Hollla :)

I've started to level both an Healer & a Swordman at the same time, yet that Swordsman is now lvl19 while the Healer only lvl 15. And I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep the Healer alive although he is shielded completely against meleeattacks, a bunch of horseman usually kill him firstround.

The problem lies within the way how XP & its bonuses are distributed among units.

1. XP-distribution:
A Healer never gets any bonus-kill-XP. Ironically my Swordsman is NOT a great damagedealer but rather a tank, and I play stand-your-ground with him and let the enemies come. He basically only kills stuff that is just a single hex away from him. Most enemies are killed by ranges.
Perhaps the XP from counterattack(s) is being reflected here as well, a Healer basically does 1, only 1 thing for your turn + the opposites turn.

2. Stat-distribution: [this may not be a complete list, I just list from out my current game development]

Swordman (in this example could be any melee-only type of class) becomes elligible for:
- Attack/ Counterattack
- Stamina/ Moral
- Defense/ Range Defense/ Resistance
- Hitpoints
Special: Parry & Forced March
Total: 9

Healer:
- Attack/ Counterattack
- Stamina/ Moral
- Defense/ Range Defense/ Resistance
- Hitpoints
- Ammo
- Specials: Healing/ Recuperation/ First Aid
Total: 12

Conclusion:
All attributes gained by Swordsman are useful to very useful for him. They always add to his ability to tank or kill an enemy.
Healer has several attributes that are useless to completely useless; these are: 1.Attack 2.Counterattack 3.Stamina 4.Moral 5.Defense - that is 40% of all elligible stats (!!!)
And because of this, the chances of getting good necessary stuff like:
-Range Defense -Hitpoints (these 2 mark his survivability; Resistance is already high enough) or
-Healing -Ammo -Recup -First Aid (these 4 mark his functionality)
are severely handicapped/ diminished.

The Healer currently only has 12 HP. This is far too less, and First Aid or Recup are borderline useless because they require him to rest. Nothing a Healer does requires alot of Stamina, and high Resistance also saves from being targeted by Fear/Fatigue.

I don't wanna build a super-1-button-heals-everything Healer, but instead if points that currently are spent on OFFENSIVE attributes could be spent DEFENSIVELY then I wouldn't have to constantly babysit a char thats well beyond enemy strengths, and perhaps, could autoresolve battles more.

1.Use spells. Phantom form or air shield(x2, stacks with itself) will make him immune
2. Upgrade unit to different tier. Monk, Eagle cleric much tougher and much better at healing.
3. Get fairy(explore forest provinces) if you need t1 healer. She is much tougher and has ranged healing. https://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/the_tavern_strategies_and_rambling_conversations/post60 Game uses predefined list of upgrades for each unit.
I think 50 upgrades, and from this list you pick 30.
Thing is, list of offensive stats for healer is much shorter than you think.
IIrc, you can get max 4\5 attack\counterattack on him.

I'm still evil-alignment so getting non-mercenairy Fairy is out of reach for several shards. But I actually plan to do so, and perhaps keep the Healer as well because of the First Aid bonus.

Tier2 units are out of question because they consume too much energy if I want to take them to the next shard. Tier1 units are perfectly for this, a lvl30 Elf Ranger just costs 60 energy is so much more precious than a mediocre piece of gear, esp. under a Commander.

AirShield is ok, Phantom Form is usually out of reach because I don't build that many buildings in the early stages of the game. Thing is I start a shard with several tier1 units which I take with me already equipped with a full set of medals so my upkeep is +200gold already, and it takes some time until my economy gets positive.

One basic problem with this tatic to shield a specific unit is that then Centaurs simply switch to another weak target & kill my Elf Druid (if no forest tile is present). So problem not solved albeit gems wasted for nothing, there is not enough time to shield them because Centaurs are fast moving.

To quote out of your linked thread:
42% - based on activity(summoned too)
UnitActRating = 20*MeleeKills + 10*RangedKills + 2*MeleeDamage + RangedDamage + DamageReceived + 3*SpellsStamina + 2*UsedHealing + UsedStamina + 1

This is what I'm talking about - Healing isn't rewarded enough, it's just a *2 multiplier. MeleeKills has a 10*higher multiplier, a Meleeclass will additionally deal damage during Counterattack, it will thus also spend more stamina & esp. a Swordman who can artificially spend alot of stamina simply by activating Forced March (even at the end of battle even if it's unneeded simply to jack up his spending for XP gain...)

This is the reason why Healer suffers in leveling up, getting worse bonuses from each level and Swordman or Barbarian also have multiple times superior upgrades like +2 HP, +3 Attack or +2 Health when Healer has mostly +1 +1 +1...

But thanks for your help & time mate
Keep it up :)

1. I don't have Warrior, nor am I going to use Wizard or Scout to conquer shards. It's faceroll. I had a lvl 30 Master Slayer, ArchMage, Berzerker etc just give them a semi-mediocre weapon and you can defeat even the stronger guards, which should keep you away from the enemy castles for a time. So on every new shard just beeline directly to their castle, shard won in 1-2 hours. All battles won via auto-combat. After 10 shards I got bored of this.... That's why I made a Commander to play out combat manually (the autocombat feature usually looses too many troops) and also to see how some of these troops develop when acquiring higher level.

