Now I'm worried. I personally think the units look awful...

The terrain is quite appealing, but the units with their uniformity, identical posing and posturing look dreadful. Instead of creating a sense of atmosphere and wonder it gives me the impression of a set of childs plastic figurines.

I implore the devs to add random posing and unit formations.... perhaps (if opposing an enemy) animation of taunts, threats, shouts and shield & sword beating!

They need to mix up the per-instance data in their unit shader, at least on vid cards that can handle it.

Any idea what they meant when they stated "Elemental has only 1 Resource"?

@ John_Hughes

If I had to guess I'd say it was an uneducated comment referring to Materials... Which I always read as being wood... It is the primary resource for building up the city itself, other then gold and it could be thought of as wood, stone, and other "materials" used for building.

I agree that the screen shot looks a tad troubling but then it is just a screen shot. Your not going to get much atmosphere off of it one way or the other. I'll reserve judgment till I see it in action for myself.

@CrusaderScott

Everyone has their own tastes I suppose... I think going with a miniatures feel would simply compromise the validity of the whole living world goal. Personally I feel I've tried to compromise despite going against my personal tastes.

In the beginning we were supposed to be getting a Turn-based empire builder with Role-playing elements and real time battles.

Now were getting a typical turn-based affair with some RP elements... Whatever no problem, I love MoM as much as the next guy.

That being said the battles best damn well be atmospheric. Though I wouldn't be surprised on these forums anymore to hear someone say "why bother making the units actually move or animate... I mean I'd prefer to pretend I were playing with pewter figurines or plastic table top pieces."

Stop trying to make the game less then it can be please.

*Edit* I hope they moved their units into those positions... Otherwise it looks like were getting "Monster Chess" after all.

I think the key to that screen shot ends up being whether or not those "pewter figures" have ambient motion or not.  

If, now or somewhere father down the beta road, those characters do more than stand perfectly still I think that screen shot is awesome.  The dragon should be letting faint tendrils of smoke out of its nostrils or occasionally scratching it's neck or wagging it's tail.  The more general troops should be checking each other's armor every so often or even one or two of the individuals in a unit should be catching a quick nap (as anyone who's been in the military till tell you, you take a nap any chance you get because you may not get to hit the rack for a long time).  

Whether one likes the art style or not is subjective (I do), but they can certainly do a lot with ambient action to fit that art style and give you plenty of little "wow" moments.    

More, please. 

Thanks for making me feel even better about my decision to pre-order with this video.  I haven't been this excited about a 4x game since Master of Magic. 

Don't worry, the unit groups are not synchronized so that they all move together.
There is actually quite a bit of variety between the animations in a group of units. 
Unfortunately, you can't see that in this particular screenshot.

In Brad's video above, you can see how the units look in the game, although I don't think he shows a group of units.

So thats the visual battle system. Which I assume will be what happens pre-tacbattle and on auto-resolve.

I like the art style, but I agree it feels slightly sparse.

Brad, you should see about hiring Paul Barnett. You sound, er. . .very enthused about the whole thing.

Don't disappoint me Thursday. Monday is already on my shit-list.

This is good to hear, this alleviates my concern.

Thanks for the video Brad it was enjoyable to watch.

*Edit* I was referring to what he addressed in my Critique... Just wanted to make that clear in case someone thought I was bashing the graphics... Which I think look unique and perfect for the setting.

I do hope however that there is an opportunity to Place units at the start of a battle as in TW. I think that is a nice feature. Also I echo the poster who said the map was rather small... I hope this Screen-shot is after some closing has been done.

Well since tact battles arn't in Beta 2... You may have to hold judgment for a little longer then that ; )

Provided your judging the tactical battles as I would deduce from your post.