Slitherine

I’m quite content with the game as far as I have played until Kanthas now.
I first played on Challenge with patch 3, but when patch 4 hit I felt like restarting with some lessons learned on Legend with enemy-scaling which rather plays surprisingly better in the sense of not being too easy. I normally avoid turn-based strategy games on highest diff due implausible AI buffs.
I especially like this upgrade system in a TBS which offers a nice way to customize heroes and other units, although this is obviously quite plausibly restricted in forested barbarian lands with the given resources at beginning.
It’s quite fresh with the separated male and female upgrade-tiers, as rather only barbarian/norse-like armies offer such gender-mix compared to used-to-known male-only armies in non- or low-fantasy worlds.
I also like using morale as shield against magic attacks a lot. I have never seen using that so far in games. It feels virtually very believable in that sense.
It’s good that you can also equip ordinary units with items besides heroes. This brings a little difference to every army member even if you got copies of the same type.
Loot in the game is nicely varied and exciting to discover, as long as you don’t constantly get duplicates of something useless.
The Wealth system is also truly a better alternative to the typical scenario turn-limits. While visiting every special location for treasure seems mandatory at beginning, these won’t become too necessary anymore if you have established a fully upgraded army later about Sunken Lands and gather more resources than you need. More important is the scenario goal that can still be accomplished after the soft-limit. Saving costly unit member deaths by slow careful moves can compensate the benefit of left-over turn wealth mid-late game much more. It’s rather much easier to get own units destroyed later on higher difficulty grades.
The occasional discovered side-quests are highly welcome in a turn-based strategy game, although I wish there would be more in such fantasy-themed world. For example, on the Odwin’s Ford map, I missed the opportunity to accomplish cleansing the swamp from undead for the witch, as you can promise you will help the witch somehow. No idea if I have missed something there besides the female-unit special reward already by simply visiting the tent. Anyway, such scenario story-supported side-quests, like the harpy-quest on Clanhold of Machnar map, enrich highly the world that you are motivated to explore every corner of the map.
The letter-quests on the campaign map are also nicely done as mini-puzzle.
The difficulty grades of the game are also well done. Instead of implausibly buffing enemy units to the sky, you simply give them more experience and/or higher (tier) spawn numbers what still plays finely balanced right now without much frustration. The enemy-scaling option seems to do its job very well compared to strict XP values which look truly challenging as I have compared them, but this could vary for every player skill.

Here are some separated unit-issues I’ve noticed so far:
"Magistrate Present" buff on Krell's_Landing.also counts for Gerios himself. That shouldn’t happen for leader buffs.

If Wind Riders lose a unit member during an attack-and-retreat move, one stag will keep standing on the moved hex. I’ve already observed it on several maps. I can’t remember if it also happened to the earlier stag units.

The Pilfer perk of Medred's Knives gives 50 instead of 20g despite description. Intended? Is 50 not too high? That’s like visiting a special map location on every kill.

I still remember on Challenge with patch 3 that the Extractor item gave 2 mana per kill. On Legend diff with patch 4, it only gives 1 despite description.
I see this was recently reported here in the tech-forum. I guess you are going to update the description then.

Unit-gifts from letters, like Medred’s Knives and the Taurus Catapult, don’t seem to properly scale XP according to game progression or Drill skill from Falirson. I obtained Medred and the catapult (which I turned into resources) both after Dragon Isles on Legend-diff with level 2 which is rather too weak now although should still be doable due the rather non-frontline role of trackers or siege-artillery. I know that Drill isn’t necessarily taken by every player, but if you spend precious skill points there then it should benefit these newly obtained units too. The XP of Volunteer units seem to scale fine enough with the progression too that this XP scaling should be good to be used as well for these rewarded units.

