For the record, I really like how this current system doesn't use to-hit rolls except in very special cases where something can rig up a dodge modifier, since that fantasy game trope can add just as much frustrating randomness as the huge rolls we have right now.

And I agree completely.

Elemental has done away with the bullshit randomness of to hit rolls and replaced it with the bullshit randomness of 1dx rolls for both attack and off defense. That's... a lateral move. The solution is to fix the latter while NOT TOUCHING the former.

There are examples of game mechanics changed dramatically during patches for other games. That's what patches are supposed to be for in addition to solving technical issues.

So maybe they have not listened until now. But it's never late to change.

This will also mean you can bring more troops to fight and hit single enemy.

Right now yes, squads are overpowered.

If it was squad of peasant with pitchforks... well ok that could be fine, but as soon as it's squad of dudes with some super hammer then it does break balance immediately. 

-They're way more powerful than 4 (8/12 respectively) individual peasants with spears and leather armor, due to the way attack and defense currently works. I could understand if they were "slightly" more powerful due to group synergy, but that's not what it is. In Elemental, 16 machine guns are equivalent to an anti-tank shell. But even taking realism considerations away, it's way overpowered.

-They can take down some powerful individuals quite easily, which makes quality totally pointless when compare to quantity. There's no decision-making involved, no variety in the armies.

The problem of Elemental in general is the way attack and defense progress in an exponential manner. It's totally out of control, and makes it very, very hard to balance.

There's a huge bug with stacks!

I posted it on the support forum at https://forums.elementalgame.com/393520 but thought it would be useful to have here too, with all the suggestions on how to fix it missing that it's bugged.  Basically, things work like frogboy said, and like a lot of you here are suggesting, each individual unit in a stack has the same attack and defense that they would individually, but, there's a bug.  When units in a stack start to die, the strength and defense of the stack doesn't go down, and instead gets split between fewer and fewer units.  So a stack that's been knocked down to one unit, instead of being the same strength as an individual unit, has now become a demigod with the attack and defense power of the entire stack combined.

I'm not sure that they do, a stack of units which hasn't lost any of their number, against a unit with higher defense than an individual unit of that stack seems like it still does quite a bit of missing and low damage.  If it just summed the attack against someone's defense, then stacks would just tear through units if their combined attack was greater than a single unit's defense.  And I can successfully poke away at a stack of units with a single archer, even when the stack has a much higher combined defense (but lower individual defense than the archer's attack).  Of course, with this bug, if they start getting damaged and having units die off, it seems they start doing exactly as you describe.

I concur on many points and want give my wish list as well

MAGIC TECH TREE: Magic Tech tree is kinda barren. I feel like I get all the spells anyways so why research into magic?

Why not have the majority of spells only unlockable through research?? Then you would definately feel motivated to research Magic.

And what if you could focus on different schools of magic, fire, ice, wind etc within the research tree. The more you researched the more latent effects each spell could have - slow, DoT, miss turns, longer duration, increase in power etc...

As it stands I can just research spells independently from the research tree while the magic research tree only gives us shard usage it seems.

WAYPOINTS/TURNS: Need to see a waypoint line from your unit to the destination on the map and how many turns it will take. 

Sometimes it takes several tries to select a unit and give him a destination by clicking on the map. Overall clicking is somewhat unresponsive and somehow my unit always become unselected. Just clunky.

UNIT DESIGN: Need a reason to design your own units. As of right now there are none. Need to have advantages and weakness for armor and weapon types. Therefore choosing the right type unit to design will be important. Def vs slashing, blunts, piercing, etc. 

TACTICAL BATTLES: Need to be faster. Speed up the animation to make the battles quicker and snappier. Why does the entire army move at once? Have individual moves instead?

CHAMPIONS: Scale them to the late game, and balance cost to equip and purchase. Give them more viability within the gameplay.

ITEMS: Give items more umpf. Make some weapons have first strike or can attack twice, some attack slower but more dmg, bleed effects, or additional effects. As of right now you just chose items with the highest dmg. No choice no fun. Give us a reason for what we chose. For example a heavy 2h axe reduces the number of action points in a tactical battle you have- meaning you attack less but do more dmg.

CITY BUILDING: Basically with each new city I just click every building I can build and plant it in my city. I don't even care. Cause there is no reason too. Everything needs to be built so I just build it as fast as I can. If this is the case why not just make building cities cost more and bypass placing buildings in the first place if everything will eventually be built? No fun. Give buildings more reason or choice. Right now I just feel like a monkey placing everything down. Since I can only place one of each building - least that is what it seems - maybe some buildings we should be able to duplicate? So we can specialize cities?

