Agreed.

I'm not in favor of absolutely no movement around enemy troops. Choices are always better, imo.

I would like more if when moving past fortified enemy positions then the enemy ranged units get free attacks and the entire army has the possibility of some kind of ambush attack on the following turn. That way you can choose to take the chance to move past a fortification, but at the risk of taking damage and giving the enemy a large advantage.

I'd really like to see some ZoC effects for units put in a sentry mode. It makes forts a lot more useful (instead of just going around them ala Civ 4), and more importantly gives you a sane mechanic with which to protect your caravans. Since I'm pushing for caravans to be important, protecting them is also important.

Put garrisons in forts along your trade network, and you can create some defense against cavalry raids. Of course, all those forts and units won't be free, so how many do you really want to build?

Agreed with John abit but also we could add in attrition along these structures based on their garrisons.

I don't understand how the presence of tactical battles is relevant to this?  The idea here is to allow you to control access to parts of the map by creating defensive fortifications.  Any combat would still be resolved in a tactical battle.  What's important is that somebody can place a garrison and/or build a fort/castle on the map to defend the surrounding squares or restrict access to surrounding territory (without having to build a city there), and that enemy units can't just walk right by it with impunity by simply choosing not to attack it.

Example: Say there is a valuable mine on a hill.  You probably can't build a fort/castle on that square to protect it, because the mine is there.  But say there is another hill or some other terrain with a nice defensive bonus next to it.  In most games, if you place a garrison there and/or build a fort next to it, an enemy military unit can simply walk onto the mine and capture/destroy it regardless of the castle next to it.  You units in the castle can come out and try to attack the enemy unit, but because the mine is on a hill and gets a hefty defensive bonus, your unit probably fights at a disadvantage...and the castle doesn't help at all because you have to leave the castle (and lose any advantages it would have provided) to ATTACK the unit instead of getting a defensive bonus for being entrenched in a fortified position.

The same thing goes for trying to defend a chokehold on a map to make it harder for the enemy to penetrate into your territory.  You place and entrench units, build fortifications, etc...but when the enemy comes he just walks by right next to your defenses and forces you to attack (losing all your fortification bonuses) while he gains any defensive bonuses for terrain - thus making fortifications and defensive garrisons irrelevant.

It should always be somewhat easier to defend territory than to attack it.  Even a single archer unit in a fort on a hill should be able to protect the nearby surrounding lands unless the enemy comes with a couple similarly tough units and maybe some kind of siege engine or something or a single much more powerful unit, etc.

I think a single archer could be killed by a single Ninja. The real question is where the equilibrium lies with Multiple Archers vs Multiple Ninjas (if 10 archers vs 10 ninjas, who has the advantage)

I also agree that One archer should be able to kill several units if they have an inefficient way to get past the walls (ladders, battering ram) ... however one archer vs two equivalent units + catapult would be interesting "skirmish".

Is it possible to have decimals for unit-upkeep?

Frogboy's post made me think that a single soldier unit should probably cost 0.1 gold in upkeep, and a party could cost 0.3 (25% discount) gold, and a company could cost 0.73 gold. (27% discount)

In this way, a company is indeed cheaper than ten individual units, as advertised in the tech tool-tip.

a unit of 50 soldiers could cost 3.5 gold per turn (30% discount), and a unit of 100 soldiers could cost 6.5 gold per turn. (35% discount)

a unit of 250 soldiers could cost 15 gold per turn (40% discount), and finally a legion could cost 50 gold per turn (50% discount)

And finally, (for soldier upkeep only) maintenance costs would be rounded down to the lower whole number at each juncture. Thereby, if you only have two individual units and one company, "expected" payment is 0.93 gold, however rounding down, this means no maintenance (or free units).

So that when you have enough units to go over 1 gold per turn (10 soldiers, 3 parties, or 2 companies). Personally I think this is the best way to handle unit maintanence, given the example from Frogboy's post.

Zone of control should take into account the size of the defending unit. A company of 10 men can't "control" a tile and the surrounding tiles. A company of 10 000 men can. Even more if they have some scouts in the army.

In elven legacy some units can ignore zone of controls, and that's a good thing. It opens a lot of possibilities.

At the same time, a ZoC doesn't have to mean "nobody can enter thees tiles". It just means they can't waltz right past the fort without being challenged. You have to fight those 10 guys in order to get past them, rather then what happens in something like Civ where unless the defenders are a city garrison, you can just go around them.

Well ... I think that units garrisoned in a Fort should have a natural Zone of Control.

Armies with scouts (long line of sight) should also have a Zone of Control.

City Garrisons, in a city with a WatchTower, should have a Zone of Control.

certain units should be able to dodge most Zones of Control.

A SuperFort/Citadel with scouts (and army), or a giant army with really good scouts, should be able to use a Zone of Control even against units naturally immune to Zone of Control.

Any army consistent of all Cavalry and even poor scouts (only 1 or 2 line of sight), should have a Zone of Control.

all Cavalry armies with really good scouts should be able to exert their Zone of Control vs those units normally immune to zone of control

so, to repeat myself, to emit any Zone of Control at all you need at least one of the following.

1. a Watch Tower
2. a Fort
3. Good Scouts
4. Cavalry

Zones of control as i stated before should be A. Zones of attrition caused by forts based on what units are garrisoned.

B the ability to attack ANY enemy moving past *only once as if multiple enemy troops move through the area seperated into different companies only one can be stopped effectively at a time*

C a way to enfore territory/trade also with the forts you could control local traderoutes tax the roads/toll merchants and keep down native monsters thereby establishing a border guard.

How about a compromise Tasunke? Zones of control are instead an army where Smaller armies can choose to fight or not etc. and large armys can choose to stall entire legions if necessary and depending on the skill of the fort commander different bonuse's/effects come into play?

OK. It makes sense for local Patrol size groups to get a proximity bonus given that they remain under the protective umbrella of the Forts ranged cover.

I thought we were talking about moving the whole garrison outside, in pursuit of the enemy force, if there was no other way to prevent the avoidance move, so to speak.

That said, if the Zone prevents passes without conflict, then yes, the inside bonuses would be far to great to give up by going outside.