Before we get going, congrats on making LH a huge improvement over FE. It actually feels like a game now, and not just a collection of competing yet disconnected systems. Without further ado, here are some (relatively small) things to think about:
Strategic Map UI
1) Splitting armies using the "eject" button kicks the ejected units into an adjacent square - bad news because it usually sends them in the wrong direction and ends up eating my moves for the turn. Recommend: Consider changing this so that the units remain in their current square (especially since the change to multi-army tile UI makes it easier to find that army and give it orders).
2) Would appreciate the ability to drag/drop to reorder armies and cities on the left hand side. It can be a bit jarring when an army that I've had at the top of my list the whole game gets sent to the bottom because I disband/reform it in a city. Same with cities that get captured and then reclaimed.
3) Tax change effects - right now mousing over the arrow to change tax rates shows what the new values for unrest, cash, research, etc. will be, but I have to then mouse over the current rate to see the current values. Recommend: Mousing over the new tax rate shows current ---> new values similar to what we see when building an upgraded version of a building. Puts all the info in one place.
4) Message jumps. When I get a pop-up message like a Troll saying he's going to eat my army, I then have to go through every singe army and see which one is in danger. Recommend: Either put a "go to" button on these alerts like you do when resource building are destroyed OR put a pop up on the right that I can use to jump to the event.
5) "Enemies are in your territory." Typically I don't care if monsters are in my territory. Armies, on the other hand... Recommend: Change the right-hand-side popups for enemies in territory to tell me if there are "monsters" (neutral) or "enemy forces" (AI player) in my lands. Maybe use different art or colors to make it easy to tell at a glance what kind of trouble is at my door.
6) Trading and Equipping items. Everything about the interface for managing items is a train wreck. Recommend: Paper dolls, multi-hero drag and drop screen (like a "stack manager" that allows me to to just bounce items around within the army, not just between two heroes at a time).
Heroes and Traits (Skill Trees)
7) The "Armor Master" trait for Defenders adds a flat weight bonus. Warriors have an identical trait. How about changing the Defender's trait so that it reduces armor weight (like -50% armor weight). That way you'll probably get more than the flat +15 or 20 out of it if you spec heavy armor, which is the point, right? You want Defenders to be rewarded for building a lot of armor, and I think that differentiating the traits a bit will help sell that you're actually making a meaningful choice when you choose Defender vs. Warrior.
8) Not sure about making one of the end-tree traits for Mage a fire-specific trait, especially since every trait up until then is very general (unlike the Warrior tree, which branches all over the place for each weapon type).
9) The "Rage" perk (+8 ATT when HP is 25% or lower) seems a bit weak. Considering that there's a +3 ATT flat perk, it seems that a better fit would be to change the HP threshold from 25% to 50%, which gives an average bonus of +4 ATT ( 50% of 8, as opposed to the +2 it does now for being 25% of 8). Also, 25% is super low - at 50% it starts to become a nice little risk-reward bit, whereas with 25% I'm thinking "my hero is almost dead, screw the +8 ATT and retreat!"
10) Commanders are a troublesome lot - especially the city-boosting "governor" ones. I love their potential, but developing a "stay at home hero" is rife with issues. Aside from the Adventurer's Guild, how is one supposed to gain XP? And if the guild is the only way to advance a governor, then you're pretty much saying I can only have 1 city with an effective governor (since there's only 1 guild per player). That means that if I want to build a governor, I need to send him out into the field, which defeats the purpose. Remember, heroes should be rewarded for fulfilling their roles. As a mage kills stuff with spells, they gain XP to get better at killing stuff with spells. Maybe governors gain XP based on the cost of stuff built in their city?
Overall the skill trees have some cool stuff, but they also suffer from "Borderlands Syndrome" where there are a lot of boring "+x to stat y" along the way. More pointed feedback once I've spent a lot more time with them.
Bugs/Quirks
11) Apiaries say they grant a gildar and production bonus. My Village showed no bonus whatsoever, and my Town showed a 2% unrest reduction from the apiary, and that was it. I know this effectively increases gildar and production, but it was a bit jarring. Also it was not much of a bonus.
12) In the score list (upper right of strat map), it's making a new row to show which Towers a player has completed (instead of just placing them in-line with the name). I'm assuming this is a bug.
13) Unspecialized heroes that have a skill from one of the trees are able to skip part of the skill tree once picking a spec. For example, if Joe starts with Merchant I and then I spec him to Commander, I can get Merchant II (and beyond) without taking Administrator, which is normally required for the Merchant skills.
Miscellaneous
14) Pioneers. At the moment it feels like using them for Outposts is a bit of a raw deal, given their cost. I'm still getting a feel for how the long-term economics work, however, so maybe it all makes sense. Early Pioneers for cities (when pop is limited) and Outposts later (when you've picked up a few city levels)?
15) Tactical Skill/Spell bar. It took me a while to realize that I had more spells available than what was on my sov's quick-cast bar. Turns out level 1 and 2 fire magi don't suck!
That's it for now. Hopefully I can survive long enough to provide feedback on the end-game content.
