That's kinda interesting... How does it compare to something like AI War? Which has the learning curve of a brick wall but has a kind of opposite design philosophy of the players vs 2 utterly superior AI opponents?

Why is unit design working against elemental? There's barely any traits to choose from, heck even the AI have way more choices than you do starting on Expert Difficulty.

Sounds exciting! I wonder how you intend to start the game off with an OP player and yet retain challenge. I would guess the use of power comes with some sort of tradeoff or escalation mechanic. 

Because even though it lacked in gameplay balance, it felt good to give your units combinations of stuff instead of having pre-canned options. It was a rather unique feature, and many people listed it as a strength of the games. In fact I can't think of any other RTS or TBS where equipping some new armor on your champion actually changed their graphic. Although Heroes Might and Magic 6 did have some family heirlooms that altered the hero model's equipped weapon, it was extremely limited and rare.

The main problem with unit design for us were he visuals. Our animations and the detail of the units had to be genericized to allow for lots of equipment Options.  Now, we could, for instance, have non humanoid races if we want.  The visual difference is pretty massive.

It helps that the new game has a lot of the civ v art team involved. You will be able to really notice the influence when you see the maps.

But because the game is so different, we are going to continue to enhance LH separately.  We are also back porting fixes and improvements from the new game into LH. Performance in particular. I wouldn't be surprised if we get an LH 2.0 at some point.

speaking of which, would you guys be willing to give up the rotating camera in LH in exchange for a massive boost in performance and visual quality?

yes!

I would be willing to give up rotating the camera on the strategic map for a performance boost, but would such a lack of rotation hinder view of the terrain. Say large mountain is on the map, and a unit is behind said mountain. Would we lose complete site of the unit or are we going to lose beauty of the terrain?

On the order of losing unit customization: I am okay with not customizing my units from head to toe. But, I would like to be able to edit my units with a unique look or style. Say you have a sword unit, would be nice if there were a choice of 3 - 4 different swords that you can choose and maybe a symbol to placed on a cape or chest piece or even a tattoo with a symbol. Something that gives the player the sense that - these units are mine and unique. That is something I would prefer not to lose in the customization of the units.

I don't play it anymore, but I would say no. Performance isn't a problem for me, and I don't think you can increase visual quality by the flip of a switch? What exactly are you talking about there - better shaders, lightning, AA, other post process stuff?

Like, if you were to tell me that without camera rotation you could vastly increase the amount of objects on screen I would say yes! For example you have the tile designs that are set to show certain things only when the camera is up close, some when it is a little farther away, some when you are almost zoomed out, and some all the time. If you were to say - no rotation = we can show almost everything all the time, I would say heck yes.

There is a shit-ton of detail poured into the tile designs by your artists that the game really doesn't do justice.

Or maybe you'd say "we can drastically increase at what resolution we show the .dds texture", ie the mip-maps. Again you'd have my "yes" vote.

Heck yes.