OK trying this again.  I discovered that expert difficulty is actually extremely high on Seanw3's settings.   I turn stuff down to normal world / challenging AI / terrifying monsters. 

Starting out with Pariden again I find a 4/3/2 by a river with an Air Shard.  Bannon Heighsley is nearby as the starting hero.  Studying the city enchantments a bit more, I choose to begin with a Scrying Pool this time.  I start with Civics as my initial research path, plannig to switch to Training and get some Spearmen once I have a few initial buildings created.  There is a expansion site nearby (4/3/2 w river AND forest!) but it is right next to a Darkling infestation.  Exploring a little bit I find Janusk and sign him up to my cause.

I find a mite mob army with 2233 HP???  I did change the difficulty settings, right?  Looking around I find that it is very difficult to move anywhere without killing off some of the terrifying natives.  I vow to get some spearmen asap.  Janusk finds some darkling warriors (only 40 HP for the stack) and kills them.  Barely.  I pry an Enchanted Backpack from their cold dead hands.  Based on a comment I read in the mod notes, this might be a REALLY nice item, since Seanw3 commented it is hard to get carrying capacity for anyone other than the warriors.

Civics and my scrying pool both complete, I start on Training, then on Leatherworking.  I find Ophidians, Bandits, Silt Skaths, and a Dark Wizard nearby.

I design some Spearmen so that I can equip them with leather armour.  Interesting traits available.  What is Air Dodge?  I choose to go with some basic +enc feats, but  also try out Front Line which gives a big defensive bonus for three turns.  They take twice as long to train as basic spearmen, but hopefully the defense will make them live longer.  I find some bears roaming towards my territory.  I decide to keep researching through Weaponry to see if the Monk's Staff requires metal or not.

The first Village Spearmen are trained just as I see an army of mites approaching.  Procipinee summons Dell, her pet beagle (warg), and moves out to engage them. Weaponry completes, and I see the staff does NOT require metal.  OK, going to try training some custom Sindarian Disciples.  Lithe, Nimble, Acrobat, a Sindarian staff and a breastplate (upgrade to Monk's robe later?).

The mites fall before me.  I notice that the Slow spell can wear off, and resolve to look at the spellbook more closely once this battle completes.  Dell (my warg) is a really strong combatant, quite frankly he kills most of the mites himself.  The spearmen do a good job of absorbing blows, and manage to survive.  Looking at the exp screen afterwards I note that my troops receive 2/3 of the champion's exp, instead of half.  This should lead to higher level troops eventually.  Procipinee retreats to New Pariden to heal.

After a short rest, Procipinee gathers up Dell and two Village Spearmen for an expedition to the nearby Darkling Lair.  This will probably be a tough fight.  new Pariden begins training a pair of Sindarian Disciples.  New Pariden levels and I choose to make it into a town, since I can see the 4/3/2 w forest/river spot nearby, I'll make that one my fortress.  I look at the Grocer improvement and see that it assists defending units.  Interesting.

I attack the darklings and discover that i am up against an entire stack of lurkers.  Eight archers.  Joy.  I win the battle but both Village Spearmen are slain.  Procipinee levels, and I choose Life Disciple so that I can cast Aura of Vitality on my city (plus heal of course).

For some reason I watched a certain Lurker shoot, move and shoot again during the battle, without a response from my own troops.  It seemed to happen right when Slow wore off, so possibly it got a huge retroactive initiative boost when that occurred?

I look at the roaming bears and realize my Sindarian Disciples are exquisitely tailored for such an encounter. 

Bannon Heighsley, who has been haning out in town while some troops get trained up, suddenly achieves level 2.  Maybe everyone gets exp / turn for free?  or does it only happen in towns?  I need to test this since I had not seen it documented.  As is traditional i choose to train him as a Governor.  I am excited to see what might show up in that path under this mod.  Some experimentation shows that Bannon is definitely earning +1 exp / turn while in town, and zero if standing nearby outside.

The Empire of Kraxis is overwhelmed and retreats from the world.  Another army of mites appears and aggressively stalks my sovereign, it might kill Procipinee unless I am careful.

Procipinee engages the mites.  The two Sindarian Disciple units do quite well with their decent defense, counterattack and 26% dodge.  Since the mites only have a 77% chance to hit, the dodge has a massive impact on the battle.  I'm happy.  I witness the "-slow" effect again, instantly when it wore off the mite stack received another action.  This is probably not how you intend this to work, is it Seanw3?  Queen Procipinee chooses to follow the Path of the Cleric.

The mites and darklings dealt with, I found my new city of 'River Pirates'.  This is planned as a fortress, and to help it get there sooner I bless the city with Sovereign's Call and Enchanted Hammers.  My first building in the queue is a scrying pool.  New Pariden is training one last Sindarian Disciple and then will start on the Grocer.  I move Bannon to River Pirates so that he will assist in its rapid growth.  Save.

My three heroes gather in River Pirates to plan strategy.  It is decided that Janusk will lead three groups of Sindarian Disciples and attempt to clear out the local bear population while Bannon and Procipinee deal with all of the paperwork associated with starting up a new settlement.  I research Trading and develop a road between my two settlements.

