Mostly agree with this list, especially initiative issues (all on one side get to go first, then defender, = not so good) add on:

--few unit buff spells in the spell book allow units to be much tougher than they normally are.  "Heroism", tactical def+5, tactical off+5, all stats + x, "Lionheart", etc. kind of spells seems pretty lacking.  This is important because, IMHO, an enemy should be required to cast a spell (and Resistance should matter) on your army to get this kind of info, not just given to them by clicking on your stack to see what your special abilities are. 

--in MoM the remote mage ALWAYS got to cast spells in the combat (assuming he had some spell points). This made each combat winnable. You always had a fear factor of the remote mage affecting the battle no matter how few defenders.  This made every battle potentially a challenge.  I've suggested that any battle inside the Sovereign's territory allow him/her to have the same effect--gives you the same challenge/advantage (depending on your perspective).

--heroes should be able to develop abilities and items which affect their entire stacks

--you should get the items of a hero you defeat. This will make it more interesting just because you can lose your items!

--agree the 1DN issue needs replacing

Interesting idea and good to see you guys are thinking laterally.

Personally I'm not convinced. It could feel pretty random and be difficult to plan your tactics unless you have a good understanding of who gets to move when (unless the UI is extremely helpful about this but not sure there would be the screen real estate).

This would mean that all squares have the same movement required (ie you couldn't have swamps which take two movement/action points to enter).

It means that you could take the slowest, heaviest, most damaging weapon you have (say giving -1 speed) and then so long as you can buff your speed with a few other things (horse, rings, boots, whatever) still end up with speed 3 or 4 and be able to hit multiple times for huge damage... where as the guy who takes a fast weapon which gives +1 speed but does less than half the damage can only hit 5 or 6 times (and is potentially open to more counter attacks).

To put another way it means that anything giving a buff to speed buffs moves, attacks and casting, while anything that gives a negative to speed debuffs everything. This is not real world and any mechanic which doesn't make at least a modicom of logical sense is a poor one to me (ie having Boots of Running or sitting on a horse lets me cast more spells in a round? how?!?).

I much prefer a solution given in another thread which went sort of like this (numbers made up on the spot and would need tweaking!):

All units get 100 action points per turn (perhaps with the ability to carry 10-20 unused over from last turn).

Moving a square uses base 30 action points

Attacking uses base 40 action points

Moving into swamp is 2 * move cost (ie 30 * 2 = 60)

Boots of Running make 0.6 * move cost (ie Boots of Speed plus Swamp = 30 * 2 * 0.6 = 36)

Attacking with a Two Handed Maul uses 1.8 attack cost (ie 40 * 1.8 = 72)

Wearing Gauntlets of Striking makes 0.75 attack cost (ie with two handed maul 40 * 1.8 * 0.75 = 54)

Casting a spell costs a base 40 action points but modified by 20% per level of the spell above or below the casters level (so a level 3 hero casting a level 6 spell it will take 40 * 1.6 = 64 points) - would need a lower limit on this or some tweaking to avoid level 9 heros being able to cast level 4 spells for free but you get the idea.

Retaliating could use up your action points for the next round, perhaps up to a limit and at a reduced cost?

I think a system like this would make a HUGE amount of real world sense plus allows for some much more meaningful modifiers (ie a big slow weapon only slows down your attack speed, unless it specifically says it also reduces your move speed too).

However it doesn't solve the initiative problem at all so some solution would still be needed for that. I can see it is also quite a large change as it means going from a single combat speed value to instead having 3 tactical speed multiplicative modifiers (one each for move, attack, casting) with 1 being normal for each and low numbers being better. This is potentially confusing, although the actual mechanics could be hidden behind a layer of more player friendly numbers (eg instead of saying 0.5 move modifier, say they move 2 times as fast).

Unless those powerful weapons end up having significant -speed modifiers. A big war hammer should be slower than a dagger, for example.

Combat is boring because:

1. All units are the same - just attack and defence. It is enough to make strongest squad, cast haste and wipe out all the enemies in 2 turns.

2. Battle system is broken. Damage is way to random. It is very difficult to play tacticly.

3. Magic system is broken. Mana pool is short and the spells are uninteresting. Dmg is very random again, miss half of the time.

4. Heroes are broken, die to any large unit in big numbers. Low hp, no specials.

5. No special atributes for units making them good agains some types and weak against others.

6. Multiplied units are overpowered. I would almost suggest to get ride off groups, teams and raids for balancing purposes. Only then you can think about tactis rather than massing strongest unit. Also heroes and summons would be more useful.

What irritates me is that you can not skip these boring tactical combats becase computer is going to lose half of you army, couple heroes and half of mana on easiest battles that you would finish without a wound and mana loss.