The Heavy Axemen could need a little Health increase as nearly every other unit’s single member increase in hitpoints as well during the upgrade-tiers.
For example, the Iron Javelins got 30 compared to 25 hp per member of Javelin Throwers despite in also keeping the 8 members.
Similar, there is no progression between Slingers and Wolf Killers, although Armoured and Thunderers get 5 additional hp later.
It just feels unnatural that 10 Younglings have 25 hp per member while their upgrade to 8 Slingers/Killers made them somehow less healthy by only 20. This is unlike the upgrade from 8 Maidens with 20 hp to 8 Javelin Throwers of 25 hp and later 30 of 8 Iron Javelins. The health/member increase of the spear-line is even more extreme. Men feel so fluffy this way.
The lack of health of ranged units becomes very clear if you're targeting units with Siege Trolls. These do way too much damage on units of numerous members often destroying fully healthy ones with a single attack.

Considering their physical prowess, trolls are too cowardly with their 4 Morale throughout all upgrades. It should look better with at least +1 per tier similar like many other upgrade-tiers.
Barbarian males also seem to lack morale compared to females as long as they don’t go berserk. While Iron Javelins enjoy a hop from 5 to 6, Heavy Axemen don’t seem to get any confidence by their armour when upgrading from barechestedness as simple Axemen.
Together with the slight increase in Health, the Haxemen could possibly become more attractive compared to the Berserker-line. Obviously, the huge advantage of no kills and its "they will do fine" feeling is still way too attractive of these zerglings.

Why do melee-trolls have only Search 2 while ranged-ones have 3? Did the gods not create them all equal like barbarians? Do throwing-trolls eat more carrots than clobber-trolls?
Search 2 is okay for dull undead units, but all living creatures should be more aware of their surrounding, especially if they are more than twice the size of humans.

Mount-upgrades for Falirson and Ailsa: I think they lack some mixing of original hero and animal/monster stats. It isn’t so apparent with Falirson and his dire bear, like still adding Highland Charge and a little Armour-boost (Falirson 5 compared to Dire Bear 8).
It’s more apparent when getting the mount for Ailsa. She is still blind with Search 1 and squishy with Armour 2 besides the rest of her original stats. It feels like she only received clumsy wings and a fire-breath, and not like riding a true dragon. I’m especially thinking about the lizard dragon-riders which even have Search 4 compared to the non-mounted Swamp Dragons with Search 3.

Speeds: most units look fine, but the pure flyers should generally be faster than ground units. Only the bats have 5 what is as fastest creature okay compared to possible real-life speeds. I still honestly don’t feel that Red Dragons are that powerful to justify even a walking speed of 3 though. I think upping more or less all flyer speeds by 1 should still look finely balanced, although units like Winged Maidens and mounted flyers don’t need to be faster than 4 compared to their weaker non-mounted variant. A Pegasus Rider with only Speed 3 will also look more plausible with Speed 4 then, while dragons are so large and strong that they should hardly be affected by a tiny rider. The Jump ability should also not be higher than the regular move-speed.
Compared to flyers, it’s rather frustrating to watch how fast the speeds of lizards are in water. I was once chasing a Lizard Newt with a Pegasi which was easily evaded by their unbelievable swim-speed of 6. I think the amphibious trait should only give +1 in water instead of +2. I also see no reason why the Lizard Newts should have Speed 4 compared to so many other foot-units generally having 3 as base speed. I think the Newts should get more health as well, so they aren’t that ridiculously squishy when getting one-hit killed by Siege Trolls.
Offering amphibious creatures missile and siege damage protection on water tiles is another idea as they could simply submerge to evade it.
Most flyers are rather weak compared to ground units, so I wouldn’t mind their ability to do some decisive finish-off kills thanks to their superior speeds. That’s what makes Spitting Spider summons valuable as anti-flyer unit. A faster speed is really needed for the recon-role.
By the way, I’d also like to see spiders being able to climb mountain tiles.

I could go on with some unit stat tweaks, but I’d prefer to do this as own modification without turning this into a nitpicking debate. I really hope this is sooner or later possible with some externalization of data files. See the Order of Battle game for a good unity-example. I had no luck with asset-editing so far.

