It's only OP right now because the AI doesn't use it. That's it, that's the only thing OP about these training bonuses. Once the AI uses them they will be balanced.

Why would anyone need a counter to archers? I just spent half this thread trying to defend bows as not being completely underpowered. The counter to archers is plate armor. I don't really think they need to bring accuracy into it, having units that always miss a lot against everything isn't fun. There's also the accessory that adds +20 dodge vs range though. It's just another case of the AI not currently utilizing the options available to it. If I make a mostly archer army and starting wiping AI stacks with them, it should be redesigning it's troop for extra armor and range dodge, some other games react like that to player strategy, stacking the appropriate defense against whatever the player is using most often.

The AI currently picks units mostly at random from a list of predefined units, then applies a non-intelligent "upgrade" mechanic to those units. We are playing against an AI with a severe tactical handicap, which is the only reason all these valid unit strategies seem so overpowered. We don't want to nerf the fun out of the game because the AI is still so bad at these things. If you feel overpowered and like you are chewing through the AI lines unimpeded then ramp up the difficulty, let them cheat, on insane they have double the health and several times the number of units. They still can't design effective troops or use them effectively, but brute force and numbers will likely still be a challenge. If not you can easily increase the AI's multipliers on any difficulty setting in the game files, make Insane 5x AI health if you want.

I think they finally got troop design and training somewhere good, I really don't want to see that changed at all, other than to start adding more variety and options to what we have.

To me, it's not so much that the weapons themselves are over/underpowered, it's that initiative in its current form is WAY too important. Being able to act 3 times as often as the opponent occasionally - I don't think this should be allowed, ever. IMHO, initiative needs a nerf - yeah, higher initiatve still needs to go first, and on SUPER big differences you can act more often, but you shouldn't be able to reach the 3x level so easy.

I've had an army where I sadly neglected initiative, and they were getting an action to every 4 actions of the bad guys...  not much I can do with that one. I know, you say 'well don't neglect initiative', and I shouldn't - that was a poor tactical decision on my part. But I still maintain it shouldn't have such a huge impact - a big impact, yes, but not the level with which it does now.

Honestly I really want counterattack, when defending as one ability for spears. Currently all these abilities that trigger when defending seem rather lackluster to me as I really only "defend", when I can't do anything else.

I fully agree, but I can also understand the design decision to remove the damage types as the related armor value was:

a Hidden in the armor tool tip

b Didn't really seem to matter that much

However I really liked the weapon and armor mechanics in the master's affliction mod, e.g. chain mail being crap against blunt weapons.

I am currently obsessing a bit on how to balance weapons and so far I am thinking about 3 steps for balancing, but I really need to fully understand the math before I can put numbers to the idea, but let me maybe explain the basic idea.

1. Balancing the damage over time.

Generally all weapons of a certain tech level and which are for example one-handed should (in this step) do the same damage against an unarmored target, i.e. weapons having an init modifer or weigh more than the basic value X either receive a damage buff depending on whether they make you attack faster or slower. Indirect init reduction via weight should generally lead to a slightly higher damage than direct init dbuffs as they also reduce the remaining weight capacity.

2. Factoring in the effectiveness against armor

Basically armor penetration should be based on the type of damage: Cut, pierce or blunt. Cut would be the baseline meaning 0% penetration (Yes, I know that straight blades are used differently than curved blades). Spears are imho OK at 50% penetration. Maces should be somewhere between 50 and 75% penetration (I am a bit unsure here). Giving a weapon armor penetration would then mean reducing the base damage. Swords with 0% penetration would then be highly effective against unarmored and lightly armored targets and being rather pointless against targets in plate. Maces on the other hand would really shine against better armored targets while being rather mediocre against unarmored targets.

3. Special abilities

Baseline (backswing, counterattack, immune to counter, bash): Those are imho pretty close, but might need some fine tuning.

Special abilities (the fun part): Those should really be balanced against each other without taking the other stages in account. Imho the mace special and cleave are pretty close. Like I already said cleave just needs daze upon use. The same point could be made for impale I guess.

General thoughts on specials: I really disliked the removal of the great sword and I actually wondered why an ability like "Cleave", which game play wise actually seems like a swing in a big arch can't be bound to two-handed (non spear) weapons in general. Partially this is now the case with axes being two handed, but imho it would fit to the great sword just as well.

Instead of the blunt, pierce etc.  what about using shards within a cities ZOC to imbue your weapons with elemental damage?  Or make that Conclave specific so that a Fortress troops might have high init, but a Conclave's troops might have ice spears with a -2 init per hit frost effect.

I REALLY like how the Rise of the Magi mod handled this and would love to see mqpiffle's elemental damages get incorporated into the game.

 From the ROTM mod thread:

  ** Elemental tactical damage spells now have interesting side effects based on the element.  For instance, fire damage spells now have a burn effect, which applies a short DoT; cold damage spells have a frostbite effect, which applies an initiative debuff and a dodge debuff; lightning damage spells have a shock effect, which applies a disorienting (clumsy) effect and a debuff to accuracy; poison damage spells have an envenom effect, which applies weakening effects like attack debuffs and weight capacity debuffs.
    ** and much more.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/436647/page/7/#3327420

It may not have been a forest drake. It was big, breathed fire, and had cleave. Now, earlier, there had been an event that raised the level of all tamed monsters, it might have affected said monster as well.

The problem was, it wasn't just a forest drake. It also had an army of drakes, that had some dangerously high attack as well. Add to that, all of them had higher initiative than any of my troops, and things just did not work. My Drolgard were supposed to kill off the drake armies, but bad positioning and a crit fire breath killed a lot of them. The rest only managed to cull half the pack before being eaten.

The Iron Golems came next. They managed to finish off the rest of the adds, but didn't have the strength to take down the monster itself, even with the swarm bonus.

I noticed that it was low on health, and sent one of my warg-mounted spearmen to attack. He got killed. So, I trained two more, at a 3 essence charge fortress with heart of fire, and initiative enchantments on it (can't recall the third) and sent them out to finally down the monster.

I agree, it should be possible to use a hero to counter one of the heavy monsters. The problem is, they'd take so much time, experience and gildar to get to that point, that it would be easier just to design a new soldier to counter that monster, and overwhelm it with superior numbers. Hoping that you don't end up feeding it enough xp that it levels, and walks all over your cities instead. I really don't want to see how bad the dragons are now, they have all of the power of a forest drake, + higher level and fear.