DIPLOMACY:  Dead tree... let's plant a new one...

PACING: The overall pacing of the game actually seems too fast. I feel like I speed through research, and learning magical spells. At turn 200-300 the game is kinda won for me. I have everything I need - up to like lvl 6 magic. Could change once the AI gets off its butt.

That seems a good simple solution. Cap the max damage of a single attacker according to the max HP of his target.

This opens the way to abilities to hurt a whole stack, not just one file. Like Fire Breath.

Flame Dart would do damage to single target in a group while Fireball might hit every member of a group.

Look at Scooter's post earlier in this thread. He saw a stack of 4 troops with 7 attack each do 28 damage to something with 30 defense. That's really only explainable if defense is only being counted once. If it were being counted 4 times, the target would have needed to roll 4 0s, which would literally have 1 in 810,000 odds.

I can only support this. Tactical Combats are also pretty flawed and unfun (having even distribution for damage and armor makes each attack a big gamble; having the attacker strike first means that "Glass Cannons" can kill Hordes of Monsters without getting a scratch).

Elementan is still a rough, uncut, gem with bits of dirt clinging to it - clean it, cut it and polish it and you will have a real juwel.

I guess I’ll have to chime in since I’m so opinionated.

I.  The level of randomness
I agree and disagree with this idea, and don’t particularly agree with Lavitage, except I can see where he is coming from.  If I strike at an opponent, I should not expect a hit.  The opponent can dodge, duck, parry, or spin, nullifying your attack.  That noted though, this isn’t exactly an RPG.  In almost any board strategy game, unless there is a vast difference in abilities, you’d expect some result for attempting attack.  If nothing else, at least locking down a unit in combat.  With these thoughts in mind I am wondering if defense might be slightly re-envisioned. 

The way I see it, units currently don’t have fatigue.  We have morale, but from my perspective, morale is wonky, and very poorly implemented at present.  Units just stand there and let you KO them?  Most units, when morale is low, lose defense, and eventually break and run.  No, in Elemental, the idiots stand there and beg to be killed because that’s what every soldier wants of course.

“Just end it!  I can’t take any more.  I don’t care about my family or friends.  My life?  What about it?  It’s important?  No way.  You mean I should have hopes, dreams, and a basic will to survive?  You’re trying to tell me even animals have a basic will to survive?   Who would a thunk it?”

The above aside, perhaps defense should be treated as an aggregate stat?  Consider it a combination of the ability to defend against attacks and as an expression of combat fatigue.  As opponents attack the unit, their ability to defend erodes.  The constant block, parry, and deflect slowing decrease.  Sooner of later they will make a mistake.  The only combat continues, the more likely it will happen.  Based on this idea I propose the following.

NOTE:  This also connects to the listed problem number 5.

First, change attack strength to (Weapon Attack STR + (that’s a plus) Hero STR/10 or Unit Level).  Some thing like this or you’re left with the geometric increase to damage based off weapon strength.  This blows defense out of the water and causes a scaling problem.

Next, always apply part of the damage to defense.  Perhaps a 20 percent portion would suffice.  For every 5 points of damage, 1 is applied to defense as combat fatigue and the remaining 4 points 

directly to health.  One point is always done to defense if damage is scored.  You could even toss in a special ability like Stalwart, where defense damage is ignored for heroes.

As a side thought, also reduce defense based off morale damage to reflect the growing panic and concern with survival.  Maximum morale should be a result of the base level modified by unit level.  Veterans should be harder to break than recruits.  Morale should receive damage based off whom or what is killed in the field.  Modify this by unit level also.  The more experienced, the less effect losses will have during combat.

Lastly, I’d like to cover a basic concept for fatigue.  Personally, I think you don’t need a new unit stat, but a weapon modifier.  I don’t think the minus speed trait for weapons should be a minus to base action points.  I think it should be a cumulative affect as time goes on.  I mean really, why would a short sword make you faster than you open hand attack?  If any thing, it should make you a hair slower because you have weight that you now have to manipulate.  Also, if you’re strong enough, that weight is negligible.  The concept of a slow, lazy attack from a two-handed weapon needs to be tossed.  Instead, using heavy weapons as full speed for an extended period of time would be taxing.  So, decrease action points after X number of attacks with heavy weapons instead.  Also make it cumulative for constant action.  It should also be possible to recover if you have time to take a break.  Finally, every unit should experience a constant fatigue loss as they battle.  Perhaps modify this amount by a weapon factor instead of just a straight loss by weapons.

