Finally Wrapping Up a Game: Some Collected Thoughts

Agree with most of your points.  Unfortunately most are game mechanics rather than modding, so will have to see if dev does anything.

1. Amen to that. We need to be able to choose which group in a tile to interact with; that way we can decide who to interact with and how.
2. Since an outpost requires a pioneer to build, which costs the same population as a settlement, outposts should have an inherent garrison of militia like settlements. Also since outposts have population attached, maybe they should have some ability to level up?
3. Fortunately the Immersion mod changes that. Speaking of walls, shouldn't theY keep out enemy troops and monsters? That's what walls are for, aren't they? Basically require enemy units to reduce walls before they can enter the city. In Tactical Combat, have a wall that separates the Armies that the attackers have to breach to get at the defenders. This would be a great use for catapults (which are pretty useless most of the time.
4. Agreed. More variety would help here.
5. Reduce Crushing blow to 50%, I think. It is very powerful and much more useful. Give spears an attack range of 2 tiles. As for swords, I suggest some kind of parry ability, being able to deflect blows (Increased Dodge)  plus maybe an accuracy bonus. 
6. We really need deeper diplomacy here.
7. One possibility from Civ4: Open border agreements.
8. Maybe some kind of messenger/diplomat unit to go to another faction to do missions involving improved relations. Or gifts that will improve relations.
9. Magical weaponry should ideally require multiple tech prereqs; for example, a magic axe should require both the ability to make axes and the appropriate enchantment tech. I wonder if it is possible to have equipment require techs from two different trees (magic and warfare for example).

My own thoughts:

• More variety of thrown weaponry: Javelins (thrown spears) available from the start. Thrown axes when axes are available.
• More variety of weaponry for trained units. Have weapons and equipment that require both crystal and metal to make.
• Have units that can safely penetrate other factions' territories without being detected.
• Have counterspells be able to remove magical effects.
• We need Navies, water movement and combat! (my biggest peeve).
• Make wildlands more expansive and aggressive.

The caravan things is very annoying indeed. Let's just hope there's an update to address this issue.

2,3 and 6 dont really bother me, to be honest: I never get attacked. Multiple short wars are probably more realistic than enduring peace after a war.

1: Can caravans be flagged as 'neutral'. Part of the terrain, so to speak?

4: This could use improvement, but that would be more like a new feature or expansion.

5: Crushing Blow is too powerful. When I started LH after FE, I had to reload a couple of times, because my Sov got killed mysteriously. Crushing Blow turned out to be the culprit. Maybe make it 50%, but remove the daze?

7: Borders are still an issue. Specific agreements about borders would be a nice addition.

8: I am not sure how relations work. Low power causes everyone to attack you, and even simple trade seems to improve relations. It should be easy to improve your status with treaties, right? I honestly don't know if it is.

9: Magic weapons are more costly, so I don't really see the problem?

Highwayhoss: Thrown weapons - no. Weapon variety - no. Stealth and naval units - yeah, but those are huge changes, not simple fixes. Counterspells - yes, but it probably won't get used that much. Wildlands - Maybe as a setting you can choose at startup.

1. Agreed. Their existence on map is very annoying.
2. I am fine with how outpost implemented now, it is player's responsibility to protect those outposts, luckily the AI do not raze outposts (so it is possible to just retake them otherwise I would be pissed to rebuild them during war time)
3. Normal wall is nice to have, fortress should have better wall still.
4. I like the terrain change to have more strategic awareness, but it is a fundamental change which is not easy to tweaked. And I hope the resource does have relationship to terrain type, such as higher food near river, so when player look around the map they can immediately plan for their kingdom/empire territory.
5. No comment.
6. I haven't met this but agree that at least 10 turns of peace should be enforced.
7. Agree. The AI would sound alert whenever my troops enter their territory for 1-2 seasons, while they love to enter my territory very often forcing me to do the tedious "leave my territory" every single season, a new pact should be implemented (like the no border pact from civ4) which allows the civilization to travel inside each other territory and by default no one should be able to enter to other territory.
8. Agree.

I agree in general with everything except #5

Crushing blow is not at all OP.  It's just not.  Yes, it allows weaker units to punch above their weight class.  But the crushing blow weapons come with a significant initiative penalty.  So you're almost guaranteed not to get first strike and if the target survives (or dodges!), your unit is likely to be swarmed and destroyed before it can move again.  That's the tradeoff.

