Ooh, I had another thought:

How about having an option to vary the level to which armies are abstracted to single units? For example, for quick battles each man on the field could represent 10 (or 100) actual troops, and be stronger accordingly, as has been done in lots of other games. The battle would probably be quicker - the dudes just need to run up to each other and kill each other dead - but also not particularly deep or satisfying. For the more hardcore, the troops could be arrayed out in Total War style, with every man present. This would be much more exciting, but also more time consuming.

I also had a question about tiles. How would you go about representing units on a tile system? It's not obvious that it would work well.

Finally, I'm also sad that the continuous turns option has been dropped. Seemed like a best-of-both-worlds option to me. It seems this decision's already been made, but it seemed worth commenting anyway.

Randomisation Please

- have the terrain match the world map.

Combat Speed

from the film, Sauron was slow but had an Area of Effect attack with his huge melee weapon.

Tactical Battle Length

I really disagree with the 'attacker becoming exhausted' suggestion. A siege, after all, depends on the reverse. Combat should last as long as it lasts. If it goes on too long then both sides should take increasing penalties - perhaps even damage - to eventually force them to end the battle. But battles should last a long time in some cases.

AoW - SM battles were awesome.

Just want to add that it would be nice if the option to 'auto resolve' a battle was available at any time during a fight.  If the battle is a bunch of weaklings you don't give a dang about, then you can hit it at the onset of the battle and skip right to the end.   If there are several strong units, you can fight it out yourself, then once one side has effectively 'lost' before it's over, you can hit it to avoid having to mop up the remnants manually.   Having to set the paramaters in the options before starting a game, then have it apply across the board to every battle, wouldn't work very well, imho.  I'm not going to know if I want every battle to be resolved automatically once 1/4 of my units are gone, etc etc. 

As far as the point Alexwilber makes on abstracting the armies to single units, Fantasy General does this pretty well.  In FG, units that are single entities (heroes, machines, dragons, etc) have their basic hp's, while units that are actual units of men have a count of 'men' instead of hp's.  These units lose attack and defense strength as they take damage, because they are actually losing men, and can only regain those men by visiting a city and recruiting (or resting, if the lost men were only injured instead of being killed), and replacing those men also costs the unit some experience.  A unit of veterans that has to re-recruit half it's force won't be a veteran unit anymore...  Single entity units stay at full strength as they take damage until they die, and can heal their damage simply by resting. 

Units' battle speeds....  does anyone here remember Wizard's Crown or Eternal Dagger?  In those games, units with higher speeds went first, but *in addition*, a unit with say a speed of 20 would not only go before a unit with a speed of 10, he would also get to move twice as often.  Speeds on both sides were lumped into the same pool, it wasn't 'your turn, ai's turn, your turn, ai's turn' but 'Your guy with speed 20 goes first, then the ai's guy with a speed of 19 goes next".  I don't remember how ties were handled, maybe with the flip of a coin?

 Edit: (from the post below)  'What I always held is that tactical combat should be allowed to span multiple strategic turns.  Combat lasts 10 tactical turns and then 'stops' to be resumed on the next strategic turn.  Both armies are pinned to the tile during "Strategic Phase".'

^^ I second that, that would be awesome.  Never seen that in a game before.

WINNER. TAKE. ALL

--------

I definitely don't like this line of reasoning.

For starters, why turn N?  What if at turn N the attacker nearly decimated the defender?

Secondly, I think this will promote the super-stack mentality where you want to stack your best offensive units into a single pile (MOO2)

Battles then become incredibly decisive.

What I always held is that tactical combat should be allowed to span multiple strategic turns.  Combat lasts 10 tactical turns and then 'stops' to be resumed on the next strategic turn.  Both armies are pinned to the tile during "Strategic Phase".

That plus a sensible stacking limit would allow for multiple battles to develop, with re-enforcements arriving and perhaps wounded units leaving.

It would allow for tile enchantment spells to be cast depending on the progress of the battle.

Nor do I like the idea of "Withdrawal with set losses".  In MoM fleeing gave 50% chance of losing a unit PER UNIT.  Regardless of whether attacking units were all 3x as fast as defending units and/or attacking units were flying while defenders could not.

A fast and agile force should be able to withdraw with little penalty from an engagement with a heavy and slow one.

