I ardently read all posts here. I dont have enough experience myself to properly judge the dynamic, But...

I think limiting number of shoots is fantastic. Would you consider also limiting amount of Ballista shots to 1? (from 2?)

I know its not very useful unit on MP, because ballista are too slow. But from my SP experience the stack of many Ballista trivialize the combat. Because I shot down most enemies before they come close.

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Archers act odd, because they are not penalized for being in melee with other unit. They can make full salvo with enemy at abut hex - without retaliation. Not sure if hex editing can change that?

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Archers are shooting in a arch/lob trajectory above other units/obstacles, contrary to f.ex. magic bolts, which go in straight line. I know its sensible. But if archers were able to hit obstacles more often, their usefulness would lower. And good positioning of troops would matter more, because archers are most common shooting enemy.

With half the shots I think they need stronger individual shots than that. I would rather see them at 75% current strength, rather than 60%. I suggest -

Archers ATK: 4-5-5 → 5-6-6
Archers DAM: 2-2-3 → 3-3-4
Archers REP: 2 → 1

Darters ATK: 4-5-5 → 4-5-5
Darters DAM: 1-1-2 → 1-1-2
Darters REP: 3 → 2

Slingers ATK: 3-4-4 → 3-3-4
Slingers DAM: 1-1-2 → 1-1-2
Slingers REP: 4 → 3

Ballistas ATK: 5-6-6 → 7-7-8
Ballistas DAM: 5-5-6 → 7-7-8
Ballistas REP: 2 → 1

However, I don't like the idea of reducing number of shots for thematic reasons. I think it's ''appropriate'' for archery to have multiple shots doing low damage. I would rather Archery etc continue to have a large number of weak shots, and only see the Ballista taken down to 1 shot.

If Archers etc have 2 shots at 3 ATK, then while they are still as strong as ever vs. silver-medal Dragons or 10 DEF heroes, they will be weaker against other troops with ordinary DEF scores and it should balance out.

My criticism of '2gold maintenance Archers contrasted with 15 gold upkeep t4s' was mostly made before I realised their ATK had been lowered! It's okay for them to have a niche against individual very strong units, though maybe Arnuz disagrees.

Unfortunately, lowering ATK by 1 or even 2 does not have such a strong effect as one might imagine. A DAM reduction would be much more noticeable but DAM is already low. I really don't think it's possible to prevent Archer-heavy stacks in MP without fewer shots.

A related issue is that Swordsmen have so low DEF. This really makes no sense whatsoever but unfortunately isn't anything I could fix with the engine, and anyway it's tied into the overall unit balance of the game.

I'm on the fence regarding Shoot Javelin. The basic ranged abilities also affect other units like Orc Assasins but are not the primary attacks of those units; Shoot (Black) Javelin on the other hand is the main attack of Ballistas, the Air Galley, and ships. I actually don't mind making ships weaker, but I'm worried about the Air Galley which is really the only thing Humans have going for them.

Needs testing for feel and balance.

The biggest advantage of balista over catapult was the fact that they shoot twice. Why buy balista if catapult does the same amount of damage and can break walls.

Speaking of walls, I heard that walls were strengthened. Is it possible to significantly increase the strength of stone walls (relative to palisade)? This would shift the dynamic to needing catapults and other ranged siege for stone walls, as opposed to just running up with basic battering rams against stone walled cities. This might remove the significant advantage tilt for elephants (unless someone nerfs elephants into oblivion).

More reasons for strengthened walls in general: the problem with reducing archer damage output is that defending cities becomes significantly harder and would require stronger walls to balance it out. The balance of ranged defender damage, wall strength, and low cost of fast (enchantable) wall crushers needs to be considered.

yes, please make also default rule-set.

Personally, for "thematic" reason i hate the machinegun feeling from halfing slingers. And 1 shot for archers would be ok, especially if he shooting in the close combat into the swordsman.

I play Souther mod (sword sorcery south) and I enjoy +2 def swordsman, and lower Resistance for everyone. Im playing AoW+ but still i focus on producing archers, so I can make good salvo that take units one by one. In SSS I was producing more swordsman, and that's feel better (like a medieval battlefield, instead world war).

I'm going to restrict my commentary since I have no plans to install the mod, and I haven't even read over any kind of change log beyond what the others posted.

However, the above line has me asking whether this mod is intended solely for use in Single Player and/or real time multiplayer. If you're targeting Single Player, then you can ignore this part of my post.

In PBEM, player-player combat is auto-combat, and the AI likes to target higher tier units before lower tier units. In one of our games, I would send a single Titan (with Bless, if I could) with a stack of archers because all the enemy archers would target the 5 Def/15 hp Titan first while my archers tore their archers to shreds. The player can't enact specific screening in PBEM for player-player combat.

I recently learned that a Spring of Life which has been frozen will not bless units. Maybe you could explore this aspect for hints?

Am I the only one that brings just enough battering rams or other wall crushers that at least one survives, and uses auto-combat to let them tank and allow my archers to ignore the walls?