Some other suggestions:
The game could really, really need some trading between battles. Sooner or later you bath in a certain resource like gold and items which someone would like to trade in for something else like other more useful items or a resource. Even selling for only a fraction of the purchase price for sake of item-overview is highly welcome.
While such traders or trading shouldn’t be necessarily available everywhere, there could still be story-wise opportunities, like for example after Homecoming, Clanmeet, Krell’s Landing, and Kanthas/Golden Coast, to exchange goods for the next stage of trips. Such restriction could help to better manage trading inventories what to offer when without constantly offering giving what the player wants. A special opportunity to trade within the scenario when (re)visiting Trading Outposts also comes into my mind. These are also not too frequent during the Invasion campaign; early-mid campaign at least.

The random seed of loot should be generated at each scenario start.
It’s sometimes quite frustrating if you reload a savedgame for whatever silly reason to repeat a whole turn and notice some never-seen-before purple stuff vanishing forever. This should also annihilate any greedy reloads due undesired loot and speed-up gameplay.
The exaggerated Mutated Blood Oak good-perk stacking should also become less of a balancing issue.
By adding trading possibilities mentioned above, even another Tree Token or Band of Crows or other obsolete becoming items could be turned into gold later, similar like kicking Volunteers for gold after they survive a scenario, what I rather find more useful than non-fighting gold-loot.
Such feature could possibly lower the difficult grade again, but maybe the enemy-scaling option can already compensate this.

Mutated Blood Oak perks: I’d replace these with something only temporarily as they are only tempting reloads. Stacking these perks, thanks to reloads, on single heroes is quite unbalancing and no good game design without iron-man/lady mode.

Unit icons: some units could need a different one to distinguish them better from other types.
Units with magic weapons could show an aura-effect around the weapon.
Shield Maidens: two spears & shield.
Iron Javelins: two javelins & shield
Stag Lancers: two javelins & horseshoe
Wind Riders: three javelins & horseshoe
Slingers: one or two arrows
Wolf Killers: two or three arrows like originally
Heavy Axemen: two-bladed axe & shield
Werebears: their claws to better distinguish from bears
Trolls: you could distinguish here according to horn-length.
Centaur Warriors: two-bladed axe & shield
Crows: double-wings or simply a crow-silhouette to avoid similarity to the Eagle Bear
Vampire Bats: fangs
Pegasi: horseshoe with attached wings or like the Interceptor icon with horseshoe
Eagle Bear: beak
Ancestors: the shield is irritating, the Younglings’ sword with glow should look better
Gatekeeper: a whirlwind icon
Sentinel: a whirlwind icon with a lightning inside
Gathering more unique icons for all units could possibly help creating a better overview 2d-map in the future, as the minimap is too diffuse to use.

Liquid Mana: I really wish you are guaranteed to get at least two points before doing the Isael or Machnar road. I tend to pick a Wolf Mother after Heartspire for the fun of learning summons and training her as early as possible. I haven’t played the Iseal maps yet as I was always worried too much about the severe morale decision there. Losing a hero felt too extreme as well. Upgrading many of my barbarian units with the plenty Armour looked more satisfying than gathering even more Weapons on forested maps that I didn’t need at this point that much anymore. I’m also afraid too much about the annoying Longbow units.
I know that Burial Mounds can get randomly LM too before this map choice; at least once on the Clanmeet map. Too bad I was simply too unlucky twice now to get more than a single point that didn’t allow me to upgrade at least one Troll Pups unit to a Hurler which are so helpful against the fortified locations of Machnar.
Even worse was my surprise by struggling with my two Troll Pups units that I planned as Troll Hurler until Sunken Islands that I received a Troll Hurler replacement unit for a hero. I should have upgraded one Troll Pups much earlier then as Charger at least.
I understand the campaign design to offer different resource type priority in each Clan scenarios, but at least two LM points, like scavenging these after Heartspire, before that could really benefit better army building choices at this campaign stage.