1A.  This leads to another major beef I have with combat.  This is the concept of its length and this length reducing any change of developing battle tactics or doing any thing in the field.  Combat is over in moments.  It’s about as thrilling as drinking a good beverage that you can’t savor and has only one sip.  “Slurp.  Well, that’s gone.  There really wasn’t even enough to taste.”  Not fun.  You could even increase the battlefield size and place in more terrain objects such as defenses.  Ditches, stakes, etc. could cause extra movement points.  Stakes would have to be avoided or destroyed.  Treat them as a unit that you can’t control or move.  The stake is summoned in a battle when you fortify.

So:

A. Treat defense as an aggregate:  an expression of the ability to defend based off current combat distress (general physical state – the more banged up, the harder it becomes to fight)
B. damage affects defense and health
C. Cchange Morale to affect defense and eventually cause a rout.  Modify morale based off unit experience
D. reduce action points every turn for fatigue and modify this amount by the weapon used
E. Increase combat length.  Right now, it feels like a spit in the wind or some small alley rumble.

II. The way that parties/squads

The way I see it is partially modeled after the concept of real live squads.  Soldiers form units for the primary purpose for mutual support in defense and coordinating attacks.  This does not appear to be reflected in the stack makeup at all, even with the bug causing things to become a little wonky.  A bunch of guys with short swords do not suddenly wind up wielding swords of war because they formed a unit.  The unit allows them to cover weak sides and increase their over all ability to defend and coordinate attacks to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy.  They also are able to care for the wounded more easily provided some one isn’t trying to cleave their head in at the time.  In the case of the game, caring for wounded comrades might be simulated to an extent as an after battle thought.

A.  In regards to them game, based off the basic notes above, I’d have expected certain modifications to the stats of a unit, and not the wholesale over bearing effect we have now.  What I would first do is increase the defense of the unit for each member of the squad.  One could give a plus 1 or 2 defense for each individual in the unit.  Note the individual part.  The group is a unit, but a unit is still a series of singular components acting in unison.  They do not suddenly form some giant just because they stuck together.  I’d also perhaps give an additional plus 1 defense for each member with a shield.  Do not change hit points or attack strengths.  The primary purpose of the unit is to cover for each other. 

The second purpose is to coordinate attacks making it harder for the enemy to defend themselves.  To simulate this, I’d just check the ratio of members from one unit against the members of another.  The higher ratio reduces the effective defense of the lesser.  One important note though, all attacks must be kept as separate and not treated as an aggregate.  Unless they are quantum phasing their blades together at the exact moment and place of a strike, all the attacks would be separate.

A. Treat the squad as a collection of individuals
B. Increase the defense of a squad based on the size of the unit.
C. hift the defense of an opposing unit/squad by the unit size difference.  I.E. a squad of 3 versus 1 would decrease the 1 person unit defense by 2 points.
D. Attack power is unaffected and treated as a series of individual attacks
E. Recalculate every round

This should allow the concept of the squad to enable numbers to overwhelm an opponent with numbers while not treating a large group and a singular giant weapon of destruction.

III. The rate of growth of the economy

This is a bit tougher for me to comment on.  Part of the problem stems from my disagreement with some design philosophies behind it.  That aside, I have to agree with the premise listed by Scooter. 

The part of the problem, as I see it, is SD’s use of the percent increase phenomena again.  This almost always causes a geometric increase in ability for any thing.  Basically, you’re always multiplying things up instead of increasing them linearly or proportionally.  It seems to me you don’t ask what a thing does and how to simulate it in the world.  Instead, you just look at some thing and ask how you can increase it?  “OH!  Let’s throw in a structure that multiples gold by 100 percent!”  Not only does this make later games play ridiculously unbalanced, it really doesn’t deal with the simulated part or conceptualization of the building with in the game world.  Even more of a problem, in my opinion, there is little downside, if any to building it.   One of the few limiting factors is the city level, which is pretty arbitrary and really doesn’t apply from a conceptual standpoint.  If you have the people and the market, you should be able to build the business.  The way I’d handle it stems from a few different philosophical concepts. 

First off, Elemental, being the pseudo-medieval society that it is, is agrarian based.  Food makes things happen.  Mr. Wardel has even tried to stress this point.  Currently, I have never had a food problem in any game.  The second concept is that people make the world go round.  Most folks think it’s money.  Well, with out people, money is just a bunch of glitter in the ground.  If some one doesn’t move, accumulate, or create it, it doesn’t exist.  The village might start barter based economy, but as more folks move in, products and services develop into cash based.  There is also that constant trade off of butter or bullets.  It’s rare to have both.

