I think Dex (mentioned earlier) makes better sense, because of the essence mechanic. (and because Magic v. Def just makes my teeth hurt)

I like your idea of combat mechanics up to here. I think on a single attack roll, it doesn't make sense to carry that damage on to the next soldier in a unit. Jimmy has 5 hp left, but his friend Jack has 10. Slavering beastie chomps on Jimmy for 15 damage, but it doesn't follow that the bite is so powerful it kills poor Jack, watching nearby. Jimmy is just pulp.

a lot of great brainstorming in here, nice thread. I'd add support for:

Break up multi-soldier defense in the same way attacks work now - multiple individual defense/attack rolls, with perhaps a small bonus based on the total number of soldiers in the squad.

Magic v. Def is just not okay. Magic v. Essence seems tricky, because of the currency-like essence system. Magic v. Dex seems like the best approach without the addition of a set if resistance stats. Elemental resistance stats! Elemental! Says it right there at the top of the screen.

Obviously in-game references/documentation needs to be worked out too (no clarity on per-soldier atk mechanic, what the eff is wisdom, etc), but I'm frankly more worried about the system getting some sophistication (units don't get decreased atk/def for losing members, no elemental resists - Look a fire giant! Hit it with a flame dart!).

Thanks, KS

Defense should definitely not be multiplied for stacks.  It doesn't make much sense that the ten guys in back should make it harder to damage the soldier in front (unless they're a phalanx, I guess), and the current system just leads to huge miss-fests and totally random luck, as opposed to shorter and more brutal conflicts that value timing and positioning more.  Also: the Lord Hammer is the one and only piece of weaponry I have ever seen whose attack value exceeds the defense value of a full suit of high-end armor, which is awful.  Bows and swords become utterly useless once the opponent has magical armor researched because their odds of dealing damage above the single-digits ever becomes miniscule.  Having defense not be multiplied would be a very easy and very significant first step in making combat more dynamic and reasonable.  I think other issues (like the weakness of offensive magic and champions) will become a lot easier to fix the further you go towards looking at stacks as groups of individuals rather than massive, unified blobs of stats.

In an ideal world a party (3) of Swordsmen would would have the same stats as a swordsman with the following changes.  Each level of grouping would add 1 to the Attack and Defense of each figure in the unit and reduce the upkeep of that figure by 10%.

So if you had a Swordsman with an Attack of 6, a Defense of 4, and an upkeep of 1 gold a Party of 3 Swordsmen would have an Attack of 7 (with 3 attacks on the target), a Defense of 5 (If you do enough damage to kill one you hit the Defense of the next figure), and an upkeep of 2.7 gold.

AoE attacks would effect all members of the unit.

Sammual

I think you're over complicating. As long as defense doesn't stack it's alright to have count against magic too, because we wouldn't have insane def. I agree it isn't logical though, dex is a better choice if you want to be realistic.

And again, the 10% bonus per squad member is making it harder than it has to be. A group with four units using broadswords already attack with 4d10. Which is perfectly logical. However, the defender only rolls one def roll against the combined attack value (I think???), and that's where it goes haywire. The defender should roll against every attack. If that's done, defense will NOT be underpowered, it will work like a charm.

And again, I agree with previous posters that this should be reflected on unit cards. The squad should have 4x10 attack, or perhaps 10(4) as was another suggestion.

Please tell me this makes sense, because I really think it does???

If I'm wrong and units get a seperate roll for each one of the attacks made by the squad, then this problem is even easier to solve. Remove the stacking of defense and get the attack value to display properly (4x10) and voilá, problem solved. Next please!

MoM used a shared pool too, it tends to work better when you have 10 hitpoints removing one member of a unit, rather than the possibility of every man in the unit taking 2 damage each.

Good to hear on the magic part.

On the combat part i guess you need to take a long look at the code, because it doesnt behave as you say. But there are a great many posts about that over the forum, so i guess you know that.

I always giggle like a girl when my familiar (Attack 6) deals 10+ damage to its target. Shouldnt max damage be 6?!

I agree HP makes sense being displayed the way it is. I think it would be more clear to show Attack and Defense as a per unit value instead of displaying it as Attack/Defense*max units. This makes sense in the context of how it works under the hood. I think this is how MoM displayed it.