This sounds very simular to how Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift does its combat, with a group of soldiers, being controlled across a tile-based battlefield.  I actually like that, like a game of chess where each type of unit has its own abilities, strength and weaknesses.

By customizing a unit, say with heavy armour and a spear, you make a tanking soldier that can attack at a greater range and do damage to multiple enemies infront of them.  That is a great way to do combat, and one of my personal favorites.

But my suggestion, is if you have a mage-character or your Soverign in the attack, is to have magics that can literally change the structure of the battlefield.  I know its been talked about, and deformitable terrain is a green-light, but can it be done on the tactical combat level? Can you cast a spell that turns a section of terrain tiles into a swamp to bog down your enemies, or set a forest tile on fire to burn them?

And what about the system of king arthur : when you have a battle there is victory points on the battlefield. If you control more VP than your opponent you start gaining morale and your enemy loses some. That's a very good way to create active battles.

But once you "know" a map, then you will be able to win whenever you want (or almost)

So I vote for random generated maps and NO for losing morale after N turns.

And I stringly disagree with WTA : if there's so much risk involved, then I will avoid combat at all cost, unless I can win at 95%. Moreover, hit and run tactics can't be used.

But, something must be done about the ever fleeing units : a unit that flee MUST have remaining movement points. So if you scouted too far away and get caught you can't retreat. It adds an interesting layer to scouting.

Combat Speed

I dislike movement speed = number of attack per combat turn.  There are a lot of voices about us not liking this months ago.   I try to withhold my judgment until the combat beta comes out, to see why Brad is so happy about it.

 Morale

Hopefully, the mechanics that govern its change will be realistic.  An archer that runs of ammo, or discover their arrow cannot pierce opponent's exotic armor should have their morale dropped quickly. 

 Morale of individual stacks should persist many game turns, until it returns back to its normal level.   Conditions like fatigue, killing a dragon/heor/sov, getting reinforcement should be well implemented by the morale engine.

 WTA

Combat that should be allowed to lasts multiple days.   It is epic, fun, and resolve a lot of problems.  "Combat ends after N combat sub-turns", but it is continued when next game turns arrive.   Enforcement can be brought in from both side (and allies) when next game turn arrive.

 For normal humanoid, morale drops slightly the next day due to fatigue, unless they are the defenders under siege.   Troops that cannot be affected by fatigue won't face this kind of morale penalty (e.g. undead, dragon)

 Stacks "retreat when their morale fails" & panic.  Their exit to the edge (to the side they come from) is not controllable by player.  A % will be lost during their escape, this % depends on a whether the player is winning or losing the battle, or the movement speed of the stack, or is it a hero/Sov.

 Players should be allowed individual stack to "withdraw orderly", by moving to the edge of map.   However, if the player lost the battle that day (i.e. all remaining units killed), those withdrawn unit are regarded as retreated units instead.  So, a % of them will be lost too.

 The combat map should be large, compare to humanoid sizes.  It should take a rider maybe 4 turns to retreat to the map edge.  (I don't meant I've to move for 4 turns before I engage my opponent when combat starts)

 Controlling the length of a tactical battle

Multiple approaches are needed to resolve this issue.

1) Find a way to discourage kiting (in a big combat map)

2) Break the normal game turn into 2 phrases.  1st phrase is the strategic planning (using waypoints).  2nd phrase is the actual tactical combat whenever opposing stacks collide.     As a pre game option,  players need to agree on the maximum number of combat is possible in each 2nd phrase.   Most important combats are fought first, i.e. battles that involve Sov, or largest quantity/quality of combatant.   If the number of combats exceed the maximum allotted, all those lesser combats are auto-resolved.

3) Since TC phrase at the same time for all players, EWOM can arrange it in a clever way that all players can fight simultaneously. 

4) Referring to "Combat ends after N combat sub-turns" above, each sub-turns can have a time limit.   This time limit is a pre-game option too.

 Randomization vs. Richness

I am opting for the in-btn, as some of us mentioned above.   Hundreds of small premade maps should be used as "stamps" that overlay on randomly generated battlefield (that reflects local terrain)

 Once this map is generated, it is persistent for the whole game.  So when there is another battle happening at the same locale, the exact same map is used.

