Look, brother, when I said "We" and "Us" in my reply here, I was STILL talking about All the Other People in the Other threads, which would still, by your own choice not include you. So when I'm talking about more people than just me, how would You like me to denote a plural meaning? Maybe I should have said "Those other people and Me but not Lantros"? I know what I ment to say and Who I was talking about, and when Frogboy reads the reply he will know who I was talking about as well. Please stop posting semantics when YOU were Not included in the "Us" or "We". Thanks.

ok, your horse is way too high for me. No karma, not named in the credits.

No problem. Go on. I can ignore your post.

This is starting to get scarey...you are like the number one fan who now feels jilted and believes he is the messiah of the forums.  Dude, you have posted the same thing in like every thread you visit.  We know what you want.  They know what you want.  What else do you want??

For anyone who may care about my two cents in this matter, the following is part of a message I wrote recently to a member of the dev team. I am post it hear because it captures something missing from most discussions of the tactical combat.

I do not share the general opinion that the current tactical combat is broken. In fact, the tactical combat of Elemental is a fair approximation of the vast majority of comparable games. MOO2, the Shining Forces series, the Final Fantasy Tactics series, etc. all used a similar tactical frame work. However, the biggest distinction between these games and Elemental does not involve one side then another or 1dn or even different damage types. While these additions are niceties which could make the game better, the real thing limiting Elemental combat is choice.

The average unit in Elemental has one choice, attack or move. While there are special units which gain more choices - monsters, spellcasters, summons, etc - the generic troop has only this one choice. If you look at galciv2, the same dynamic is in place, though you added depth by using damage types to balance each type in a rock paper scissor manor. What made Final Fantasy tactics so much fun and so very replayable was the variety of things a unit could do or be. As each unit progressed, they became deeper and deeper tactically because more choices of how to approach the battle emerged. If you look at Sins of a Solar Empire, this is the same reason why combat in that game has incredible depth. If you look at Elemental, there is no such thing as a support unit, no combat healers, no buffers, no debuffers, no rooters, save for the special units which tend to make up the vast majority of players core army.

This leads me to another point, the only consequence to a player's choice in combat is a counterattack, but this is only a limited consequence as units appear to have a counterattack limit. Consider a sovereign with a high combat speed and a high mana pool. This unit can spam chain lightning until he runs out of speed or mana, and will more than likely destroy a large part of an enemies force.  Now, add to this that he has shards (multipliers working of course), this mage has just become a god amongst men. In most cases, which spell to cast and even if you should cast the spell are non choices as there are fairly limited ramifications to doing so. Spell are instant cast and require no cooldown of any kind. In fact, if a modder even tries to add tactical cooldowns, the game crashes to desktop. While I am not a fan of arbitrary limitations on game systems, I believe that adding cast times and cooldowns to tactical spells would make the casting of spell a much more potent and interesting choice. This would also make OP abilities like Arcane doom much more reasonable if a unit had to take a turn or two to cast it.

After I wrote this I came to release that the idea of choice underlies most of the issues with respect to elemental's combat. Consider that the best/most OP units are the various summons and champions, but why is this? Most of these units have special abilities and even more importantly they have roles to fill in combat. While the sovereign and the champions can fulfill multiple roles, consider the roles of the various summons and special units. Even after the latest updated changed the Vigilant Minion to no longer have arcane doom, the creature still has a role as a defensive unit with its 4x counter attacks. It is these types of roles which make monster fights more fun to fight and why unit v unit combat ultimate boils down to simplistic smash fest between the various sides.

"Many players" would be better in my opinion, because it leaves room for players that dont like a suggestion.

First get the flow of combat down. I don't care to stare at a slooooowly rising MISS message after every missed swing. I want a quick animation that ends immediately so I can continue on. I want when I click on the battefield that my character moves there pronto not just ignore my command because of some unfinished attack animation or pause.

Things need to flow quickly so that tactical battles are enjoyable. I cannot stand clicking 20-30 times in anger trying to get my guy to move when he can't do to some latent pause or problem with the combat messages or animations.

Considering I wasnt thinking of any particular model when I wrote this, I wouldnt say I forgot anything. I dont think that damage types are the most important factor, so I didnt think of including any.

Here are a couple of my suggestions - if my 2 cents count.

INITIATIVE - In "rounds"......In tactical battles give each unit on the battlefield a 1-20 initiative roll modified by + combat speed. Highest # goes first on the field no matter if attacking or defending and lowest goes last. In a case of a tie, roll again between the ones in question (higher wins) until combat order is resolved. Once combat order is set for that "round", it will rotate through (move 1 square or attack if in range) and repeat until all units have had all of their attacks or moves. This would equal one "round".

Rinse and repeat for "round 2" et al until last units are standing.

I think this would be a simple fix and would resolve the issue of the attacking army having the insane advantage at attacking first that the game currently has. It would also offer much more of a realistic battle.

Currently melee units are fairly ineffective. I think that making the tactical map larger and making the armies start farther apart(out of range of archers) would resolve the issue of archers being OP'd. In the same vein, give spells range similar to archers so as to fix the range issue there also.I also think that being able to set a combat formation for each battle would add extra depth to tactical battles (melee in front, archers and casters in back or customize-able).

Also ranged units should be affected by terrain and "line of sight". Units that have "cover" (behind trees, behind hills, behind buildings, even behind other units) should get a defensive bonus against range. This should make melee units more useful and even mandatory.

I hope these suggestions help in making the combat system more balanced while not making it too complex to slow down game play.

I would like to also say congrats on making a very excellent game that is bordering on being a monumental success.