Chronic Logic

I think one interesting way to add a little variety to the game is allow for more dynamic settings, for example:

Board Size - allow a range of board sizes

AI - there's something to be said for scaling AI, but perhaps you can also set it to something within a given range

Unit Types - I hear a lot of people complaining about different units being far too effective etc... like assassins, personally I don't see a problem with them... But rather than hearing these people complain, you could put in settings to allow/disallow certain units...

AI Start Locations - in coop, the AI really is pretty easy no matter what difficulty, as long as your both pick something that works well together giving the AI more starting locations would allow them more spawning points, which would actually make the game more difficult. Rather than selecting how many 'castles' they get, you could select how many 'deployment spaces' they get.

Templates - the ability to turn on/off certain or all templates

There are probably other settings that could be made more dynamic to allow the players some control over how they want to play, etc... Regardless, its something to think about...

like the alchemist, though i don't think the potions should take an action to both give and use ... and only last one turn... taking an action to give and lasting one turn is probably reasonable.

the spy... i think enemy swapping makes it too powerful for a 350 pnt unit, let alone 100...

madman... meh

I like the summoner as forward deployment facilitator idea... though, to be honest, i don't think there is anything you have to take away from it; as is, it seems pretty much unplayable... either 2 actions or 3 range might help... but more interesting stuff sounds like a better way to deal with it

I really like the template idea though, regardless of how AI changes, I'd love to see some units that actually apply them, for player use as well as computer use.

you could have a 'tripwire' tile... where a unit chooses 2 ends, and a line between them is set... perhaps it removes all remaining actions of units that cross it, and stops them at the tile, etc...

Well, if you wanted to get rid of the randomness, it could be a guaranteed advance... Perhaps a certain quantity advance each round, based on ai difficulty... as far as this helping players more because generally comps kill less... you could either have this not effect players, or like i mentioned the comps will advance based on what they do... so maybe you don't end up facing many 'mighty' ones... but a ton of longshanks... lol

well, certain templates might be able to be applied through other units, i.e. maybe introducing a vampire unit for vampiric and the artificer for clockwork... similarly, you could have some units apply negative templates... or tiles for that matter, if that idea were to get implemented...

I couldn't find a thread about the new AI, so I started one...

I like the variety offered by the changed AI, however, I think it makes single player a little too difficult to be enjoyable...

I think the following might be an interesting way to implement the new variety: Rather than starting as "Mighty" or "Speedy" or whatever, allow units the chance to gain those templates and advance within them as the game goes on... For example, say a unit uses 2 actions to move, you might give it 2 chances to gain the speedy template at the end of the computer's turn. The percent chance would be a function of the AI level, etc... Could get a chance to gain the mighty template each time it damages something, the resilient template each time it survives an attack, etc...

And of course, were this to be implemented, it seems like a viable toggleable option for vs games.

I like the tile idea, it would add another dimension to the game... it sort of exists with the mason, but there is definite room for expansion, etc...