chesslike gameplay

[Zechnophobe]

Interesting discussion.

The chess-like option suggested would not be just 'make the ai harder' but rather, it would change your expectations for combat. If losses were common, but not permanent, the balancing of the game could be more around how to kill an opponent the fastest, but each opponent could be substantially stronger because winning with 1 guy left is the same as winning with zero losses.

Personally, the only thing that I would like to see in this arena, is the removal of resurrection engines. I think the game plays really nicely as a 'you want to do this perfect' style game, where decisions of unit placement, spell casting, and unit selection are all incredibly important. But I do not like the fact that certain combinations allow you to heal infinite amounts of troops.