Actually, I do not even bother researching mounted warfare until very late in the game.  I beeline for an AI town, and have a hero buy two mounts

At insane, the AI gets horses before I can reach it.  Sometimes it even has wargs, which I prefer for support troops (initiative)

Oh well, stop using the best tactics already!

ATM my home rule is only use my heroes up to lvl 4 where I pick path of the governor and station them (Sometimes level 5 or 6 to gain governor traits).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Hehe my heroes also had to break the rules in the current game, not because my trained units are underpowered... just because heroes are so much better... and not using them will cause your defeat.
(Lategame units, the big boost to heroes is heroes start being awesome from turn 1. units needs tons of research, and after that only spears really work...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Oops, clicked wrong quote button.  Someone censor me

As an academic, I guess I should post a retraction/correction/something; so, here's the quote that I agree with, with proper attribution:

Still agree with it.  Early game feels good to me.  Like early human history; there wasn't a lot happening on the scale of ordered cultures interacting with each other.

To Glazunov1, my apologies.  

Now back to the game, where all of us should be anyway.  Enough words, more fun

The OP is dead on.

Soloing the game with your sov or a group of heroes has always been the only viable tactic, this latest patch nerfed the heck out of city and army building while leaving the sov and heroes untouched.

And yet the developers still insist this is a TBS game and not an RPG like skyrim where instead of smiting you get to rule cities. (which is why they have not developed the RPG aspect a whole lot more)

Oh sure, the 3 turn limit was reduced to 1... BUT, we had 50% to 100% increase in cost per building. Double research costs. Min 25g to rush production. And nerfed essence (so even if you nail a high essence spot you can't make it a proper city).

Because you a single person buy a single horse. Not buying enough horses to create an entire cavlery... There is no possible way to STOP a person from stealing a horse or buying a single horse from a merchant willing to trade with a NON ENEMY which you suspect might be an enemy one day.

Also tariffs do not apply for a foreigner who is IN YOUR NATION. They apply for exporting goods to other nations (which in elemental doesn't exist, period).

Now, if you want to argue GAMIST limitations that's different, but don't go saying that this is unrealistic.

Right now we are mostly backing up the core files and modding directly from there. If you are just doing a minor change to production, You would want to still probably do it this way. It's pretty easy to go in there and change the labor costs. A good starting project for any modder. Might want to check out the FE Modding threads for reference.

Oh and welcome to the dark side of the forums... 

I guess some people can not figure out how to manipulate the game settings to create a challenge. I think the set up options makes the game MORE playable since you can adjust a game difficulty (speed, resources, mana, etc) instead of just adjusting the AI difficulty. Learn to manage the set up options to make better games. Mos tlikely might take you a few tries to find out which setting makes the best game.

I agree with the OP as well, that for higher difficulty settings the SOV levelling is by a far reach the most viable approach left.

And that is not part of the core play idea of an empire SUPPORTED and not dominated by heroes (at least if I may believe this quote by Derek: "The core experience of Fallen Enchantress is building, leveling your units, leveling your cities, designing units, building things." here ).

Maybe I'm mistaken, but my suspicion is that the difficulties Ridiculous and Insanity were not introduced with any serious balance in mind but more as a clear marker for gamedesign, of what would need to be fixed. Namely, if it is possible to beat that level consistently, it is not intended to be possible and the balance will need to be addressed. Maybe I'm wrong, but that is my suspicion, the adavantages given are just so Ridiculous .ie. Insane

So what is making sov levelling so powerful atm? The Issues I'm seeing atm are:

1)The possibility to walk everywhere completely unmolested (Trait Masterscout)  - my suggestion would be to remove the NOT attack switch, the movement by itself is already awesome - I personally never use that skill anymore as it feels as if I'm cheating.

2)The ability to run circles around some of the tougher mobs in tactical combat (very tough mobs like obsidian Golem with only 2 movement, but where even only one hit would probably kill you), with sufficient initiative and movement of 4 (horses).  This is based on the Tactical AI making only one move and then stopping (for extra defense I'm assuming), when it is not able to reach the opponent, but is inside the movement range of the opponent. With unlimited turns, and as long as your initiative is sufficiently higher it is possible to keep chipping away at the mob, even if it takes forever. - My suggestion here would be to change AI programming to maximum move for closing in on enemy with out any regard for defensive bonus, as long as the power relationship is clearly in favour (STRONG vs MEDIUM etc.) AND/OR to install a max turn limit of something like 50, with anybody still alive at the end returned to starting health.

3)Wilderness is too easy/non threatening. Mobs are moving too slowly and allow easy picking off of monsters one by one. They seem to only attack if directly next to them, and even then only sometimes (still love the popup window even if most of the time nothing happens ). - My suggestion here would be to allow mobs to move at least 2 moves (not only the one) while looking for an opponent. Suddenly mob congestions would be much more dangerous.

Some steps have been taken along this route. Below a screenshot of 3 Obsidian Golems running FAR outside the imperium borders (imperium is located behind mountainrange to the east), but they were still only running around (admittedly scaring the bejeezus out of me the first time around, as I had only lvl 3 or so heroes then) and not attacking anything.

Then you will hate my life 5 spell Miracle Day. It gives all units max strategic regeneration and 1 tactical regeneration. That is all units in the game.

Nope, nothing wrong with that spell in terms of suspension of disbelief (although there might be balance issues).

It is a spell, and it has to be cast, and it costs mana. All of which are internally consistent and does not break suspension of disbelief. All of which were lacking from your previous suggestion which was not a spell, cost no mana, and had no justification or explanation... and was applied in some cases and no in others (full heal if it takes 50 rounds to fight but not full heal if you win at 49th round)

The problem with your previous suggestion was that it utterly disregards any sort of internal consistency

I"m not touching the default settings until release- I also believe testing needs to be done on default settings for the sake of balance.

While I'm ok with the production nerfs, they did buff heroes, who didn't need buffing.

Troops need to perform better vs melee heroes, especially groups of 5+.

Big monsters and magic should be the counter to troops.

I would really like to see a starting situation where:

1 Initial troops that you can build are more effective in combat than initial heroes.

2 Starting monsters scattered around the world are strong enough to beat initial heroes, but are defeat-able by starting heroes plus initial troops.

3 Heroes don't just become capable of beating starting monsters simply by exploring; combat is required.

I enjoy heroes becoming powerful as they level up. I just want them to be about at the level of 'a guy' at level 1. And have starting troops being '3 guys', and thus stronger than the heroes.

I would like to be able to play without free unprotected goodie huts that make heroes awesome without them having to do anything clever.