Winner.Take.All

If Stardock is still reading this, I’m definitely on the side of allowing retreat options.  This is a standard and useful feature of tactical battles.  I think a good solution is to allow a retreat option, but then the retreating team loses a certain percentage of units.  Consider that loss the winning team’s continued attack on the withdrawing team.

That solution penalizes the retreating team considerably, but still allows the loser a chance to “live to fight another day.”  The problem with “winner take all,” as already noted, is that people would just save/reload every major battle just to see how it works out.  By allowing retreat (w/ penalties), it makes for a more realistic and fun gaming experience.

Randomization vs. Richness

I really like the idea of strategic battlefields.  However, I am more in favor of random battlefields for replay purposes.  Even if we have 100 strategic battlefields, after hours and days of play, they will become very familiar.  It might become too easy to exploit features of a known battlefield.

If there is a battlefield editor included in the game, I would support this idea.  Allowing players a tool to edit/create battlefields and then add them to the game would greatly enhance the “strategic battlefield” feature.  Of course, there will be an issue of quality associated with player-created battlefields, but the better player-designers will become well known for their maps.  Perhaps even add a system where players can rank other player-created battlefields.  This would enable the cream to rise to the top, so to speak.

Without such a system in place, I support the randomization option.  One other thought to consider is allowing both options.  From the game set-up menu, allow players themselves to choose whether they want “pre-made” or “random” tactical battlefield maps.  This means more work for Stardock, but it’s an idea.

Thank you for this post and reading all these ideas.  My apologies if this is a repeat of other posters (I only read half the predecessor posts).

 WINNER TAKE ALL-  It’s a strong personal preference of mine that two men enter, one man leaves. (Your heroes will tend to escape though).

 I can see your point to limit rinse-and-repeat battles; however I think it needs to be looked at from a different perspective:  instead of one boxing round consider it a short boxing MATCH.  Your morale system can ultimately help address this and many other issues.  This impacts some of the game mechanics you are mentioning in the post as follows:

 As battlefield events occur (OMG! They killed our Deadly Dragon) morale ultimately will drop for both sides.  Your High Morale (25% combat bonus) will drop to Normal Morale (no bonus) to Low Morale (25% combat penalty) and ultimately to Panic (you don’t control them).  When they Panic, or you choose to Withdraw (same outcome) – they flee from battle.  N-turns in Battle is therefore when everyone is dead (rare) or everyone on one side is in rout.

 When everyone is in chosen/forced withdrawal you get the screen (All forces are Routing, do you wish to continue the Battle?).  If yes, this will allow the opposing AI/Player to extend N+Y turns.  For those that don’t wish the tedium, auto-resolve with some algorithm where some routers get massacred in the chase-down.  End of boxing Round 1.

 Routed units now have temporarily dropped "long-term" (5 turns? 10?) their Morale by one level (e.g. High to Normal)…all Low Morale units have dropped to a Panic and flee home to Mama.  Now, we have a stack that is potentially ripe for abuse—the opponent attacks this “weakened Morale/#’s force”.  If this weakened stack flees the battlefield again, Morale takes ANOTHER hit.  End round 2. 

 The severely weakened force is attacked once again in its particularly sorry state.   Even if all original units started at High Morale, if they lose round 3 (likely) they will all have panicked and permanently fled to the hills.  No more stack. End of boxing match—last man standing—after round 3.

 This implies the following game mechanics:  A) N-turns is based on the battle's outcome and player choice, not some artificial boundary. Retreats are allowed (not eliminated). C) Your Morale mechanic has another important use.  D) If an entire “castle/stronghold” panics they surrender (threw that one in :)). E)  If desired, the battle can be auto-resolved at any point; there is also an automatic resolution question asked upon the rout of all opposing forces.

 I would very much like to see any battle that is originally auto-resolved be initially watchable (ala GalCiv) and then, based on the outcome bar progress, I could interject myself such that I could then go to the tactical battle map at any point (with the remaining forces) if I so chose.

 Randomization vs. Richness.  The best idea I’ve seen is custom maps for those special “repeated locales” on the map with the majority being randomized.

Whoops dbl post.

I have some thoughts.

Combat Speed:

Combat speed should be like action points it takes a certain number to attack. And when moving your movement speed should simply affect how efficiently you can convert your action points to movement.

Morale:

Morale yay! Morale is awesome! Now if only we could add in some fatigue system too.