Dragon Isles map: the lower-left island could need an opportunity to crawl over shallow water to the main-isle like doable on the right island. I was actually looking for a teleportation circle there. Luckily, I picked my small Ulnar-group for this island including the Wolf Mother which could still spam flyers. I guess this island is rather suited for lizards and flyers what you don’t know for sure on the first visit yet.

I miss a camera keyboard/mouse-scroll speed slider. Such option is rather standard in games since ages.

The animation speed slider keeps resetting to 100% although the actual animation speed still applies as far as I have observed it with patch 4. I can’t remember if this was also with patch 3.
The move-speed animation of Shield Maidens looks slower compared to other units. Maybe the same applies to other units but it could be my eyes.

Hotkey-G to toggle hex-grid doesn’t work for me. Changing it to another key doesn’t work either. The UI option still works.

How about a hotkey to reset the camera rotation?

The idle flapping-sound of pegasi, dragons and possibly other flyers is annoying compared to the dead-silent rest of the units. I’ve already noticed this flapping-sound also during loading a savedgame in an extremely fast beat which is even more irritating.

The game has a reckless RAM overflow-issue, like known in other Unity-games. It harmlessly starts with 2-3 GB after loading whatever map on more or less highest settings and gathers sooner or later around 6 GB what hurts systems with 8 GB RAM. It also happens with all settings to lowest. I wish the game (or the engine?) could better manage the maximum RAM limits. Could it happen due frequent savedgame loading? I don’t know.

That’s about it as far as I remember and noted while playing this great game.

Here are two more suggestions that I think are important:

Wolf Mother should have Tir's regeneration skill by default, as you don't have a single healer most of the time. That's rather unusual in a fantasy game. Maybe I'm a bit too spoilt by FG1 with their Healers that don't require any mana to heal.

Doughal lacks a bit health for a melee character. He can easily get into trouble on the frontline later that I tend to give him a Plague Doctor Mask now.
Falirson: 120
Doughal: 100
Ailsa: 100
Tir: 220
Ulnar: 220
Dolos: 120
Thane: 120
At least 120 like Falirson should be better, although I think Falirson could also have more compared his father Falir that has even 160.

Medred's Knives Pilfer perk also applies to monsters and animals which hardly carry any gold from a plausible point of view. Restricting this to human-kills makes more sense and limits this extra income.

Regeneration (+10/+20/+30) becomes somewhat weak considering the insane damage results later, and for units like Cleavers that can reach over 500 Health where such regeneration/turn can be neglected. If things get bad, you tend to retreat and rest anyway. It's a problem that other games have as well if such heal-values don't scale according to hitpoints/level. E.g. +5 Health Regeneration per Level could nicely scale here to +50 for level 10.

About artefact loot tables:
I've noticed so many drops later during the campaign of grey-quality which were already quite obsolete by something green. I wish these items could drop more often right from start with higher priority compared to green-quality, less so later in the campaign if something similar and better in green is available.
There are also unfortunate drop rolls twice the same item on the same map that should definitely not happen at all. Hence, my suggestion about setting loot right at scenario start that could better check what the player already has and still missing. I think it's more enjoyable if you rather find something completely new than being (un)lucky to find something old sixth times over, like Water Boots in my current campaign after Marcra scenario where I found another two on the map.

I've most likely not found all artefacts yet. Ideas for possible new ones, in particular barbarian-style:
Holy Water: +50% damage versus UNDEAD
Bag of Salt: +50% Damage Reduction versus SPIRIT (there are already plenty items of Magic DR of 10-30%)
Animal Totem: +20% damage versus ANIMAL
Drums of War: causes "Frenzy" within radius 3
Drums of Marching: grants Force March for allied units within radius 3 at cost of 1 Morale
Boots of Walking: grants All Terrain
Sandals of Avoidance: grants Ignores Zone of Control
Rope: grants Mountaineer
Quiver: grants Infinite Defensive Fire Charges (Bag of Stones would obviously make more sense for barbarians. It's tricky to generalize)
Map of Keldonia: grants Pathfinder
Writ of Debt: summons randomly one of the scenario available mercenary units for free
Beast Mask: grants Fearless
Crystal Ball: grants skill "Scout"
Oracle Bone: +20% XP Bonus
Backpack: gain additional 20 Gold when raiding a settlement

Dragon (Riders): I'd give them the "Large" trait, so they can't be entangled anymore.

