I recommend some sort of creepwave benefits, or some sort of passive army/fortification buffs to make them a valuable asset in defense if not offense as well. I haven't thought this through fully with advantages and disadvantages yet, but consider it, criticize it, etc. you know the drill.

I didn't propose anything.  But if you'd like me to...

If it were my game this close to release I'd:

-crank General HP and Armor up bigtime.  Like, baseline progression is higher than the Rook's (who needs a nerf anyway, but that's another thread).

-slightly lower General baseline damage.

-make the damage portions of General skills weaker, but the debuffs stronger (ie, QoT's spikes lose 30% of their damage but remove 30% more armor).

-totally scrap the "minion stats" concept, make lower-level tokens prerequisites for higher-level tokens (ie, actual upgrade progression), makeup for the stats lost from the removal of minions stats by putting them into the token upgrades (ie, buff the core stats of token units).

I still think Generals are going to be boring to play at release.  Somewhere in my first few content patches, I'd include the following:

-new General-only items that grant more control over the battlefield.  For instance, items with clicky AOE buffs/debuffs, Artifact-level anti-Demigod crowd control items.

-more items with Auras, more types of Auras.  Both Assassins and Generals could use the new items, but they'd be especially good for Generals considering their cohorts of summoned units.

I'd love to see some way to make Generals feel truly powerful and unique in the end game -- like they really could change the course of a battle just as easily as an Assassin with 30k gold from a killing spree could.  In short, a one-word reason to pick one for your team. 

I'm thinking the addition of a unique one-point level 15 ability to each General that does something really spectacular -- an Ultimate, of sorts -- but only Generals get them.  The abilities would be in the same vein as "Super Weapons" from other RTSes.  As in, they have the power to seal a win or turn around a loss (and also have glacial recasts).  Maybe the healer on the kitty (I'm blanking on her name) could get a global full-heal with short invulnerability.  QoT could summon a gargantuan, super-strong Shambler which can't be directly controlled but makes a bee-line for the enemy base.  Stuff like that.

But that's a distant "needs designer work" dream, like, maybe in a content patch way down the line, or even the first expansion.

They need to seperate minions and cash somehow.  Generals need to purchase items and minions.  The minions aren't worth the gold you sacrifice to get them most of the time.

Very good idea.

Also, do citadel upgrades improve minions? If not they should.

Aura powers, like those of TBs should be General powers, and they should have more of them.

Erebus: Aura of Night - Minions and reinforcements gain Dodge +x% and have an x% chance to critical damage.

QoT: Thorn Aura - Any friendly unit in the aura gains a damage shield and an increase in health regen.

Sedna: Has an aura, but it seems kind of week. Maybe add a attack slow for enemies.

Oak: Punch Through Aura - Increase damage to allies.

Just some ideas.

Playing against the AI, and yes your Pantheon games are against the AI, isn't a good way to judge the strength of a DG.  Play custom games against real players and see how well your minion builds do. 

While I don't fully agree that Generals are useless, they do suffer in power against Assassians.  Money is the only real issue here.  We are weaker and we have to spend more gold to compensate.

Not true, once people know how to play generals effectively. 

In the current build you can't use minions all that much.  QoT puts a few points in for the self-heal, and Oak can make his Spirits work for him, but you should see a strong Sedna or Erebus without minions.  In a good team game they can make all the difference.

As far as idols go, I don't see alot of them used - they need some major buffs or price decreases to be worthwhile.  The last game against a good idoller I played was a few patches ago.  Anyone still use them and win?

The optimum build for Sedna and Erebus shouldn't ignore minions, imo, but it does. 