Winner take all:

No please. Consider this alternate idea. Retreating takes organization. When order a retreat the game should calculate how organized your retreat will be based on a number of factors. First off it will consider the leadership, good leaders can hold together their troops during a retreat. Also it will consider the experience, training and morale of each individual unit. Then it will consider situational factors like if the unit is currently engaged in battle if it is and cannot disengage then that unit will be forced to rout and will be extremely penalized. Ultimately at the end based on this calculation a force will lose a certain percentage of it's units some to death, some to desertion, some may show up scattered in following turns.

This will make a big difference between experienced harassing cavalry archers that can take some shots and then pull back possibly with no losses to fight again and a disorganized infantry force that will have to rout to disengage and your units will end up dead, captured, scattered or deserting.

Ultimately though ANYONE who disengages from combat will become tired. If there is no fatigue system then just add a trait like fatigued and if the enemy chooses to chase and has units fast enough to run yours down you'll be at a significant disadvantage in the battle next turn. If you attack and retreat multiple turns without rest then give a more severe penalty like exhausted. This represents all the extra leg work a harrying force is doing.

To balance the time problems auto-resolve should have options. So when you get your list of battles the ones you choose auto-resolve for should have options on how you want the battle to be auto-resolved so a regular land battle might have: Attack, Skirmish, Hold. A siege battle might have: Storm, Bombard, Maintain Siege. This will allow the player more control and interesting options while not dragging out games.

Threshholds:

Rather than threshholds have a max number of battles that you can play tactical decided on at game start in multi-player (I'm figuring one). And if the other guy chooses tactical then you get to play tactical in that one too.

Length of Tactical Battle:

With the above limitation tactical battles that last 10-20 min depending on size with the largest most epic late game battles lasting up to 30-40 min maybe would be good I think. As long as those long battles are really decisive.

Randomization vs Richness:

What I really want here is that if I fight one battle on a tile in the world map and then another battle on the same tile then the battleground should be the same. This allows for battlegrounds to have character. The only way I see to do that is to have each tile get assigned a certain battlefield to it that will only change if the terrain is significantly altered. If you have a large enough selection of premade or you could make premade templates with some randomized features based on environment I think that would be ideal.

Well that's my two cents. Thanks for reading.

And on Winner. Take. All. I've been reading that there needs to be severe penalties or penalties of some type but if one is conducting hit and runs then do they suffer a penalty? I think there needs to be an option that you can choose for your army before the battle so it at least knows what you plan to do. I.E. you could have options like, delaying action, defend, attack, last stand, hit and run, siege etc. so that at least your army's morale might be more manageable so-to-speak. It's not set in stone when the battle begins, it just gives your army an idea of your plans so that morale can adjust to the situation. Also, if I want to conduct a fighting retreat by having certain units retreat and others fight rearguard, this should affect the army's morale in a negatively positive way. What I mean is that your troops morale is not deducted like if your army just broke and ran helter-skelter. I'm also assuming that if one's army fights within their borders they have a morale bonus, and if it's close to cities or towns it's doubled to some extent, but no to the point where peasants fight like knights armed with fireballs, just more stubborn and not likely to retreat unless things are going really really bad or you ordered them to. Also before ordering a retreat you must engage in some form of combat with at least a 1/4th or 1/3rd of your army before being allowed to retreat... or something like that.

this is brilliant!     I wonder that no one thought of this before you did.

in terms of MP gameplay: as the game progresses, you'll have larger armies fighting longer battles, but the game wont suffer an exponential slow-down, as the number of battles will increase at worst linearly.

in terms of strategy: the idea of needing to adjust my battle strategy because of events unfolding on the strategy map is incredibly exciting.

in terms of sov powers: having sov. powers affecting battles between turns sounds like it could be fun too.

But it doesn't get rid of the "you enter battle, your opponent flee, you enter battle 2, your opponenet flee, you enter battle 3, your opponent flee, etc."

But !

You can get rid of with : a fleeing unit MUST have remaining movement points. So if you scout too far and finish your turn with no movement points, then your unit won't be able to flee.

WINNER. TAKE. ALL

Personally, I really don't like the 'Winner Take All' Approach, I also don't really like the approach they used in Rome: Total War.

The problem with these approaches, I think, is that they encourage all clashes to be decisive battles, and not only are not all real clashes straightforward, decisive battles, but it reduces the amount of tactics you can use.