"Break Through" and similar move-skills can ignore "Entangled" status what shouldn't happen. Entangled units can also still occupy the melee-attacked neighbouring hex if the defender was destroyed or retreated. If you aren't allowed to move then you shouldn't be able to melee-/charge-attack another hex.

General Telemachios has Fearless twice.
I remember he also lacked something like the Inspiration skill as leader like the Emperor mentioned below.

Shouldn't Ulnar have Fearless as Berserker? It looks strange if the drunk, disfigured, death-mask wearing Ulnar becomes scared of something.

Missing ambush action: unit A attacks B. B retreats, A occupies hex of B that could be ambushed by C. It’s a situation that you normally don’t observe that often, but I think a justified tactic with skirmishers to lead into ambushes.

Longbowmen got Ambush and even Stealth but not a single ambush damage or point-blank bonus to support stealthiness.

The Emperor: 1080/10 health was too much for the UI to display correctly. He has already enough boosts of other stats compared to Imperial Golems that I don’t think he really needed that much health anymore. Sooner or later, he is the lone survivor who can’t really make a difference anyway anymore.
He definitely needs more extra skills, like Inspiration and a mean charge-attack what these Imperial Golems lack compared to the Bone ones. That would hurt. Otherwise, he doesn’t give the impression of a subduing leader. Even Gerios the Cutter made more of an impression with his "Magistrate Present" army-buff, Dark Presence and Cause Fear.

The Master: can summon only Skeleton Infantry and Flesh-Walkers, unlike his colleague who can also summon Vampire Bats, Heavy Skeleton Infantry, and Elite Flesh-Walkers.
Like the Emperor, he generally is a bit of a lackluster as final boss.


Alright, that was the Invasion on Legend-diff.
It was a fun trip through Keldonia, and I’m eagerly waiting for any new expanding content that will surely motivate me to replay even the Invasion campaign one day.

Most exciting battle: Battle for Heartspire
No other battle made me shift my units that often back and forth to defeat the huge army there. There have been enough hairy situations where units barely survived. It’s a time where you don’t have that many elixirs, gold, and many units which aren’t also that superbly upgraded and geared. The amount of enemy units there is quite large compared to own, and in the end you are proud you made it safely. I’m glad the campaign still lacked air units at this time.

Most annoying battle: Kanthas
Holy army! There have been so many spawns around the city and mana pool, it wasn’t funny anymore. I remember more pegasi units than ground units. Splitting forces is truly a bad idea there. I was only curious about story and stats of the centaurs, but I will surely pick the Golden Coast next time to rather grab more supply for more interesting magic units. Gaining access to new unit types is rather useless without proper supply gain. I guess it’s more useful for iron maiden mode without reloading if you tend to lose more core units.

Most interesting map: Krell’s Tower
Doing this map really felt like an adventure with the many text-events. The only bad things were the mutated blood oaks with their random-buffs that tempt too much to reload.

Least interesting map: The True Path
Maybe the intention here is to finally finish the campaign quickly. You box through all these many undead without any interesting dialogue. I guess everyone already knows about the rods by now. The final boss doesn’t even have anything smart-ass to say either, or at least nothing I can remember. I wish there was more surprise there to possibly turn the table for the AI. As you can easily skip enemy groups there, why not letting lose all inactive ones in the upper region too if the Master feels he is in danger? At least the final dialogue/text was satisfying for an end.