2. Why healing should be rewarded: Because of balance. In direct comparison Healer doesn't acquire levels so fast than Melee or Range. My Healer is always 4-5 levels below my Swordman. My Elf Druid is always 2 levels below my Elf Ranger. All these chars were aquired at the same time & fought the same combats.
You either explain why a Healer mustn't level so fast or you reckon that the above scripted logic for acquiring XP has flaws. And my Swordman almost is too strong [!] - if I send him inside a pack of enemies they don't even dare to attack him because they wouldn't do damage at all but die in Counterattack. Albeit they move towards him but skip the attacking. And why? Because he got multiple time superior upgrades like +1 strength.

Stats taken ingame (both lvl 30):
Swordman: / Healer:
HP: 29 / 13
Sta: 21 / 17
Att: 15 / 3
Counter: 14 / 4
Def: 10 / 2
RDef: 10 / 4
Res: 4 / 5
[can't find out base moral]

Traits:
Swordman: Forced March3, Parry8
Healer: Meditation1, Healing12, MagicStrike, First Aid3

Several things are striking:
Ranged Defense & Hitpoints of Healer is really bad - although these 2 stats make out his survivability (if you shield him against melee attacks).
Why does he have so high Stamina??? All he can do will only take 1 Stamina per turn. Even if you regain more ammo from Meditation, he needs to rest to trigger this which will likewise replenish his Stamina. Therefore Healer NEVER faces Stamina-problems, except when he's being attacked in melee & has to Counterattack - but then you're doing something wrong in the first place.

3. Why Healer should have defence? [???] Sorry but I never asked for that - quite the opposite. Healer gets too many upgrades in stats that are irrelevant to him. My Healer is now lvl30. Multiple times I got the choice between 1 Stamina & 1 Moral. Both do nothing for his survivability/ functionality. I've listed the stats that a Healer needs in a previous post.. Ranged Defense & Hitpoints to survive, Healing, First Aid & Meditation for functionality. Anything else is not really needed.... but they even are offered Magic Strike, so perhaps someone who created this game thought you should go ahead and attack enemies in melee??? Or how else could this upgrade otherwise be useful? For Roleplaying purposes because his dagger gleams?^^

At the end of the day a lvl30 Healer feels (in terms of strengths) like a lvl15 char because about 50% of offered upgrades are either irrelevant, and he mostly gets just small-step upgrades.
The problem would be solved if the upgrade-chain would work a little bit like this: Every level either offer Healing, First Aid, Meditation, Ranged Defense or Hitpoints in one of the 2 slots. So a player that wants to build a strong Healer-spec could always pick out of these. In the other slot you then could offer semi-irrelevant stats like attack, counterattack, moral, stamina etc so that folks that want to make a Combat-Healer or other fancy-spec could use those... ;)

So, your problem that it's hard to play solo hero in the game tailored for 3+?
You can play King's bounty instead. That's part of balance. Units supposed to level up at different scales, they even have different exp gain multipliers.
Logic is that your army is a cannon fodder, losing one-two frontlines shouldn't be a big deal, and new ones should catch up fast.
Losing backline, on the other hand, should hurt. Yeah, backline units should have flaws for balance. In his case - unit, which able to heal even an elephant to full health, should be able to die fast. movement though rough terrain (forest, swamp, hills - additional stamina cost)
Movement+heal=additional stamina cost When you meet ghost, think about what magic strike does...
That's genesis, but you got an idea. http://upyourpic.org/images/201209/3baiitfxon.jpg

Not too hard, too easy !
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Faceroll
I *like* to have a challenge :))

And don't get me wrong, EADOR is currently my favourite game +1. And I'm just getting started with Genesis which is awesome as well. ok that makes sense.
yeah I noticed different leveling scales. When Swordman reached 30, Dwarf was around 20, and Elves only ~10. Is it correct to say that units which costs much upkeep also level slower? Or those you can buy in your town level faster than units from alliance? (just rule of thumb, so I get the idea behind it...) Well, I don't move my Healer around too much. One of the reason is that this leaves a gap behind him where flying units could attack him in melee into his back. If enemy has ranged I also don't dare to move into their range. Usually I just stay put and let the enemy come to me, most get killed while en route from my archers, those that make it get then finished off by Swordman.
No need to move that much, but your point is of course still valid under different strategies. My Swordman did already kill several Ghosts even without Magic Strike. It takes while since he's only doing 0-4 damage... As of now my Elf Druid got spell "Forst Maiden" which summons a Dryad which can easily take care of any Ghosts (under Commander lvl30).

BTW do you know if summoned creatures (that vanish after battle) do take away XP from the regular team?

