Personally, I kind of like the hero 'weirdness'...getting a hero that was near the next level seemed realistic.

I'd like it left as is.

I don't really mind either as Level 1/2 Heroes still work fine. Also, the fact that DEF can be allocated to Heroes at a cost of 5 with no future penalty or glitch, plus being able to raise HP within DevEd, allows for a good amount of Hero variation within only two levels, especially with edited ability costs.
That being said, I think we can expect this to change in 1.42 given it is primarily intended for 1.36. I think what And G suggested about 15xp per level and 2xp granted per turn works and may be the most reasonable solution for 1.36. But it does make 'real xp' less significant (which has its own implications if you raise xp granted by killing units, ie: regular unit levelling)
If this ends up being unsolvable, I'd be more than okay with AoW+ 1.50 reverting to this current state and having all Heroes edited accordingly to be level 1/2.

My only two hopes for 1.42 are:

- 5-10-20-40 mana or scaled similarly (4-8-16-32 to me would just be more limiting for scaling edited spell costs in ruleset, but still playable (to the detriment of weak Summoned Units, who become progressively less useful due to mana upkeep.... for which buffing the Frogs as an example isn't a good solution)..... 3-6-12-24 does not sound fun. At that point I'm likely playing 1.41 until 1.50, which in theory could have revised mana upkeep... but even then I think you will find that higher values, in any context, allow for better and more precise scaling)

- Rebuilding: I most deeply feel that low tier buildings should be worth rebuilding as a much shorter term investment. While 1000 gold / 25 turns still seems broken, I at least agree with the idea of it being such a crushing blow, and effectively changing the landscape of the map.

...rebuilding city costs/time is pretty much meaningless. Just go Death Magic = you can easily cast Animate Ruins that bypasses all of these rebuild penalties. On top of that, Animate Ruins will provide a larger free start garrison compared to vanilla!

Been doing a lot of campaign play....hard, but really fun/immersive!

More I play, the more I'm happy with the Gold/Income as is....it's a challenge, but I like it!

Long rebuild time/cost doesn't really effect the scenario flow much....the threat of having stuff razed means I'm more careful of the possibility. Against players, I'm sure that fast raids to burn down important production centers will be more common....which might be a good thing. Adds more layers to strategy.

Speaking of more layers of strategy, the huge income of 3-4 sphere + matching nodes = a larger part of the game is about securing nodes that match your spell casting type. I imagine against players, there will be more efforts to both secure your nodes while denying enemies their own.

I'm find with 4 sphere + matching node giving 50 mana.....encouraging me to specialize in 2 magic schools is somehow more fun. The higher scaling also helps counter balance the lower generic node + Leader/Hero income. However, I'd also be fine with the scaling being lowered to 5-10-20-40 (as some people seem to want).

AoW has never been better! Thank you!

It works. Opposite sides of the map, on largest map size. 10 turns.

Awww...I wanted to be all heroic and do it...but Southern beat me to it!

Thanks! That's how it's supposed to work and how my documentation says it does, and I was pretty sure I had properly tested it at some point, but when I looked at the actual code again I got doubts.

By the way, I did find an elegant way to modify unit costs without touching the HSS, which means that Pony Riders and Elephants will be more expensive in v1.42. There's also of the possibility of scaling/skewing unit production costs in general; I'm not quite sure if I want to have a more or less linear production:upkeep ratio or whether low-level units should be primarily about production costs and high-level units about upkeep. I'd be interested in hearing opinions on this.

Another thing I'm looking at is production times especially in cities. This also got me thinking about what it actually means to "produce" a unit. Presumably, a swordsman is a guy living in the city who you give a sword and tell to fight, light cavalry is similar except you pick someone who knows how to ride and also give him a horse, machines get built on-demand, and most other units already exist in or around the city with all their equipment and training and you're basically just giving them some money so they'll fight for you. Does that sound about right? What if a guild/shipyard builds units according to a 1-2-3-4 progression, and cities build all units in 1 turn?