Most strange moments: Porikos & The Capital
Already twice I noticed in a scenario how highly interested the AI is in Falirson’s war camps. In Porikos, I left the city alone with a single settlement not captured. Later, reinforcements popped up right there. However, instead of guarding this primary objective, the AI ventured with all units down to an old war camp I once placed 10 hexes to the South.
Similar situation on The Capital map: only the Emperor was left in the Noble district bouncing with some health left between a dirty dozen of my units. Meanwhile, the whole reinforcement from the North was defeated. Everyone? No, a single AI archer managed to hide somewhere. I had placed a war camp near the crossroad in the northern region. After two turns, the AI captured this war camp and actually purchased and placed a whole bunch of new units around this camp. I was too tired to return and clean up my mess and rather obliterated your highness to move on to the final scenario.

Most loved unit: Wind Riders
The Stag Riders line is purely that awesome with their unique attack-move and versatile skirmish-attack against ground and air units. THE lifesavers if you meet harpies. They got a little trouble in the swamps without Water Boots, but even there they are invaluable to bring down dragons. I can’t wait for the air-unit expansion.

Most hated unit: Pegasus Riders
Ignoring your formations, they can quickly bring death to units with their flying charge. Who doesn’t hate to watch them going down on your precious units, expecting a lot of health and even members lost?
These are closely followed by the strong Devourers in swamps and charging Bone Golems.

Most useful unit: Spitting Spider
With the ridiculous amount of Empire flyer-spawns, no other unit is that useful than these ugly spiders. The annoying Harpies, Pegasus Riders, and any kind of dragon units suddenly become hilariously helpless if you entangle them.

Most respected unit: Harpies
They aren’t necessarily tough, but no other unit can easily ruin it for your strongest male units. I really like the idea of this male-only charm skill.

Most annoying unit: Flesh-Walkers
Spreading their diseases around your whole army is hilariously annoying although not necessarily terrible. I truly regretted losing some Plague Doctor Masks earlier on killed merc-centaurs during Kanthas.

About characters and their story:
Falirson: while most of his talk and the decision possibilities is fine, although somewhat lacking in the end, I felt his intolerance to Ulnar’s comments is too exaggerated. He didn’t act so much like a barbarian that is used to rough-mannered people.
Doughal: I liked him throughout the campaign with his comments like a Gandalf, although his sentimental talk about the past becomes too repetitive.
Ailsa: you can’t always agree with her, but I think she plays her role as nature-loving shaman quite well. It’s simply a pity that disagreeing comes with magic vulnerability.
Tir: I haven’t played the Isael route, hence I have possibly missed more dilemma with her kin. Otherwise, she has my sympathy until her leave which is acceptable at this time.
Marcra: I wish she still has more to say besides begging to help in Synor or Bay. Afterwards, you don’t hear any line of her anymore if you reject her help. She must have escaped unnoticed. At least a damn when her supposedly father appeared would have been appreciated, but I guess I have to make her join by losing my preferred Ulnar to read more comments.
Ulnar: The same with him. Even if you keep him around until the end, it’s sad you don’t hear much from him anymore in the end. I really didn’t mind him at all, unlike Falirson, as Ulnar always had a good point to complain about. He is the epitome of a true barbarian you hardly want to miss throughout the campaign.
Dolos: I like it that you never really know what he’s up to. He rather becomes too quiet in the Empire regions too where he could have more pointers than anyone else. He still makes his point before Porikos well enough what I can accept.

More suggestions:
Each unit should offer more statistics, like total damage and kills per scenario/campaign. This should add more flavour and knowledge how well certain units perform. While the campaign screen is still interesting early-mid throughout the campaign, it rather becomes superfluous later if you don’t grow in supply and don’t find interesting artefacts anymore. Additional trading inventories and statistics to browse could change that to check on all your fellows all the time.

Renaming units only from level 3 on is rather bad and unnecessary. Sooner or later, you got so many additional units that you tend to form more than one group around another hero which I like to mark with prefix I. and II. in the name. It can still take a while until Falirson and its Drill skills are high enough to reach recruit-level 3.