While hunting bears I find an investation of Water Shrills.  After a mighty struggle they are slain, but our losses are heavy.  One group of Disciples will never return home again.  During the battle I witness the 'Slow' effect again, this time on one of my own troops.  I moved, attacked, slow wore off, then I got to move and attack again.

I find a bear lounging in the woods and attack!  Holy cow the bear is fast, speed six?  Regardless, it falls before the mighty Janusk and his spear.  Feeling offensively minded, Janusk chooses the Path of the Assailant.  We spy a veritable army of Cave Bears ahead (1400 HP!) and choose to retreat and lick our wounds.  Procipinee has decided to check out the local Inn, and finds a noblewoman in need of escort.

An army of Water Shrills (738 HP) approaches my village of River Pirates.  It doesn't look good for us.  New resources have opened up, and we begin mining iron and crystals.  I begin researching Banditry.

Procipinee escorts the Noblewoman home, only to discover her estate is infested with Bandits!  The Bandit Captain looks like a real badass, everyone else isn't so rough.  I hunt for the 'Restoration' skill I am supposed to have from being a Cleric but I can't find it?  Ahh it's under skills.  It is cheaper to cast than a normal Heal spell, but has a two turn cooldown.  The bandit Captain has maul?  WTH.  Dell falls before his incredible power, but is swiftly reincarnated after the battle.  The Ignys Shortbow is considerably better than the vanilla version.

I found my third settlement next to a Druidic Circle (3/2/2), and plan to upgrade them into a Conclave.  The mites and water shrills are roaming outside my Pirate enclave, but Janusk makes it home to help defend the city if it is attacked. 

Procipinee returns and leads Dell plus our three units of Sindarian Disciples out to attack the mites.  They prove to be tough opponents, but our army coupled with Procipinee and her new Ignys Shortbow turn the tide.

More to come later.

I found that a combination of Hold and Slow allowed me to destroy ogres. I will point out that even though it's called hold the description leads you to believe that the enemy will loss its turn rather then just not being able to move.  Lost a unit because of this.

Jeagger with the NC. Carry on brother.

@Ragnin, 

     I kind of assumed everyone would remember the D&D definition of hold where you can't move, but still may attack. I have a more accurate tag for it in the next version. 

Sean: is planetside any worth playing? I logged once in beta and i did not find it particularly appealing ...

Ya, I didn't take that tag out, my code is so old it never had it. I decided I don't particularly want champion damage since they take plenty already. As you suspect, IsChampion needs that tag to work. 

I'm having a problem with the level 9 Supreme Commander champion (Kingdom) that you can recruit. Every time he goes into battle loading the tactical map takes 2 min (from instant) and the first 4 turns takes 2 min between turns (from instant). The name escapes me, but he is unusable in his current state. I dont know if it's the mod or the game that's acting up.

If I had to guess, I'd think it might be the Supreme Commander trait that makes it slow

His name is General Carrodus and is located in Research2. The bug is only him and started immediately.

https://www2.qualiware.com/fileshare/?f=1872&fid=7c5de756

Another bug is that Fire Elementals disappear under the tactical map and when it's their 2nd or 3rd turn nothing will happen and you have to auto-resolve it. You try auto-resolve 8k hp epic fight hehe

Do you plan on adding "mod manager" support for this mod? 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/437003

MA looks awesome, and I'm about to install it.  At the same time I really like the idea of being able to check/uncheck installations.  THere are 30+ pages here, so I'm assuming its been brought up before, just reiterating.

Now to figure out how to install without blowing too many things up.

LairMonster is where we keep the bosses with 0 moves. This keeps them tethered to the lair tile and allows us to make bosses stronger and more interesting. So far it just has the movement thing, but later on we might reduce the number of monsters at lairs and then increase the power of the boss.

We will likely make the mod work with the mod manager soon.

To install, copy everything into the game folder. The mods folder and user folder in general has a ton of bugs, so this mod doesn't work there. Seems like you figured out the SP and improvements thing though. You just need that backup of the English folder to turn the game back to vanilla. No need for a second install. When the mod is in the manager, all this will be easier.

To the intelligent, ignorance is but opportunity.

The units folder is a work in progress. Here is the latest version. I post it every once in a while. Units Folder

It should work. Run as Admin simply ensures the game will parse all xml files when the game starts. If the mod is buggy or does not seem to change anything, you might need to enable UAC. I suspect it won't be a problem.

Custom factions and Sovs are one the best things about the mods.

Since we can create new units during the game that are added to the units folder, it should be fine to add them at any time.

Heroes cost gildar per turn. Having too many early on can stifle your economy. There is little risk in letting them stay in the wild early on since it is unlikely to see any AI factions for some time. You'll notice that I picked them all up later on when I could afford to.

Hey Sean, had a question. Did you remove wages from all your units? For some reason, unless it was something I did, units trained are not requiring any wages in game. Just says 0.0. The only thing I can think of is because I made changes to coreunitgrouptypes and made larger groups, but why would that eliminate wages?

I see.