A while back I made a somewhat larger post that summarized what most edain pvp 1v1 players think about the current gameplay of edain 4.5.
Now I want to present our ideas on what could be some solutions to the addressed issues.
Economy
The inflation can stay as strong as it is, but outside farms should cost at maximum 200 and the general income could be increased substantially.
Inflation is a good mechanic to curb edain's very strong snowballing. However, together with farms costing 300, it takes forever to afford anything and the gameplay is too slow. Increasing the income of economy buildings would not just speed up the gameplay again, it would also enable more strategies because you can afford producing units from 3,4,5 different military buildings and don't have to fill your base with 90% economy buildings. If this makes it too difficult to finish off a player that has lost all map control becauses the base still produces 2k resources a minute, then the defenders advantage should be decreased and siege units should become more potent.
Fighting over every single farm on the map was what Edain's early and mid game was all about. With outside farms costing 50% more than in 4.4.1 many players opt to just fill their base with economic structures. It is often not worth it to build a farm in a risky location. That might sound like it adds some decision making, but the less farms are taken on the map the less points of interest there are, the less reasons there are to fight over positions, the less opportunities think about tactics and maneuvers to conquer more positions. There is too much just running around in big clumps and doing nothing in the early and mid game because there is nothing to do besides some creeping.
Sieges
I think the only way to make sieges interesting is making siege units so accessible that a player that has a temporary military advantage but might be economically behind (less map control) can quickly start a siege and do some lasting damage. It doesn't even have to end the game. Destroying a barracks and and 2 eco buildings can be enough. The whole siege maneuver has to happen before the defending player with more map control inevitably mustered a stronger army. Sieges where the attackers has 100% map control will and should never have a real comeback potential unless the attacker does some major mistakes.
Heroes
Hero's CP cost needs to be reflective of their power level. If you have 1300 out 1500 cp, there is simply no alternative, nothing could make your army stronger than spamming out all heroes at this point. If you don't do this but your opponent does, you lose the fight. It would make balancing heroes substantially easier if their CP cost was in line with other units.
Just as a comparison, the competitively played rotwk 2.02 has tier 3 heroes cost 100 out of 1000 cp points. In edain 4.4.1 they cost 30 out of 1800 cp points, 4.5 improved this but needs to go much further. 3000 resource heroes should cost 120 or even 150 command points. Even then they will still be the most Cp efficient units in the game.
Another important idea is to make heroes not improve their stats when leveling. Not just will a level 5 support hero win against a level 1 hero killer but if your opponent hero spammed early and has their heroes on level 4 already, there is no way to ever beat them with your own heroes or even keep your own heroes alive.
Another but more radical idea to curb hero's late game snowballing is making them respawn at level 1 when they die.
I would also like to see heroes doing no more than 100% damage against heroes so that the general army strength is more relevant than just who spammed out more heroes when it comes to hero battles and keeping your heroes alive.
Healing & towers
I already described why healing, especially healing near important positions is very toxic to fun gameplay. A popular solution was to make healing sources only heal existing units, but not replenish the battalions, only banner carriers should have this ability. This could be a sufficient nerf. Also the rohan assembly point is way to strong and annoying. It should be moved to the exile camp or taken out.
Also, towers outside of your base should see a significant range reduction, enough for self defense, but no longer enough to zone out the enemy.
Cavalry & Pikes
Cavalry is too oppressive. It is simply not viable to split your forces once a larger force of cavalry is on the field. Even sending out just individual pike battalions is not viable since 4 battalions of mobile cavalry will easily kill it and, if necessary, they just heal back up in the base. If healing gets nerfed like described above, the problem might be reduced. Another big problem is that pikes don't do 360° trample revenge. Cavalry gets 0 damage when trampling pikes from behind. This makes a combination of infantry + cavalry way too strong to hunt down armies, the cavalry can kill everything if charging in from behind and if the pikes turn around to face the cavalry the chasing infantry will kill the pikemen.
Outposts
Players get the dunedain camp, dale and laketown for their healing, their towers and ,in 4.4.1, their income. All of which should be nerfed as I described above. I would like to see outposts become a lot cheaper when it comes to making outpost unique units or preparing a siege but a lot more expensive when it comes to turtlely and boring tower-heal-income aspects. The mordor outposts and the exile camp are fine. But dale, laketown, the dunedain camp, dol amroth and ered mithrin could be reworked in this regard. Even better but more difficult would be to give outpost units more unique aspects that complement your normal army, players a willing to invest a lot of recources to get rohan captains, improved orcs, castellans or mirkwood units.
