Good video. I like the pioneer changes, swarm, growth changes, instant battles are great, looks like you accounted for the what if I have ranged question, talents trees are great. The battle report screen showing injury reports instead of multiple windows is a nice improvement. Here are some things I would like to see, not necessarily for release:

- A continue move button that like in Endless Space, so all units that already have a waypoint set will move towards their waypoint when you click this button or hotkey. This would be a huge quality of life improvement and it should take minimal coding time. This basically would run the continue movement portion of end turn. 

- give a city upgrade option on the city UI or prevent cancelling out of the screen unless you select an upgrade.

- Would it be possible to add the Gal Civ 2 Rally system for units or give us the ability to choose which square units leave the city at. 

- if you attack a unit and no defending stack remains the attacker should claim the empty square

- I liked the armies all requiring city pop mechanic which appears to have been given back to pioneers. Any possibility this will return for other units.

Anyways, I'm sure you have no shortage of "suggestions" I'm excited for the beta.

Great vid! Thanks for the preview.

- Swarm seems a little overpowered atm.

- Love the recruit champion and champion upgrade system.

- Would be nice if a popup still appeared showing champion damages instead of just in the combat results...

- How about that Assassin Demon, eh?

- Maybe it's just the vid quality coming through, but it seemed to me that the graphics for the goodie huts, resources, etc has gone down a notch. Either that or you've changes a bunch of the structures and I like the FE ones better...

- Are 32-bit users going to be given the option to turn on pedestrians?

- Love the new way city growth operates.

- Really love the way Fame is applied to the game.

- Really like the pathfinding notes before moving your units. Very nice touch.

- Terrain seemed a little bland. I think I'm going to miss the ground cover terrain graphics.

Again, great work! Looking forward to when it's released aside from Steam. Will get a copy then.

Because it can't be said enough, I love the new champion leveling and acquisition. Also like that city spam is being addressed, although I'll hold off of saying I love it till I play it and decide that I do (or, you know, don't if I don't )

Also, I just checked and shadowbolt can only be used every other turn in my FE, is steam distributing an old version or are you just too used to the stardock internal build?

btw, loving how much you talk on these forums frogboy, it's refreshing .

Pretty sure that's what Brad meant when he said the shadows were missing. But agree I want the color pallete and everything to remain the same it looks so Avatar'ish

Looks good.      What's the latest on timing for the start of the beta?

Looking nice! I really like the new hero leveling screen and the news that you're going to look at the city leveling screen, too. Any chance you can make the city leveling screen similar to the hero one (so we can see what we selected previous times we leveled, etc)? It might be interesting to consider an overhauled city leveling system entirely, with it more like the hero system than it is now (with 'skill' trees, etc).

Anyways, looking good so far.

Since you mentioned that you were considering replacing Governor with something else, would you consider adding a second magic-specialized class? Warriors, Defenders, and Assassins are all essentially mundane combat classes, the Governor is a mundane non-combat class, and in Fallen Enchantress Warrior and Defender cover the role of an army leader fairly well, while Mages are the only class specifically for magic users. Mages are 'efficient' spellcasters - their spells cost less to cast, but aren't any more powerful than spells cast by anyone else until you start gaining the Evoker traits. Could we have 'powerful' spellcasters, whose spells are more powerful (such as haste providing one more initiative, or Flame Dart dealing three fire damage per level rather than two) at the cost of increased mana use? A summoner whose summons are always at his/her level plus the summon ability bonuses (level with summoner rather than normal experience gain)? A curses and blessings specialist whose blessings and curses last longer or are more powerful or more likely to stick to resistant targets?

1) Please go that Civ 5 route and force you to do something.  (around 16.5 min mark)

2) Do monuments no longer expand ZoC of cities?   Was getting mad you didn't use that. (31 min)

3) I really want to see a race that is vuln fire resist cold.  ( a retooled urxen)

Great vid thanks, looking forward to the beta.

Thanks for the video! I am really excited about the leveling system for heroes. I hope this gets a lot of love. The more fun options, the better.

I know many players think that the sovereign should be stronger (and better at magic) compared to normal heroes. In regards to this, I would like to suggest that the sovereign be the only unit that can choose schools of magic and get access to lots of spells. I think other heroes should be able to choose individual spells based on base class, and unit lore. This lets the sovereigns really stand out. Tying certain special abilities to the sovereign's job could also be interesting.

In regards to Governor, I believe the Defender already acts as a general (maybe you should rename and refocus them?); they get a lot of army boosting effects. Governor definitely needs to change, as it is currently the weakest choice due to the difficulty of leveling them. A second magic class, as mentioned by Joeball, would be nice. We are supposed to be great mages; it would be nice to have more option that specialize to that end.

I had no idea that encumbrance effected a units speed. I thought it was merely a limit for the equipment that could use. Could you include speed/initiative changes in the item description when equiping? I think that would really clear that issue up, and make equipment choices easier.

Lastly, I am really hoping you guys find a satisfactory solution to settler spam. That is still the most frustrating aspect of the game. Using population helps, but it doesn't change that fact that in order to claim land you need a lot of outposts. You might want to fool around with increased city/settlement radius, and having city-settling land better controlled and placed on the map.

For example, I think that when you settle cities, all of the settle-able tiles near that group should be used up. It really bothers me when I settle a city, and there is still a settle-able tile nearby. I feel obligated to expand there so the AI does not settle right next to me.

Edit: The problem you had with settling between three different spots at 32:00 in the video is exactly what I mean. You laughed it off, but you still sounded frustrated. I feel the same way. It is very, very frustrating to know that the enemy could walk right up to your city and take a resource that is so close to your territory. Some people could argue "Making that choice is part of the strategy!" Right, I suppose it could be, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a frustrating and un-fun part of the game. I LIKE having my little corner of the map. Increasing city radius would be very helpful. I should not have to surround each city with outposts, just so they are connected. At the very least, a sovereign trait that makes starting cities have a radius two or three tiles wider would be nice.

Why not create an outpost creating unit that is fairly cheap, and make pioneers only for settling new cities?

Because spamming outposts is the problem, and making it easier to create more of them would not help. Fewer, but more effective and costly outposts would be better. It would also create more clear-cut targets for war.

In the current build of the released game, if you hover over your encumbrance bar it will give you this information. Also, when you are equipping items and you add equipment that puts you over one of the thresholds your initiative score will change as well. Basically 40%, 80% are the points that divide between low medium and heavy encumbered. Generally most units start with 30 before you add skills like strength. 

Are you going to tweak casting times now that combats are faster? Spells with casting times are pretty difficult to use already, unless you go for huge initiative.

This. Addresses very frequent and annoying mundane tasks required to play the current build.