Your Healer-build is still interesting though. You've essentially upped his survivability with Heroes Cross, which is not easy to get and quite costly. I wonder if there are perhaps other tier1 units that could get Magic Strike as well & fit into this role better? I've only encountered Shamans so far, but they are rather fragile...

But did you even heal with this Healer anymore? Or just use it to go basically against high-armoured targets & have some other char (Fairy or Monk) for base healing job?

I'm getting good ideas here - cheers mate! You know a game is well designed if it gives you so much liberty to exert in completely roles just by using ones own creativity. Nice :)))

***
BTW sorry to bother but got no reply in other thread. You know why mercenary can't get medals in MotBW? Can they perhaps get one if I make standard Alliance and build foreign quarter? How is that in Genesis?

Well, you have genesis, you can see multipliers yourself. Find unit.var, open with Notepad. Expmod - modifier for exp gain, the less - the faster unit levels. Barbarian has 55, Swordsman - 90. You can kinda see which unit supposed to die often. Yes. Game divides exp according to formula I posted, summons take their part and disappear.
So drowning enemy in zombies is less profitable. That's not mine:)
4-years old screenshot from times when RU-community didn't know what to bother with. Thus were born level 30 goblins. melee healers, swordsmen with medals of sniper (in older versions "Dragon form" didn't disappear upon end of battle and made unit legible for that) Broken masters is a coding mess, I wouldn't be surprised about something not working.
Another moment - mercs have high level right from the tavern, and game compares performance to base stats. It's absolutely possible that you don't hit threshold for medals due to their good stats.
https://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/award_medal_details_request_to_russian_speaking_friends

Good info! Is there a guide somewhere around which explains the meaning of all the integers/numbers? Ok. Well I never thought summoned creatures are exceptionally usefull, except those that can be kept constantly in army like Undead. Once Mage or Necromancer level up they get quite highlevel creatures from the getgo. In this forum I could read that it's even possible to keep Chaos-creatures in army via Dark Pact. Haven't played this so far but it sounds interesting :))

I just don't like that Undead can't get medals - maybe they're too strong? Except Ghost I find them rather mediocre - not a single ranged unit. And they can't be healed except Vampirism - but for these crystals you may instead raise another fresh Undead instead (at full health^^) I'm prompted to attribute a Medal for Elf every combat - like 25 times for now. I accept, but it never is shown at Elf profile. I suspect it's because I didn't hire it from the Tavern, but instead from a Mercenary Guild located in a province. When you do it this way, your mercenary doesn't carry a Mercenary Medal - no 100% increased upkeep, and potentially 1 slot for useful medal more.
But I guess Allied Forces gimped this up (bugged)

I just wonder if you ally with Elfs and get basic Elf, if this Elf can get regular medals?

Guess who translated it :) https://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/moddingindexes They were able to get medals before 1.3 I think (Eng version was released as 1.5)
It was nerfed after off-line championship where ghoul with 3 medals of defender cleared 12 minotaurs labyrinth. Probably. Try hotseat game for 2 players, and ally them.

Excellent work mate +1! That's alot info to sip through (for now), should questions arise I'll post them there.

Assumingly this is due to Disease-spell - which is a heavy debuff against offensive stats, and it also continuously drains stamina & HP from targets. Maybe not worthile for a Mage to cast this spell manually against all targets (because he might instead burst targets dead with Lightining...) but in case of Ghoul (also high-level Zombie) it's auto-applied, constantly renewed and free of any crystal cost. It's very strong & I always take it when offered by levelling units.
Also it doesn't trigger Berserker.
So the incentive is to get Ghoul/ Zombie into a high-defensive state - (is still doably, isn't it? - with Phantom Form, Magic Armour, Invulnerability) and let Minotaurs wreck themselves by attacking this Ghoul.

In my opinion a rework of the Disease-spell would've been more fitting.
Consider this:
- Disease stays as is but does only inflict -1 HP damage (and no stamina at all). This would be the basic spell also units get. Which then acts more as a defensive spell (like Hex) and not so much to kill opponents.
- Spellpower does increase the damage it does per round, not its length. (it's already 6 rounds if casted directly, that's enough). So Mage-disease that is casted directly might inflict -4 HP, ArchMage -6 or with good gear -8. That would make it worthwhile to cast it directly as an alternative for burst-type/ AOE damage spells (which currently are stronger for Mage)

Yes will try. But even at that I think I need at least 7 levels for an Elf to be able to be turned into an Elf Druid - and those levels are lost I think...
Somehow I was hoping to manually fix that medal-bug but I could read in the above-linked thread that medal-code is located in the .exe itself - no luck here :((

I need to inquire again into the experience-system for units:

Every unit has 2 lines:

Exp:
ExpMod:

From going over the various entries in the file, it seems like tier2 units have much higher Exp-numbers than tier1 units. And, as said, units with high ExpMod seem to level slower. But how do these 2 number correlate to each other, what exactly do they represent?
If I would've to make a guess, Exp is base experience points needed for every level, with ExpMod being percentage modifier of it. Is this correct or not?

Exp is the amount of exp you get for killing that unit.

right that makes sense. Thanks alot :))