I was using auto-combat only because I cannot stand the slow movement of units. With cheat engine and speed hack 5. All movement is instant. I even explore the dungeon now.
For me auto-combat is type of exploit, and I dont even want to know how to use it to my advantage.
Still i use it to kill 1 swordsman that is defending some village.
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Im after few games, must say the game is very different when nobody likes me just because i exist, and I enjoy it a lot that cities are trying to be independent all the time. That's great achievement.

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1
Shipyard should provide income. This would incline player to capture it. And it would be fun & feel right. Sea trade obvious thematically.
" but you can use builder to spam shipyard everywhere" - then increase the cost so return from investment is not worth it.

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2
Frostling flag on the main screen is confusing with grey independent flag.Is it possible to make the light blue more exhibit?
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3
frequency of hero level ups, is good now. Not too often not too rare.
Just adjust some skills cost (esp. Spell Casting I & spellcasting II could be cheaper)
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4.
vision range on main map its too big. esp. buildings (mines, builder guild, shipyard) feel wrong with 6 hex radius field of view.

units .........4...=> ok 4
buildings ...6...=> 2
city ...........6...=> 4
tower.........12..=> 9

for units should exist dis-ability of Vision, that reduce see range to 2. This should be common skill. For Orcs Warlord or other heavy hitter, dumb units. Balista, catapult, Cavalier, elephant...
OR
let unit has base see range 2, and give to many "not blind" units Vision I.

why:
with lower see range, the vision & scouting would be more important. With weaker force you could hit supprise leader.

If AI ignore FogOfWar rules, then its only good, because its harder game for player, and a boost for AI.
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5
paying tribute (with gold or mana) to other leader, could increase that race relation, like 10:1 or more.

If you bribe city instead of attacking them, then maybe the race could repay with some better relation +5?
I make peace with some ration, but that only grant me +10 with that nation. IMO it should +20.

please bear in mind. that all above effort would increase the relation only with ONE single race, so its no way to revert the diplomacy back to vanilla. But at least my effort to gain sympathy of particular race would not be futile.
Moreover, in the end, to win the scenario I HAVE to start a war with some leader, and that means I bury my peaceful efforts anyway.

improving relation by building walls was odd. On the other hand with current revolt ratio, I would have to think twice before I make my life harder to recapture in future.

edit: I just spend one whole Goblin game trying to improve my relation with Orcs, apparently this make no sens, because even if I migrate all cities for orcs, they after some time, go down from polite and revolt. Like if the race relation always going down on its own. Except for some "special" race, in goblin case Dark Elves.

that underwhelming that I cannot forge custom alliance during game.

Have you set unit movement speed to Fast in the Setup, though?

In one Multiplayer game I cast haste on a Kharagh and sent it along a road/grass, about 18 hexes in one turn, to assassinate an enemy leader. Eighteen! Bah, are you guys sure you don't want to play MP?

Hex editing involves editing existing features, it'd be hard or impossible to add a new one.

Race relations decay by 1% towards their baseline value each turn. Perhaps this should be removed?

Standard game rule is that all race relations migrate one point toward their normal value each turn, whether that means an increase or a decrease in race relations. The Life spell Tranquility improves all race relations by a few points each turn, while the Death spell Hatred worsens race relations by a few points each turn.

Races start looking to rebel around Wary relations, which is in the 30-40% range.

I don't know what the mod has changed about the above.

yes, i set it to very fast. And I still could not stand waiting for computer to move all his 16 dudes.

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You saying that Line of Sight is not too long? I wish scouting to be more important (and visions).

Im done with playing multi. I was called noob and other names, enough time, by different types of internet societies (all thinking they are noble about themselves).

plus I dont want to spoil myself fun, by knowing the exploits.

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Im just saying my opinions. Maybe someone release source code or write open source :)

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1% adjustment of relations value:
I would like to remove it, its hard enough to improve relations. Starting relations level is sufficient to setup the default/expected races behavior in each game. Some nice gambits from time to time, are fun.

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I was reading your Southern remarks, and i think they are very on point:

i like 2 gold from farms - in case of siege or some spells, it would additionally limit the income. Plus some cities would be place in more profitable region than others.

I like the idea of more movement for units from medals.

for archers: is it possible to increase REP with medals? this way fresh unit could shoot 1x, and silver/gold 2x.
this would be awesome visual indicator in game that your troops getting better.

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... I delete here some txt, I play some more. Maybe new patch would be released by this time :D

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P.S. Southern are you making rule set to AoW+ ?

Yeah, vision is fine in MP at least, because opponent players will deliberately lurk just outside of it and stuff.

Won't happen here, though! I lose so badly in 1v1s on the maps I myself made... *facepalm*

Yeah, maybe we should ask Triumph again. You never know.

I agree because of the newly harsh relations.

Yeah, plus I found the 50% income reduction pretty harsh, so this would ameliorate that while making farms more relevant to income. Plus there is even a mechanic that an enemy standing on crops deletes them temporarily.

I hope this makes it in, though Andy G is basically the god of this and we are mere petitioning mortals.
My dad was an elite solider and a big part of that was long marches. Same throughout history.

I'll make one for Andy G ( to save his time) if he wants one to go with AoW+, up to him of course.

Barring that I already made Sword & Sorcery, and there's not much I would change if I made it with AoW+ in mind.

Yeah, I totally don't try to do that to you like, all the time. >.>