Here's what I would tweak -

Increase minion damage 100%

Decrease minion health 50-70% but increase hp regen 150%

Decrease General damage 30-50% across spells and normal attacks, but increase buff and debuff effects 30% on spells and passives  (good idea) and give normal attacks slight debuff effect (gonna make a post about this)

Decrease General hp 30% but increase hp regen 40%

What would this general look like?  He would need his unique minions up and running pretty quickly or rely on his teammates to bring all the damage.  He is fragile, but will recover from wounds quickly if he can avoid damage long enough.  He wants to hit his opponents to strip their defensive abilities so his minions or allies can do the real damage, because he excels at buffs, debuffs, and support abilities but can't fight an assassin 1 v 1 and expect to win without backup. His unique minions are the backup.

Unique Minions are very powerful damage-dealers, but can be killed by a few hits from an assassin.  They are resistant to AoE spells, and if you can get the wounded out of a battle they will heal to full health within 30 seconds.  No Assassin will make the mistake of ignoring these minions more than once, unless he likes staring at the Death Timer. 

So now you can play full support Generals if you have good teammates to replace your minions but you can't play as an assassin unless you are an assassin...Seems self-evident to me but we'll see what Gold looks like ^^

Aside from buffing minions, I believe that that as the minions actively kill creeps, they the experience & gold from those defeated creeps, towers, etc, are transferred to the general, no matter how far away from the action the general is.

In this case, the General can be doing his thing in one lane, while his minions are supporting a second lane.  As such, the General is able to generate experience and gold from both lanes.  Of course, this would only work if the minions were worth a damn.

I don't know if you know what you are all talking about!!!!

I will leave it to that.

I didn't want to come out and say "scrap Generals" Frogboy, but yes, that's probably the ideal solution to the problem.

The issue with Generals as they're currently designed is that they go against the original intent of the DOTA-esque, "tower offense" genre, which was to avoid the micromanagement headache traditional RTSes grew into.  The logic being, it's much more fun to manage only one super-powerful unit in a large, ongoing battle than it is to stare at health bars and send Orc Warrior #21 back to base cause he's under 20% hp.

Idols (I've been calling them tokens, oops). would probably need to be scrapped too.  Is it that hard to work them into Citadel upgrades?  Point being, I think it's foolish 99% of the time to buy idols, the money is better spent on Citadel upgrades that get your Assassins more money, less death time, or just upgrade your core creep waves. 

Most Generals already have their own unique unit-summoning abilities.  Let them keep those.  Maybe on the high end the summoned units could be given snares, or stacking DoTs/armor debuffs, stuff like that to make them better versus Demigods and feel unique/powerful.

I just don't see every Demigod being able to summon generic units willy-nilly as a good idea.  It dilutes the roles of the various DGs and I could see it pigeonholing some DGs/teams ("the Rook's first xxxx gold should always be spent on the level 3 priest idol" ;  "crap, we have no ranged, everyone get siege archers and be ready to cast them on my mark").  Part of the unique quality of these games is playing with the team you're dealt (in pubs) or grooming your own team's setup (orgranized play).  If everyone gets idols, why not pick the most overpowered hero for that version (cause there's always going to be one) and just stack idols to make up for his weaknesses?

Oh -- forgot to address your final point -- the issue is less if the minions have a use or not (they do, especially Priests), it's more if the gold cost of idols is ever more valuable than equipment for your DG, or Citadel upgrades.  At this point I don't think it is.

I agree, Generals are very strong.  But as Assassins and Close Support.  You don't see strong Yeti, Spirit, or Vampire builds and a strong Shambler build is just about knowing when to Mulch.  I haven't seen a strong minion build which included idols past baseline Monks in a long time.  

I don't get as much playtime as I'd like so I'm sure it's out there.  The group I play with most doesn't use them though.  If you are seeing this in the wild let me know when and where, because it would be interesting to play against.   

I posted a few thoughts on tweaking generals for release here and here

I've spent countless hours trying to run a Yeti build for Sedna.  It can be a strong build, especially now that Yetis are better, but it isn't as good as her other skill choices. 

Frankly they just need more money,  if you vere couple a general with a minion build with minion boosting items or especially the all father's ring, they are unstoppable.