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Gone are “points” to throw into stats. Instead, players gain special abilities when they level up. The higher the level, the more exotic the choices become.
I assume that stats have some sort of base increase or maybe random (weighted) growth?
More good stuff. The UI looks great and it looks like leveling up will be fun too. 
Wow, that's what I would call a big change. I approve this, more please.
Good question! And how will this affect balance? Hoping it will work like the Age of Wonders hero levels.
Will the stats have additional/new/changed meanings in Fallen Enchantress?
Great stuff! 
Will a completely random set of traits to choose from appear at every level up? It would make the decision more interesting if the ones you don't choose have less chance of appearing in subsequent level ups - or 50% less chance for the 1st subsequent LU, 30% for the 2nd and 10% for the 3rd.. something like this - so you have to make your decisions wisely..
This is a big step up from the current system. That said, a skill tree or grid with advancement dependencies with which you could map out your hero's long-term growth, with associated goals that you could look forward to attaining would be another big rpg-centric step above a randomized list selection.
Cruxador, look at the screenshot. Quick gives +3 dex and +1 iniative. That's a good example.
In E:wom a couple of stats like accuracy and hitpoints increased automatically when you levelled. You also got more hitpoints out of every point of constitution the higher your character was.
Gone are “points” to throw into stats.
That is a good thing, boosting stats is almost meaningless to a player. I am also in the RPG camp where your attributes should stay the same for your whole life while the HP/MP and some other stat would increase with levels.
But by taking a look more closely at the screenshot. It seems that the available upgrades only increase stats. I thought they were all special abilities. Instead of boosting stats, why not only suggest special abilities. They could be minor and passive abilities, but still it would be much more interesting than simply raising stats in s specific pattern.
I would rather have an 'ordered' randomisation - a 'trait tree' would become too repetitive. The random element would always be surprising, and lead to unique characters each time.
It should be a tradeoff between boosting stats and special abilities.
That's how it worked in AOW:SM, and it worked well there.
I get a bit of a Dredmor vibe from this system also.
A mix of the two would be best, IMO.. Which I guess is how they have it.
Exactly.
I think this is a great idea and adds a bit more depth to your Sovereign and Heroes.
Can't we also keep the points as well? or at least set up our points at the beginning. I do love to customize my Soverign up to include atrribute points.
Edit: Oh wait now I see we can still boost attributes through the traits we pick. Then I'm now ok with this. Being a RPGer I hate games where you cannot affect the stats as you level
Will some abilities have other abilities as pre-reqs (e.g. "Flanking" requires "Quickness", or maybe "Improved Quickness", etc.)?
If so, I want to make sure it's easy to get to the tree of such abilities from this screen (as opposed to having to go to the 'pedia in Civ).
Also, hoping the set of available abilities is specialized to some degree - e.g. either based on initial type/stats/ability/something, or based on choosing a certain 'path', one tree of abilities opens up but either other trees are closed off, or you can only pick from 1 tree at first, another one at level X, etc., plus some general abilities outside of these 'trees'.
Just my $.02 worth. I like having interesting choices/tradeoffs over a high level character having essentially every ability.
Yes 
They are not all completely overhauled but some do different/new/additional things.
We are also still working on making the UI even better, it sure has come a long way though 
They do both, some of them provide stat bonuses, some are non-stat related passive bonuses (like the merchant skill from WoM) and others are special abilities.
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