Let's say a large opposing concentrated force is making it's way towards your capital, and all your forces are divided. In that case guerrilla  warfare should be an option:

The problem I had in Rome: Total War, is that to harry the enemy, or charge in, strike, and retreat, meant you 'lost' and lost your morale, and it was counted as a 'failure' as you as a leader, even if you eventually destroyed the approaching army through superior tactics. That sucks.

If you can engage a larger army with smaller, more mobile forces, and whittle down it's strengths before a major battle, this should not be counted as a loss, and cause your soldiers to lose their moral and your commanders to be considered losers.

Back to Rome: TW, I'll elaborate on this scenario: A massive Gallic army was marching towards my capital but my main army was off in their territory conquering. I knew the army would break my garrison if they attacked, so along the way I sent in cavalry and archers on their path; the cavalry could tire out some of the units or lead them astray into an ambush, so over time I cost the enemy army units, by engaging; attacking, retreating. I eventually weakened them to the point they lost when they got to my capital.

Winner take all may make the game faster, but it robs us of tactical options; so does the idea of 'loss' enforced by the computer. You retreat=you lose, is not necessarily true, especially if you have a plan. Morale should be based on losses of men and numbers, not retreats.

Edit: The thing I didn't like about Rome: TW's system is that everytime I retreated after killing an enemy unit or weakening it significantly with cavalry/archers, it counted as a loss, played sad music, and made my commander consider it a loss, rather than a continuous harrying attack.

As far as Controlling the length of a tactical battle goes I would have it as an option. I perfer no time limit and people I would play would also perfer to play with no time limit in MP or SP but I realize that some people like the game to only last 5 minutes so an option would be best that is set up by the host. But please allow an option for no time limit. I perfer to have the battle end when it ends

I do so enjoy strategy game forums. Better discussions, and nobody calls me a noob

Initiative / combat speed being separate from attacks per turn is intuitive, but joining them isn't catastrophic unless implemented unwisely - I'd like to just speak to the theorycrafter argument well-phrased a page back. Your point about scaling only applies if stats are linearly linked. If +1 damage is always +1 damage per attack, sure, more speed is a heavy weight. If damage is spread out over your available attacks, though, it normalizes well at the risk of feeling nerfed.

There's a big split between random and premade maps, but the mixed idea seems great. Some set pieces, some map seeds (let's have a mountain, a river, a copse of trees, and here's 25% of the map space to randomize or throw in artifacts from the overland map), and maybe even some totally random maps give a great balance. The argument that you'll learn the map if it's not random each time and know what to do isn't overly compelling given that if you play the game that much, you'll derive a lot more value from learning the *mechanics of the game* and using them to your advantage.

Winner takes all can really be done either way, but too liberal an escape system allows for the infuriating situation of your vast legions not being able to squash a small force that's harrying your otherwise idyllic countryside.Too strict a system has problems too, of course, and if retreats are in, the way they are handled will go a long way to keep our porridge just right.

Thumbs up to the previous mention of combats taking more than one overland turn. Not that every combat should, of course, but if the programming supports it there are some interesting situations that can come up with long battles. It also creates a curious set of options regarding retreats/disengages. Even if there's no desire to support those options, there's something pretty epic about a pair of giant armies slugging it out as seasons change. Or one giant-thewed, armored wall of a warlord standing in the narrow cleft in the mountain, booming "NONE SHALL PASS" and making good on that promise for days on end =D

(Also, in case it wasn't clear from my first phrasing, having multi-turn battles changes around the gameplay mechanics compared to having a long supply chain of reinforcements trickling in for both sides and hammering each other anew turn by turn. At present, units are a little longer to make, a little less cavalierly disposable, and multi-turn battles allows the siege / warcamp opportunities without the pawn rush production requirement)

I am posting comments without looking at other people's reply since I have no time:

Morale: In r3k6 each side had a morale level that is indirectly a timer. If one side reaches 0 before the other, the battle ends.

I like having battles with multiple ways to victory. The ones I am thinking right now:

- Morale reach 0: The battle dragged too long and a winner needs to be found.

- Anhilation: You kill almost everybody in the opposite army and or the only units left are in rout.

- Tactical victory: You captured key points that prevented the battle from going on: Exemple: captured a keep and the food supplies, the ennemy needs to retreat.