Currently -

3-hex towns train:
Tier2s in 2 turns, Tier3s in 3 turns

4-hex cities train:
Tier2s in 1 turn, Tier3s in 2 turns, Tier4s in 3 turns

These numbers are fine, but they could be reduced by 1. I wouldn't want to see Tier4s trained in 1 turn, nor Tier3s in 1 turns from towns.

Why not? It's not like you could pump out a dragon each turn; money is still the major limiting factor for high-level units.

I guess you have a vision of t1s / t2s being trained and maintained relatively cheaply, so their numbers are based more on availability of infrastructure, while t3s/ t4s (once city upgrades are done) would be available more as a gold-intensive luxury. That an interesting idea - quite appealing, really. I was just a bit stuck in a mindset of incremental changes to the existing setup.

In one PBEM (part of which is uploaded to youtube, called Broken Bow) I basically bankrupted myself spaming archers and upkeep was usually 75%-80% of income. Eventually Bookwyrm beat me with more upkeep-efficient higher tier units. The game works okay with that 4/6/8/10 paradigm, but it would also be interesting to see the reverse with 2/5/10/15.

When you change everything at once, it becomes impossible to predict in advance how things will play out and how strong one thing now is compared to another. To analyse these changes you would need to implement them and then play some games with them enacted.

So sure, make all units train in 1 turn, see how it works. I was just stuck in the old mentality where high-tier units are gold-efficient, especially in terms of upkeep, and therefore training time is needed as a moderating factor.

BTW, I've been thinking about Pony Riders and Elephants - the two extremely strong Tier1 units - a bit more. They should be made weaker, but I wouldn't want to weaken their special identity as stand-out t1 units. So, Elephants should still have 30 mapmovement (IRL elephants are actually very good at long distance walking and have a reasonably fast charge), and should still be beefy. While Pony Riders should still have most cavalry attributes (charge, higher HP/movement/ATK).

For the Elephant, making it the special t1 unit instead of the scorpion, and reducing its ATK from 3 to 1 is a good start, since low ATK would also make it perform more uniquely as the only elephant-type unit in the game. The Pony Rider could have its DAM reduced from 3 to 2, since that fits with Halfling stats.

With Archery nerfed in AoW+, which reduces the baseline strength that Tier1 units should possess, both units would need a further nerf - probably just making them more expensive or something.

Oh, I like the 2-4-6-8 shipyard production times....each level of ship is over 2x as effective as the previous level ship. It's a gamble....holding a shipyard while producing a higher tier ship for the eventual payoff vs fast production (but reduced capability) ship within a couple of turns.

I hope you decide to not implement changes to the time it takes to produce units. Training takes time...the more complicated the unit, the more time it takes. The idea that a swordsman takes as much time to train as it does to break in and domesticate a Kharag = I really don't like it.

*I do like the 5-10 turn migration time though.

**Any luck on finding out a way to make Fire Strike actually worth something?

This definitely isn't true, unless you have a ruleset which changes ships in mind. In TS136, you're almost always better off just making Dragon Ships. They have 20 hp and shoot ballista - moderate increases in movement speed, HP, and marksmanship aren't worth the big cost and time increases from Galleys and Galleons.

I was trying to think about what changes/updates are going to be included in your next update....and realized I'm not sure what you are putting in or changing?

List of what I THINK you might be including in the next update:

-Fire Strike + Ignition capability increase (probably just need to increase the odds of burning status occurring AND successfully hitting unit each turn)
-mana node to sphere income change (5-10-20-40?) *I'm happy with the 5-10-25-50 as well, so good either way!
-reduced visibility for units/cities/structures....or is this just a proposed change for a later date?

....it seems that I am not at all sure what the next update includes....any chance on a clear definition of what is being included in the next update?

You are 100% correct, we use a Rule Set that 1) takes away javelins from ships and replaces it with archery (and gives a weak physical attack/dam to represent defense/boarding parties), 2) makes the higher tier ships faster/stronger, 3) tier 3-4 ships are similar in terms of combat power/speed, but #4 costs more BUT also has a much greater carry capacity (while the tier 3 ship can only carry 1 unit).

The end result is a diverse naval selection...each ship with their own advantages/disadvantages depending on your goals! In our games, all ships are now useful (and used).