How much control do you want over unit design?

I'm almost positive that it has been long decided that units will be FULLY customizable from scratch. Heroes are characters you have to attract to your city, so there will be a more limited customization aspect for them. I don't think there's much left to debate here. 

I would like to see all units fully customisable, it's one of the big features that attracted me to the game. For me it's not just about their stats in the game it's about letting my imagination run wild, to units with very similar stats may have very different equipment names and descriptions. I want to be able to create my own world as I play so this is essential.

For me in GC2 designing ships never got old and was always fun. I'd like to be able to make cosmetic customisations as well like insignias, etc that serve no purpose other than making the unit look interesting.

For thos with no interest in being creative they should just supply some bog standard  templates at various levels of technology.

Option 4 for sure here.  One thing I wouldn't mind explored however is some more stats for units.  STR/DEX or AGI/STA or CON/INT or MAG

Base values for Attack and Defend could be derived from weapons and armor respectively.  STR would increase attack of course, but could also do other things like allow move movement while wearing heavy armor.  DEX or AGI would add evasion of attacks into the combat and also increase number of attacks and precision possibly.  STA or CON could increase movement and HP.  Finally INT or MAG could have a value added to attack for units carrying magical weapons and help resist the magical attacks of others on all characters.

Even if this isn't the way it goes, I truly would like to see more than seemingly simplistic Attack, Defend and HP with no real counters.  Something like in the Fire Emblem games could be interesting as well where certain weapon types are weak or strong vs. other weapon types.

This.

I'd like to have very limited control of the units' equipment. Frankly I find it very annoying to have to customize every single ship part in Galactic Civilizations 2. Something I would like to see though is a lot of special training customization. Training BasicJoe to ScubaJoe for those amphibious assaults etc. Leave the Vorpal Swords of +5 Decapitations to the heroes and let the basic infantry have their standard spears or swords et cetera. Naturally we'd still have special units too like knights or dragons etc that kind of thing

Heroes should be fully customizable with both gear and levelling up. I'm not a big fan of Medieval Total War's model where your family members and generals just kind of picks up traits as they go. It was very annoying to have your main heir suddenly develop insanity or heavy drinking. I say no thanks to that. I like a bit of control when it comes to heroes.

Yes, that's my understanding, too.  It just seemed to come up multiple times in the other thread and I was curious how people felt about that particular point, separate from the discussion of how resources enable unit production.

I love the idea of fully customizing my units.

However i can understand that not everyone may enjoy the tedium of twiddling unit designs. I guess the best is to provide an AI designer that will auomatically design 'default' units for you as you unlock new technologies.

Plus one other problem with fully customizable units is you may end up with every faction designing exactly the same army makeup with just very minor variations. That would make fighting and combat real boring as you are basically fighting the same basic units. Every faction will start to look like every other faction. How WoM will handle this i am not sure.

Optioin 4 totally.  Heck, I wish I could put unique tattoos on each of my soldiers.  Custom uniforms, weapons, faces, hats, ....the more the better.

Optioin 4 totally.  Heck, I wish I could put unique tattoos on each of my soldiers.  Custom uniforms, weapons, faces, hats, ....the more the better.

I think you should be able to make any unit you want. However along the lines of what Frogboy stated about wanting to make as much of it as possible equipment and only things like weapons and armor "required" for a specific unit, I think that there should be some very basic units provided - A scout, warrior, archer (and whatever "base" unit type might be needed. Then everything, including weapons and armor become merely equipment upgrades to this base unit. So a warrior might start with a stick and cloth armor. Then a Dread Knight would just use the warrior template and the better weapons and armor are upgrade equipment. Then you could have a setting to decide if a certain piece of equipment was not available, to either not create the unit, or to create it with the nearest available piece of the same type.

I think the more control the players have over various aspects of the game the better. I'm already afraid too many people are going to whine about micromanagement and we'll end up with a watered down kiddie game like Risk. Don't get me wrong, Rick is a good game for a board game, but it pales in comparison to any computer war game, as it should.

The key to Micromanagement is to allow Tons of it "If" the player so chooses but to also have an option to let the AI take over aspects of it.

If the player wants to Micromanage the hell out of a city they should have that power. Or they could "delegate" the AI to do it and the AI should be able to with ease and make intelligent decisions based on the players settings.

I also agree that micromanage is absolutely perfect if it has a well-made AI controlled alternative. Micromanagement can = barely surviving against a much superior AI foe. (or a bored human one)

What I would like to know on the units, is how commonplace Cavalry units are, and wether you simply need to build a stables first, or if you have to find a free-range herd of Horses to slowly domesticate.