WINNER. TAKE. ALL: I like when it is possible to have some survivors, but  to prevent cheap retreat, consider that there could always be a cost to retreat which would still make the retreating player lose something but not everything.

Controlling the length of a tactical battle:  Considering the number of battles in the game, A few minutes would be top unless it's a very large and important battle. There should be options to resolve a battle faster without going into the details. Maybe not a decision took in game but rather at game setup for multiplayer games.

Randomization vs. Richness: Why not combine both: You can define that this city or this area has x, y and Z important stuff on the battle field. Generate a random battle field and add the key stuff. OR like in R3K11, the world map and tactical map is actually the same map.

I'm one of those guys.  I like to have the overall picture dictate the victory more than the tiny battles, therefore, I would like tactical battles (though important) to not be the primary focus of the game in multiplayer.  In single player?  Oh yeah, I'll fights those battles all day.  :)

Man, how could I miss this pic from the internets?

Is it supposed to look similar to this? Me wants.

I agree with this. Premade things should be fitted randomly into random maps.

Winner take all: No. As people have said before it would encourage blobbing, and therefore really reduce the amount of strategy in this game. Not allowing retreats would really hurt mobile units. What people really have to consider is the interaction between tactical combat and normal turns in multiplayer, and this would really hurt multiplayer. I hate the idea of one army in one big blob hitting another in one spot, and then suddenly game is over for the loser. It would also make combat on multiple fronts really hard.

I like what frogboy said about timed matches that eventually end. It reminds me of the desperate battles in the lord of the rings movies.

What I suggest is that turns end fairly quickly with the attacker given just enough time to overwhelm the defender. However if he fails the defender would rally and have a few seconds to push him back, gaining bonuses and inflicting causalities in that short period. Instead of ending there however the attacker could choose to attack again next turn with what he has left.   Why should tactical combat take only one turn no matter how large the armies involved. Real life battles sometimes took more then a day. To counter the defending bonus attacker would get flanking and other bonuses. Also this would make sure combat didn`t last forever in multiplayer games.

Units could then semi retreat by avoiding the enemy for the attackers given attack period, but this would only work if they were more mobile and would put your units out of defensive position. This would allow people to save their heroes by holding off the enemy with other units. It would also allow the attacker to harry them with their own fast units, and make even retreating a careful and highly strategic chess game.

Games would not be to prolonged because good strategy would decide how many of you units survive if any. If outside of combat armies move at the speed of their slowest unit then players could be forced to sacrifice their slow units and just keep their fast stuff. Multiturn combat would also allow players to sacrifice units to stall enemy armies in order to bring in reinforcements or allow other to retreat. Battles would be taking place relative to the real world not instantly. Imagine trying your best to frantically stall an enemy horde for a few more turns so you can fortify or send help to your sieged city. Or deciding to split your cavalry from your main force in order to pursue and harry a fleeing foe.

I rest my case.

Before you read the part of this I wrote, please understand I have the HIGHEST Respect for Frogboy, the Entire Stardock Team, and I am NOT "Calling them out" in Any Way-shape-or form. The end of my post may come off as rude or challenging and I DO NOT mean it to sound that way. I apologize in advanced if it comes off that way.

Frogboy, here is a Massive List of Quotes from this thread. I spent over a hour copying them. I could have copied Almost EVERY SINGLE POST in this thread to explain what I'm about to, but I stopped with just these.

Quotes:

Why did I quote all those? Well, if you go back and count EVERY REPLY, then Subtract replies made by the same person, you will OBVIOUSLY SEE that ALMOST EVERYONE DISAGREES with these new concepts you are introducing to Tactical Battles. You even do a bit of "Double Talk" in your own OP without realizing it (either that or you thought no-one would notice). Here's what you say, just in a different order...

Quoting Frogboy,

Controlling the length of a tactical battle.  We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be. Should a tactical battle finish in less than a minute or should they last 2 hours? How do we make it so that players can control this?

Before that Frogboy says this...

WINNER. TAKE. ALL. This is the part where we want to hear your opinions. We do ask that you keep an open mind on what we ultimately go with.  My opinion is that the attacking player has the onus to finish the battle in N turns. After N turns, the attacker morale starts to go lower and lower at which point the defender can come out and make mince meat out of them.  The question is, what should determine what N is?  Or should we allow retreating? Should we allow draws?  I’m against retreats or withdraws because it’s one of those things that allows the game to drag on. It’s a strong personal preference of mine that two men enter, one man leaves. (Your heroes will tend to escape though).

