line?  There can't be too much complexity in that, but a lot more rationality and immersion in the game...