If you can't take a town because it's defenders are using Crushing Blow, your army is really weak and you shouldn't be attacking that town!

As an aside, the game should display the name of the applied skill over the head of the unit that is using it.  The current visual display of the AI using impale or cleave (where extra units take damage) is just bizarre.  And as Fallenchar points out, the animation for Crushing Blow is not exactly obvious either.

Crushing blow is fine as it is. But it must be susceptible counter. As does axe and spear. Right now swords seems the most underpowered one due to other weapon ability negate the counter effect of swords. Crushing blow, impale, cleave, all negate counter attack.

The only advantage right now is it has the highest initiative, so it's good for creating a unit with Finesse trait, +3 attack is decent, especially if you already unlock company that's +18 attack total. But the purpose of sword is lost, in original FE before LH is released, swords used to be my most favourite weapon, i can focus on defensive traits and equipments, then just press SPACE all the way and watch my enemies falls to their doom due to counter while my troops receive little damage. Now it can't be done, if i go on defend, i get crushing blowed, 1 crushing blow is not a big deal, but a few would mean certain death or near death for my troops, therefore i can't play sword to its true nature and role, and i'm forced to play offensive with swords.

Again the point is sword lost its role and nature. Offensive weapons are hammer, axe and spear not swords. Finesse won't make sword wielder come close to hammer/axe/spear wielder in case of offense. Hammer is offensive single target, axe and spear are offensive area attack. Sword is single target weapon, in FE it's a defensive weapon that rely on counter, however in LH it's useless, hammer fill that role now. Due to low initiative, hammer wielder can focus on defensive traits and equipments, and a few good offensive traits or equipments, the low initiative of the weapon makes the user act last than his opponent therefore the user is in defend mode, making it hard to kill, then when the hammer wielder turn comes, it can just crushing blow his opponent to death and the opponent is certainly not on defend mode and suffer twice the damage.

Axe and spear can cope with that kind of situation, because they can do area attack, so even if the wielder are dead after getting crushing blowed, they already deal decent or even devastating damage to opponent army due to area attack. Sword on the other hand, can't do anything. Hammer, Axe and Spear also have other useful passive bonus, hammer can bash, axe can have another chance to hit if it miss, spear ignore 33% defend/armor and immune to counter, what does sword have beside initiative? counter ability which is easily negated by almost anything all other weapons have.

In FE, weapons work like this : sword counter hammer, hammer counter spear, spear counter sword, axe doesn't counter anything but can have another chance to hit if it miss.

And in FE, finesse works on counter attack, now in LH it's bugged.

My suggestion is make sword's counter works on all abilities of other weapon. And fix the finesse bug on counter attack. Another alternative to crushing blow is not giving +100% attack bonus, but -50% defend for 2 turns (only works on enemy whose size is around the attacker, it won't work on big size enemy like dragons and elementals).

Some possible ideas on weapons balance:

• Take backswing away from axes (except dual axes) and give it to swords. Swords being fast should give a user the chance at a second hit if the first misses.
• All attacks at one tile range should be vulnerable to counterattack; no exceptions.
• Give spears a range of 2 tiles instead of CA immunity.
• Swords should get a slightly higher chance of critical hits.

I like these, sounds rational and fair enough.

I want diplomacy to have more option of what to trade. Like trading cities (like in civilization games) and trading peace treaty.

Why nerf axes?  In general the weapons should be balanced by making the weaker weapons as cool as the good ones. 

In general I agree, but what about Cleave?  Would using Cleave on three swordsmen result in three counter-attacks?  Sweep?

That is a great idea.

IMHO, there's no sense in nerfing the things that are working to make the things that don't work seem less sucky by comparison.  We should be thinking about how to bring the remaining weapon types into parity with the weapon classes that are working well. 

Those being: Spears, clubs, axes.

Spears: 2 tile attack range.  Remove immunity to counterattack.

Clubs: Crushing Blow has a casting time of two turns and no stun.  Can be interrupted.

Axes: no change

The weapon classes that I think could be perked up are: Swords, daggers, staffs, bows, magical

Swords: Lunge skill: double damage attack, stunned for one turn.  +1 CA when defending.  CA applies to all attacks (including skills/spells) targeting them within one tile. (Lunge would work like Crushing Blow does now, Crushing blow would change to have a 2 turn casting time, but no stun).