A third concept is that most money making ventures, except perhaps the mint (but I’ll skip inflation), are comprised of industry (I consider a service a soft or light form of industry).  A perfect example is the pub, whose tech position I’ll complain about later.  In a game world, farm goods go in, the goods are utilized by people working, revenue then comes out.  I won’t get back into why I find prestige to be the most ridiculous means for a population to gather, especially so in an agrarian society (even more so one that isn’t a kingdom to generate a feeling of nationalism, belonging to a citystate, etc., or recovering from a cataclysm – I’m sure how great the pub is creates the attraction to the town) or over looking natural trade centers/routes. 

What I would expect from a pub is that it would take a population point.  These would be the folks doing the work and providing the service.  I would expect folks to have to decide whether it’s better to make a fighting unit, depleting the over all population or allowing those folks to work in a business creating money.  Currently there isn’t any decision process on how big of an army can I support beyond what it costs.  I have yet to deal with a limited population base in the Elemental medieval world.

Back to the pub though, since it’s an industry, I’d expect it to require people to operate.  I’d then expect it to use part of the farm goods created so it could provide food and drink to customers.  I’d then expect it to provide a taxable income for the state based off the services and goods provided.  Currently, all it does is provide prestige, which doesn’t reflect at all what a pub does or is or works.

To sum up a pub, I’d expect to:

A. Use 1 or 2 population points.  Technically 1 since it’s a beginning structure.
B. Use 1 point of food.  This is the represented by food and drink created.
C. Produce 1 Gildar per pub (you could even make it partial based off number of customers served since they seem to use a float instead of an integer for Gildar).
D. Supply up to X number of population not associated with the industry.  Example:  Village with 12 pop points.  1 Pub uses 1 industry pop point leaving 11, 3 are soldiers (whom seem to like to drink and carouse).  The pub serves up to 5 people.  This leaves 6 pop points.  Build another pub using 1 more point leaving 5 left for service.  No more pubs possible.  If you had 1 more pop point and built a pub, you’d get 0 Gildar since you have no customers.
E. Keep the prestige point in there if you want.  I think people know my feelings on it.

Next, let’s look at the blacksmith.  Currently it just increases metal output.  Strangely enough, I can see this to a certain extent.  The problem I have is that generally, from a production stand point, most iron bars were made at the mine site.  The blacksmiths ordered iron bars to be made them into products.  The only real way to increase a metal output is to industrialize and create more efficient furnaces.  What I’d expect a blacksmith to do was help support the army and provides services to the population that again would create a taxable income.  As a side note though, a heavy monarchy might keep a select blacksmith or smiths on as retainers or slaves (Empire) and not let them go into business.  A good blacksmith’s techniques essentially would be strategic secrets.  You don’t want an enemy to create a really good blade after all.  Some one like this in Elemental might be considered more of a hero that joins the Sovereign’s group.

So, if I treat the general blacksmith as a business, I’d expect the following:

A. It would take in a point of so of metal as raw material
B. It would use a population point as workers
C. I would create 1 Gildar as tax money
D. It would create 1 maintenance point for the army

Now I realize currently there isn’t any maintenance beyond money for the army, but maybe there should be?  I’ll leave it up to folks to poke at.

A final example would be the market place.  It currently increases Gildar by 25 percent, no matter what the circumstances or raw materials provided.  Now, a market is a place to buy and exchange goods and services and gather news.  The simplistic approach is just the 25 percent increase.  In early game, this is nothing unless you have a gold mine.  Then you can get an entire extra Gildar out of it, and a little extra.  If you have more than 1 mine and start trade, this starts to snowball in our little geometric increase.  Late game, this gets a bit ridiculous again.   I also view the market as a basic structure.  There is such a thing as a village market, though it’s no grand market.  It should also be enhanced by the resources available to the settlement.  So, I propose some thing like the following.

A. Dump the 1 food usage.  A Market is a redistribution center that makes money of the redistribution.  It doesn’t actually consume the goods brought into it.  One could argue that bakers, meat pie stalls, etc. do consume food.  True, the thing to remember though is that food is still being utilized just in another form.  If any thing, it should create +1 food to represent a more efficient system for delivering food to people.
B. I would utilize population.  Perhaps 1 pop point per resource available to it.  The info card should reflect this also, though maybe the cards are too static.  So if a market has food, metal, and crystal available, it would use 3 pop points.
C. It would produce 1 Gildar per resource available to it based off rarity.  A market with crystal access would produce 2 Gildar instead of the base one, for that resource.

 At any rate, I think folks can get a drift for where my thoughts hang on buildings.  The more basic, minor changes (a series of +1’s), in Gildar output, based off resources available and actual function of a building should help early settlements with money issues and offset the obscene increases in late game.  Money should never be removed as an issue to contend with in a kingdom. 