(The BOLD Parts are the REAL Important parts of what he says there)

By stating "My opinion is that the attacking player has the onus to finish the battle in N turns. After N turns, the attacker morale starts to go lower and lower at which point the defender can come out and make mince meat out of them." he goes DIRECTLY AGAINST what he just said saying "We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be."...

There is a Direct Contradiction RIGHT THERE. If those limiting ideas are implemented then YOU DO TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PLAYER....PERIOD.

The only Logical Option is to simply Realize that THE PLAYER can CHOOSE to AUTO-RESOLVE the battle at ANY TIME. THE PLAYER decides how Long or Short a battle is. It SHOULD NOT be decided by some artificial time limitation.

It's just like the debate going on in some replies in this thread about Movement Speed being Directly Applied to Attack Speed. Why is that exactly? Because , Again, they Chose to Simplify The System. They boiled it down instead of having two separate calculations for speed. Why not just include a new parameter called "Weapon Speed" WITHOUT US MODDING IT IN?

Now I hope Some of You people see why SIMPLIFYING THINGS IS F'KING BAD!!!!!! Dumbing Down a System and Making it Less-Complicated is BAD!!!!! It purposefully ADDS DESIGN FLAWS!!!!

Just because something is complicated behind the scenes doesn't mean The Player will be Bogged Down with Micromanagement. This is a Strategy War Game people!!! Treat it like one and stop turning it into a game of F'king Checkers!!!!

I've seen companies do this On The Inside. I Am and Have Been a PROFESSIONAL Beta Tester for MANY Companies. I know the "Real" reasons why things are simplified and it isn't Always what they tell people it is (No I'm NOT accusing Stardock of this, just saying I've seen it first hand). Some companies do it to make it easier on THEM-SELVES, because they are LAZY, or because continued Development Costs are Too Expensive.

I can tell you this though...this is NOT a Real Beta. If it was each and every One of Us would have the Internal Alpha of the game. This grand experiment of Stardock's to work with the community is nothing more then a over-blown marketing ploy. Want proof? How come we aren't talking about balancing? I mean SPECIFIC balancing? How much "Hitpoints" does a Dragon have? How much "Damage" does a Flaming Sword do? Will it hurt a Water Elemental more then a Fire Elemental? Who knows? We don't!!! In a Real Internal Beta and Quality Assurance, these things matter. Stardock DOES HAVE a Internal group of Testers playing a Far Different version of the "Beta" then we are...and that's a Fact.

That Can't happen here though, right? Frogboy has already stated, multiple times (even bragged about it) that with Elemental there is No Rush because of Money. They already have Tons of Money and are Making Money from Other Products so that means they can take As Long As They Want with Elemental. The game won't be Ready until they say "It's Ready", and not a second before...right?

So Why Not take the time to DO THIS ONE PART RIGHT?!!?!?!?! Next to the magic system this is arguably the Most Important part of the game. Don't F'K it up!!! If you do....I'll never buy a Stardock product again.

on the topic of random v. richness, if i were to fight a battle in spot A, leave, comeback, and then fight another battle in spot A, would it have the same map?

Morale - Thank you, morale in any form is better than no morale

Winner take all - I suggest you allow retreats but the retreating army disbands and heads home.  In effect, they re-populate your cities (starting with the closest, or where they were created if that is tracked).  This gives an incentive for a retreat but the winner does not have to chase a defeated army

Randomization vs Richness - Go with a sizeable pool of hand crafted maps.  The goal is to make non random feel random.  A large pool of diverse maps is key.

Length of tatical battles - Here is my fear.  How do you scale turn-based combat from 10 units to 1000 units without using the HOMM method.  Please don't use the HOMM method.  I'd rather restrict the army sizes through resources to preserve the small tatical feel than have large stacks moving as one. 

*Suggestion* Allow the player to turn non-essential troops over to the AI during battles.  This would increase the pace of play late game while allowing the player to retain control of the most valuable and powerful units.  This would be very powerful if the player could select an AI (e.g. Aggressive, Defensive, Scouting, etc.)