Daggers: +dodge/-defense when defending.  On dodge, they counterattack with +crit %.

Staffs: Trip skill: attack does no damage but knocks opponent to the ground unless dodged.  +defense when defending.  immune to CA.

Bows: Aimed Shot skill: +accuracy +damage +crit%.  Casting time 2 turns.  Can be interrupted.

Magical: Diffuse Cast skill: targets all enemies at 1/3 damage -accuracy.  Casting time 2 turns.  Can be interrupted. (as an aside, there need to be more caster-type weapons in the game to boost MP.  As it is, all magic champs/henchmen should be equipped with daggers for the init bonus, because there aren't any weapons that buff casting.)

That's also good idea. I don't care nerf or buff, as long as it can balance them.

By the way, you still get countered by 3 swordmen if you attack the middle one in current version, but i think the damage is buggy and count as just 1 counter, perhaps this is due to swarm system animation.

Do spears really need a buff? on the one hand a range 2 weapon would be great (even if just impale was range 2 it would be nice), but i think people often discount the 33% reduction to defense. Especially by midgame that can be pretty significant.

While it may not be overpowered when viewed holistically (though I have my doubts), what I actually said was "Crushing Blow, in general, seems overpowered to me compared to the [other] weapon abilities (due, largely, I think, to the way attacks and defenses are compared when calculating damage; e.g., a single 20-point attack is much better than two 10-point attacks, especially since it also serves to immediately reduce incoming damage)."

ED: Added "other" back in, because apparently I forgot to write it.

Or, in other words, Crushing Blow is, hands down, the best weapon ability because a 20-point attack is better than 2 10-point attacks, especially when those 2 10-point attacks go against different units (which makes it better than Impale, and it is hard to get the enemy to line up nicely for a 3-hit Cleave, so it is usually better than Cleave, too).  Yes, opposing forces might get one or two additional attacks in against the unit which used Crushing Blow due to the 1-round stun and the initiative penalty, but the effect of Crushing Blow's is to reduce enemy stacks much more efficiently than through normal attacks.

This is for the same reason that focus firing is the optimal combat solution - e.g., 1 full-health and 1 dead enemy is a far better situation than 2 half-health enemies in the vast majority of cases.

The tradeoff is not, at this point and of course in my opinion, equivalent to the pay-off.  You are, defensively speaking, no worse off standing still for your 1-turn stun than you would be had you just stood still (or relatively still) and attacked twice, and, offensively, you are far better off than you otherwise would have been (because 20x1 >> 10x2).

Not what I'm saying.  I'm saying that, when attacking a town, the enemy that is the most dangerous to your own army is not the Gigantic Animated Stone Statue or the ranks of archers;* it's the 3 or 4-member Level 1, unarmored militia squad with their 14x3 or 4 base attack and Crushing Blow, and they are especially deadly to melee-flavored sovereigns and champions (who would gladly go toe-to-toe with the Gigantic Animated Stone Statue and win handily).

Agreed on that one.

One other nitpick: I'd like to pick what items get upgraded when I upgrade a unit's armor.  On my Ice Witches and Fire Warlocks (both warg-mounted), I want them to upgrade their armor, but still keep wearing the Soldier's Boots for +1 Initiative.  Unfortunately, upgrading their armor replaces their boots along with everything else, even when the boots aren't set to "Upgradeable Boots" in the unit design screen.  Additionally, it doesn't let me pick which cloak they change into - defaulting, I believe, to the anti-Fire cloak (fine for the Warlocks, disflavorful for the Witches).

* Actually, archers are usually pretty meh, too, because of the even-bigger-than-for-crushing-blow-weapons Initiative penalty and the lackluster base damage and the inability to use something like Crushing Blow to gain a quick piece-count advantage.

one other thing i will say about crushing blow is that its effects tend to scale with the number of units i have.

While 1 crushing blow won't kill everything (although it still does in many cases), combining it with 2 or 3 can routinely kill most monsters and units. Having an army that can systematically kill a couple of units each round at its whim is very powerful, and the loss of offense for the enemy is well worth the 1 round of stun for me.

Which is the problem with crushing blow right now, or i should say mass crushing blow. Because as said above, single crushing blow is not that threatening, however a massed one is crazy.