Also, if mounted units (like cavaliers, horsearchers, Men-At-Arms, and Cataphracts) can mount and dismount. I would really only see Men-At-Arms or Knights (heavy armor) actually wanting to dismount in any circumstance, for instance taking a city and/ or fighting in close quarters.

Another question of Unit availability is Giant Spiders and Dragons. Will you be able to capture these units? Would a dragon require you to defeat it in combat AND pay a large gold tribute? Would a spider join your side with defeat plus some magical artifact/ artificer? Is there some kind of beastmaster unit that can capture lesser creatures soley through battle, like Cyclops, Giant Lizards, and Giant Tigers?

What lengths say, would I need to go to for a primarily cavalry army spearheaded by a great Dragon? possibly some giant lizards and giant spiders as well.

//And yes to customability, it would be great to have a custom-elite core called the "dragon core" loyal to Soverein first and Dragon second, with some giant flame emblem on their armor. and/ or tatoos.

In a completely non related topic, is it possible to have an arcane spell that can have a select elite group of horses grow wings? and or capture/train Pegasi?

Also, can the Soverein capture/train a designated mount? and can said royal steed have its own level?

// possible royal steeds being Tigers, Boars, Horses (of course), Pegasi, Psuedo-Dragons, Wyrmlings, Griffons, Giant Lizards, Dinosaur rip-offs of some sort, ect.

Option 4, completely customizable units.

In that theme, I'd suggest item slots for each unit. Items can be swapped in a city or after a battle to pickup or equip loot. Everybody understands a character doll with item slots and a backpack with slots. These are fun things to be able to customize on a unit.

I want my veteran units to be unique using funky stuff they picked up along the way.

Not to get too off topic but I'll defend my other hobbies here, Risk is a shallow kiddie game for a boardgame.  If it were a computer game it would clearly be in the minesweeper - solitare catagory.

Aye, risk as a boardgame is quite shallow, a moderately fun game to play, but still shallow.

That being said, its always fun to play risk while pertending there are added complexities and micro, for instance all those modified rule versions of risk -> have many browser based conquerer game spin-offs.

I don't know of any empire-building turn-based strategy game that's anywhere close to being as simple as Risk but cut the game some slack, it's over 50 years old. I digress.

I'm not sure I really care too much about the customization of units in the vanilla rules. What matters most to me is how moddable the units are so that I can replicate all of the units from MoM.

Personally I think as long as the AI is good enough to handle everything on its own, players should have the option to customize as much as is possible.

One of the brilliant parts of Medieval Total War 2 was the variation in troop appearances. Watching a couple dozen brightly coloured knights charge down a hill was made much more impressive when each knight had his own random outfit, some knights had pot-helms, some had round shields, etc. One of the biggest tragedies was this feature getting axed when Empire Total War came out

I did not know the uniform variation was missing in Empire: Total War. If they cut it out in order to include better AI coding (as I have heard empire AI is somewhat better?) then yay.

however, if they only did so to cut costs .... then shame on them, tsk tsk.

I really, really hope we can equip monsters. At least those that can be equipped.

Reminds me of a Polar Bear wielding Orthus's Axe.

Or of a dragon wielding the Nether Blade.

 Does anyone remember the Unit Workshop from Sid's Alpha Centauri/ Alien Crossfire? Now, that was a decent unit engine for the time. 

However, upgrade choices in that classic game was only based on tech. I would like to see this based on resources, buildings, and specialists as well.

And yes, you will have to have pre-set units. Some folks just want to explore, quest, and conquer. They do not want to have thier event box spammed to make 10 units everytime a new tech, resource, or building is achieved. It should be seemless as possible and not a monotonous mechanic.

Just as long as it has a better Design/Unit Manager than Alpha Centauri. It was an absolute nightmare trying to slowly scroll through the list of units in order to delete those old designs one at a time.

I suppose for me it depends on what 'fully customizable' actually involves. What I've seen described looks like you're choosing weapon, armor, equipment, and training time - That's three core choices plus however much equipment you want. Not exactly something that's going to trip people up, and I want the option to field whatever sort of units I want rather than being limited to certain choices.

On the other hand I could do without having to create my own model for every single unit type I make during the game. That's something that got frustrating in GalCiv - all my units end up looking the same because I've got 30 different designs and I don't really want to spend half an hour on each one giving them a unique look. That's not to say don't have that - just as a default, yeah, it would be nice if I could just throw together the equipment I want and have the unit look nice without going through and specifically placing every graphical detail.

Ditto.