Supply: getting +4 supply during the Capital scenario is way too late, considering the huge amount of resources you have gathered throughout the Sunken Lands and afterwards. With Drill II, these units start with level 5 in the end what is somewhat too low for the typical L7-8 of the AI on Legend-diff. On the other hand, you don’t really need more units anyway as long as you keep the old ones alive, but toying around with new types that you hadn’t yet in your army pool is always fun. The hidden +2 supply reward in Porikos rather refilled my overflow that I had by gifted units and the mysterious loss during Sunken Lands.
A more continuous supply-flow throughout the campaign with only +1 steps is much more appreciated to give the player always something to do on the campaign screen and new units a chance to earn more experience from an earlier point.

Flyers: I have already mentioned them before, but I gladly repeat myself that they need a boost of +1 Speed to better follow ground units on roads. I never liked it in strategy games when vehicles on road outpace aircraft. Where is the sweet illusion of realism in a game?

AI reinforcements: spawning right in the middle of the map doesn’t look great. The one coming from the North during The Capital was rather the only one plausible and enjoyable.
Reinforcements should always come from roads and map edges, the rough directions where the campaign continues. Reinforcements that make a landing by ship somewhere similar like entering the Sunken Lands should also look fine. During The Capital scenario, I always wondered what’s going to come from the eastern shores. It was rather disappointing that absolutely nothing was there or happened from there.
While it’s good that the AI has its own resource management, popping up many units from nowhere, similar like the player during scenarios with war camps, always lacks some sense of realism.

Mercenaries & Summons: they are rather somewhat too cheap, especially to maintain. Early-mid campaign, I surely lacked a lot of gold as upgrading and elite-replenishing units costs a fortune. Later, my gold reserve and army grew that mighty that mercenaries never felt that helpful anymore. I’d rather hire mercenaries cheaper but with a turn-based cost, so I can kick them whenever they aren’t needed anymore.
Similar about the summons: while mana is surely hard to come by early, it’s rather too easy with more mana pools and certain artefacts around later to gather way too many summons to beat the AI by themselves.
The thing is that mercenaries and summons feel too permanent and strong as addition to the core army. I’d rather like them as temporary solution to obstacles. Lower gold/mana cost to hire/summon, but continuous cost to maintain.
Maybe allowing summons to immediately attack in the same turn as they are summoned could compensate for their maintaining cost, basically as attack skill.
Changing the Charm skill to continuously cost mana to maintain is maybe also better as the timer often runs out before charmed creatures reach the frontline. If the gold/mana reserve gets empty, the most expensive units to maintain get kicked out automatically. I think there are also enough other strategy games out there who can handle such maintaining costs well enough as example.
I had the feeling during scenarios that all these many pegasi units were actually summons by Transmuters that had way too much mana to waste. These many bats and pegasi were way more annoying than many undead.
This remembers me of Doughal’s crow-summon skill. Here, I wish a single crow unit by Doughal was for free like it was once given for as gifted unit early in the campaign.
Mana, either you don’t have it or you have it too much during the campaign.

Maybe more things come into my mind again another time.

just saw your thread. This is very well observed and valuable feedback. I will get to answer in a bit, need to take some time and sit down with all the stuff you posted.

Ok, I read through all the comments and some of them we will simply note - I like a lot of the ideas for items for example.

Regarding flyers - with them not being affected by terrain giving them move 5 would mean they can escape any missile unit other than centaurs easily. Thus their current speed.
Aerial units for everyone also will change the balancing there, coming in with the Onslaught DLC.
Item Trading - I agree we need something to get rid of them.

Scenarios/Comments: During beta we found that people tended to not want to be distracted by comments in later maps as they are so long anyway, so we may have toned down our heroes a little

Well noted about Ulnar, Entangled state and Large units (dragons are already large with the recent patch).
I also agree with the Emperor and the Master requiring some more pizzazz - will get on that.

I think you will enjoy the upcoming DLC (and we could use someone to give our aerial units good spin in beta, if you have the time).
Thanks again for the extensive feedback!