So plate armor didn't affect archer's accuracy? EDIT: I'm not talking about visor reducing FOV, but about body cover restricting movements.

That explains A LOT           read carefully

This is basically also the origin of the myths that swords were quite heavy (while period examples way rarely more than 4lbs for a one-handed sword or 6lbs for a two-handed sword) and dull (while period pieces are chisel-sharp).

Can the neutrals be 'vassels' as well? So much can be done if we turn the neutrals into actual 'minor factions'.  By allowing them there own chance to grow & spread, plus the ability to have negotiations, neutrals would go from being temperary nothings to an actual part of the 'living world'

"The misconception that it's heavy and difficult to move in stems primarily from D&D", and MANY movies.

Interesting, thanks.

There are no neutrals anymore. 

Ogres, wildlings, mites, trolls, bandits, etc. (neutrals)- Would it not be cool to have an isolated area where trolls or what not could spread to 4-5 camps, gain a leader and a couple under bosses, the camps all worked together under this one leader, allowing them to become a menace in their own right

just seems like they could be so much more than just early game bumpers, this would allow for them to possibly grow into a late game horde

A Renaissance-era full suit of plate armour would have consisted of a helmet, a gorget (or bevor), pauldrons (or spaulders), couters, vambraces, gauntlets, a cuirass (back and breastplate) with a fauld, tassets and a culet, a mail skirt, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons. A complete suit of plate armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 20 kg (45 pounds).^[6] The wearer of such a suit remains highly agile, able to move freely, jump and run, the weight being well spread over the body.

but

Specialized jousting armour produced in the late 15th to 16th century was heavier, and could weigh as much as 50 kg (100 pounds), as it was not intended for free combat, it did not need to permit free movement, the only limiting factor being the maximum weight that could be carried by a warhorse of the period.

and

Modern tests and contemporary accounts agree therefore that well-made plate armour could protect against longbows, however there are a number of caveats to this point; not all plate armour was well-made or well looked after, and there were also weak points in the eye and air holes and joints where arrows could penetrate, meaning that even if the armour was proof against nearly all arrows, being shot at by thousands of longbowmen would have been an uncomfortable experience, physically and mentally. One contemporary French account described the barrage at Agincourt against French knights wearing plate armour as a "terrifying hail of arrow shot".

Full plate armour of the highest quality was also extremely expensive, only used by knights; the vast majority of soldiers were not armoured in plate from head-to-toe. Even for knights, in practice their horses tended to be less well protected, so that longbows could kill or wound the horses even when the arrows had little effect against the knights themselves. For example, shooting the French knights' horses from the side (where they were less well armoured) was used effectively by the English longbowmen to help win the Battle of Poitiers.

 

also

Archers in a retinue would be trained up and provided with light or heavy armour depending on the wealth of their retinue, but for most it was a matter of what they could afford. 

For example english Yeoman archers had shields strapped to their left arm (the bow arm) to still be able to move their right arm (the arrow arm) freely, and be covered while reloading. Northern Italian Pavise archers had tall shields strapped to their backs to protect them from incoming arrows while reloading. Whereas most drafted archers (most of the time peasants trained in the use of the bow) had no armour, shield or helmet at all but just walked around in their robes (your everyday peasant robe, not the expensive kind). 

Heavy armour wasn't as bad a downside as you would expect, especially since in field battles most archers were ordered to move to a certain position and hold it for the majority of the battle, sometimes setting up spear walls (a bunch of spears facing outwards stuck in the ground around them) in front of them to protect them from cavalry, which made it a very bad idea for them to move and lose their protection. 
In a siege however light armour (or none at all) could be preferred, because if you can get onto the enemy walls (say with a ladder or siege tower), your first move would be to get your archers onto the enemy towers as fast as possible, since height advantage is the best advantage for an archer. 

I think the armor penetration of spears, daggers and bows should be based on the dexterity * 2.5 % and healing spells would be useful IF they scale with the level of the TARGET.

Watching the video reminds me .. is there a way to remove the zooming in limit in the xml (the "disable zoom limit" in the options only gets you so far). I really miss to not be able to zoom in like you could in Elemental WoM or like in tactical combat.

Edit: same goes for camera tilting.

I recruit the first one as soon as possible and party with the Sovereign. Add some troops as soon as I can (unlike the AI, no pioneers there). Have them partying together until I can start producing units "fast" with some"meat" (spears and/or traits and/or leather) and then split into two armies. Later heroes may temporarily join them if needed but usually end leading secondary armies or stationed in cities.

But there are many reasons to keep recruiting many Champions. "Fire Rank I" champions? Fire Pillar Check!!! ("must have" spell) Any "Earth Rank"? Potential caster of "Ironskin" check! (neat to have when you didn't pick Earth ranks)

At some point are you going to put Line of Sight rules into the tactical battles? I would love to be able to use terrain to hide wounded units from archers.

Also, thanks for the update. I check every day for one and really look forward to them. The game is quickly becoming a classic.

The spell Dirge of Ceresa needs to be Nerfed or much more expensive to cast.

Thanks so much for the update, Brad! Great to know the trajectory of updates.

I hope the UI gets some attention, too. Bringing more information to the user along with tweaks and polish will help a lot as the game continues to be refined.

I've been out of the loop so this has probably been answered at some point in the past. Are dynasties going to make a comeback/be put in at some point for fallen enchantress? I thought it was a really neat feature

Thanks for all the work on performance.  It makes an incredible difference for me on my somewhat old rig. 

That screen you show where you are selecting your sovereign, is that currently in Beta 2 (0.86)?  My selection screen looks much different.  I really like the look of the one you show.

I think Brad has stated that they will attempt to put dynasties back into a future Elemental game (assuming FE is successful).  It won't be seen in FE.

Line of sight is something a lot of us would like to see added to FE Tactical Battles. From what I recall reading here a while back, the Elemental Engine doesn't support it, and doing so would be a relatively major rewrite of the engine.    

The Sovereign selection screen has been like that since 0.85. Are you sure you have your game updated?

That sure is interesting.  In at 0.86 right now and my current sovereign selection screen is considerably different than what is shown in Brad's post. I will have to take a screen shot tonight and post it.

Features are cool, but stabilty will make or break this game.  I have had crashes on two completely different systems

that I have been testing with.

So in beta 2 ... it said rediculous had the best AI.

Is this true?

Or will we still get our "best AI" in Challenging? (at least in beta 2 B )

Challenging is the Best AI without the AI getting bonuses.