IV. There need to be limits on the number of magic items a hero can equip
This one surprises me actually.  For some strange reason, I was expecting a paper doll to equip items, not a pictorial array.  I think they need to institute equipment slots through a paper doll or at least a listing (chest, head, hands, etc.).

V. Damage is still too high relative to hit points
I touched on this in item number 1.  Part of the problem is SD always uses multiplicative increases with leads to geometric increases down the line.  It tends to distort things at later dates.  I proposed the
(Weapon Attack STR + (that’s a plus) Hero STR/10 or Unit Level)

I think unit level should always play a role in more than just extra hit points.  As a matter of fact, from what I recall, they use the blasted multiplicative increase again.  A level 2 unit has twice as many hit points as a level 1 unit.  I guess level 2’s are supposed to be twice as hard to kill?  What I’d do is increase basic hit points all around.  I’d base HP’s on race and not training level.

The reasoning you ask?  It all falls down to this.  A human is a human is a human.  The ability to defy death or take a wound is very individualistic.  Beyond this, it falls down to a matter of general saying about the physical ability to absorb and resist punishment.  What’s the difference between a peasant and a knight?  It is their training and armor.  A knight can take more hits because his armor deflects more damage and superior weapons inflict better damage.  Training allows the knight to maximize the tools they have and gives techniques to fight better.  Beyond this, remove the training and tools, and title, you have a peasant.  I’d argue which as better endurance.  A knight would have better general health just from having access to better and more food.  Beyond this you have a human body or a trained and armed human body.  All things equal, the body dies at the same rate and absorbs equal punishment.  So, what I propose:

A. Increase HP’s all around.  Do not add extra HP’s for armor ( I think they were though I can’t quite remember right now). 
B. Add 1 HP per level of unit to represent general increase in toughness and contrariness.
C. UP defenses for various gear in general.  I don’t feel the defenses are quite in line with offense.  Currently the system is just designed to squish an enemy before he squishes you.  There are not any real fights or tactical battles.  It’s splat or be splatted.
D. Add in an early spiked mace and later flanged mace.

One thing that bugs me a lot is the game does not represent the medieval arms race.  Swords slowly got bigger and longer and were often replaced by axes, maces, and hammers, because the armor got to thick.  You’ll see the progression from 1 hand, 1-1/2 hand, to 2 handed as time goes on.  For the spiffy tech this game claims to push, there is none of this concept in sight.

If armor truly varies in defense based off an attack type, why is it not listed?  The way I see it:

A. Swords are a general purpose weapon.  Two handed variety are strong general purpose and good for breaking through pike formations (yeah, I know they don’t have pikes, of course so is a bill).
B. Axes are good piercers though a little slower than swords.  The deliver a heavier cut in a smaller area with most of the force at the end of the arc giving the increased penetration.  Big axes are just plain mean.  Ask some one with a poleaxe or halberd or read a few historical accounts of what they can do.
C. Maces are general purpose blunt penetrators.  Work wonders against mail and not to bad against hardened defenses.
D. Hammers, not the ugly circus mallet displayed in the game, are good penetrators, especially with the pick end, against all types of armor.  If you want to punch plate, use a Lucern hammer.

Some good references, incase any one cares, would be The Book of Swords by Hank Reinhardt or one of the Spada books edited by Stephen Hand.  The books give more insight and info into the weapons, how weapons were used, and the nature of their wounds than general historical weapons texts.  Also might give the animators more examples for moves than say that lame, underhanded, Badminton attack.  I suspect all the damage from that strike is shock that any one would actually attempt it.

As a side note, I also create a missile defense, separate from the general defense.  Unless you’re armed with a shield, missile weapons are hard to defend against.  It makes choosing the big two-hander even more of a tactical decision. 

VI. Experience earned doesn't depend on how tough your foes are
I don’t know about this.  I thought it was changing based off challenge for me.  I could be mistaken though.

7. UI weaknesses
Egads, yes.  There are many things that I don’t like but I’ll leave it up to others for now to comment on.  I also expect it to develop over time any way so it's not as critical to me.  That said though, please make it possible to interact with the terrain if there is a unit on it instead of always the unit.

8. I haven't explored the magic system enough to have a definitive comment
I generally don’t like magic systems and play straight up warriors as much as I can so I can’t comment too much on this.  The only thing I can say is that I think it’s a bit underwhelming at present.

Agree with pretty much everything in the OP. Good to see Frogboy cleared up the rolls per unit thing too.