Vedui' il'er!
Ok, first of all I must stress that I don't want to be offensive and that I love all the work and dedication the Team has been putting in this game.
I say that because I have a lot of negative feedback on this matter.
1.It takes too much time for units to kill or get killed in the game, to the point that battles become tiring. I understand why you increased the overall health of units in the game, but that becomes a problem because you nerfed archers too damn much, and they are a vital part of the siege theatre. That logic also applies to mass effect damage powers, because you chose to increase health AND nerf damage. Maybe a few powers should mass kill (Word of Power), while others should deal a damage that doesn't mass kill, but that helps cut the down the enemy (that rain of arrows power). Perhaps they should kill normal or lower level units and become a telling blow to thougher units. Heroes also become a problem because they should have less health, sometimes one or two heroes become a big problem to an entire army, which takes an painful amount of time concentrated on just killing them.
2.I have no problem with the speed of spell progression. But the speed of gathering resources is PAINFUL and BORING. There are two problems in this area: a) In the original game resource buildings evolved by themselves and you did not have to worry about managing them, just protecting them. I love to build things in the game, but the micro-management of resources, in choosing if I want more gold or command points, the amount of time taken doing this and the amount of money I have to spend on evolving them is killing me. b)In the original game I could choose to focus if I wanted to have a specific unit or upgrade by spending resources on them early on at the price of other lower level units or things I chose not to recruit/build but that are usually recruited first. But now I'm forced to get units and things I don't want to in order to evolve the building to finally get what I really wanted. I just can't cut to that aspect of the faction I wanted to enjoy just by manually evolving the building as it was possible on the original game It takes a painful and tiring amount of time to get what you want from that faction, and when you realize you're half-way through the game in the middle of a big struggle. I seriously feel like I'm being forced into a style of play that I don't enjoy.
3.I don't think this is a big problem, but I believe it would be better if units moved just a bit faster. On the other hand there should be differences between unit's speed based on their race, faction, and role. Heavy units should be slower, rangers and light-weight faster, elves should be faster, humans and orcs should have normal speed, dwarves slower, Lothlorien elves should be even faster than other elves, and so on. So there should be a logic to all of it. It doesn't matter if it will be more difficult for a certain kind unit or even whole faction to retreat, because in this case they would have other strengths and a player would then have to adapt his tactics depending on the unit he's employing.
4.Someone mentioned on a topic about game modes that a game mode limited to 600 or so command points would fulfill the needs of those players who want a faster game play, making games shorter. NO, please no! The reason I ask for a faster gameplay is because I want to get to the point faster, "the point" being when I can get the units and/or upgrades that I want for reasons of the strategy I plan to employ on the battlefield. That doesn't mean I want the game to be shorter, just that I want to put the cards on the table faster in order to establish the long and epic battle faster. I don't know if I speak for all players who want a faster gameplay, but that's what I think.
I just want to apologize if somehow I sound offensive given the emphasis I put on certain words during my cirtique of this most important aspect of the game, and we all know how we can predict the tone of someone's speech though text. This is really a subject that troubles me a lot and I hope I'm not alone.
Again I sicerely thank the Team for all the work put into this project, I'm a great admirer of you, guys. Also I thank the other players and forum members who keep one of my favourite games alive.
Aa' lasser en lle coia orn n' omenta gurtha.