powers of the mundane kind

Well, there's

• Sadists: Their morale improves as the enemy's declines (for Fallen, of course),
• Woods/Desert/Mountain/[insert whatever terrein tile you want in here] Master: Immune to any penalties of the chosen tile, and gains speed, defense, and sight range.

.... and I actually can't think of any more right now.

Master of Magic had "large shields" which was like Shield defense, but didn't reduce movement.   Untits that had it sometimes had reduced movement, but the ability did not 'cause' reduced movement.   It makes sense that a person with a tower shield would be slower, but don't forget things like mutants or golems that might be able to wield huge shields with no effect to their movement (in the case of golems, they are likely already pretty slow.  But you could give  shields to regular guys through "chaos channel" mutations at no penalty to them)

True, but that's MoM. In EWOM, shields will in all liklihood be equipment for customizable units, so I imagine that an EWOM shield system would have to either be a spell or something like "armored hide" (and before anyone says that armored hide is out of the question because the only two races are essentially humanl, remember that all thaty magic zipping around during the Cataclysm could easily have caused some.... "minor" alterations).

I like these ideas and had assumed similar abilities would already be in Elemental.

Poison blade: Coat the soldier's weapon with poison that damages enemies struck over time.

Defensive stance: Attack goes down while defense goes up.

Offensive stance: Defense goes down while attack goes up.

I would also like to see special abilities for more advanced soldiers. For example giving cavalry the ability to charge or giving master spearmen a hurricane thrust attack.

I've added a few... obviously some are for heroes only.

Assassin:  Requires Stealth and allows the ability for the unit to engage with a random commander of an area and the commanders personal guards.

Resistances:  Fire/Water/Air/Poison/Life/Death...  depending on the unit each of these resistances may vary from -200% to 300%.   I write 300% because within another TBS game certain buffing spells reduced resistances as a side effect causing a fire elemental to go burning once buffed... thus a fire elemental at 250% would never set himself on fire even after being buffed.

Auras:  Chill/Heat/Darkness/Awe/Plague/Fear/Poison/Light/Courage...  depending on the level each provides a possible negative effect to enemy units and possible positive effect for friendly units.  Description for each available upon request.

Recouperation: Unit heals permanent battle wounds over time... such as having lost one eye.

Night Vision: Unit is able to see in darkness without any penalty.

Flying: Unit is able to fly over the majority of land obstacles, yet one of its movement squares must be a land square each turn.  This prevents a tiny bird from being able to fly across an enormous ocean without need for resting.

Self-Sustaining:  Unit does not need to eat food.

Animal/Undead/Demon/Angel/Magical: Unit can be affected by spells specific for whatever types match.

Cold Blooded:  Unit is cold blooded and can be affected by spells specific for cold blooded units.  Also more likely to suffer penalties in cold terrain.

Regeneration: Unit regenerates hitpoints during battle ranging from -50% to 200%.  This is to help cover any buffing spells which may have a negative side effect... naturally a unit can only use up to 100% of regeneration.

Trampling: Unit will trample across enemy units while moving on the battlefield.  When unit is fleeing the unit may trample over friendly units while trying to preserve its own life.

Amphibian: Unit is able to travel and breathe underwater with no penalties.  *Important once we can have battles underwater.*

Petrify: Whenever the unit looks at anyone it may cause the target to turn to stone.  (Medusa effect).

Ethereal: Only 30% of normal weapons strikes are able to harm this unit.  (Linked to units such as ghosts)

Immortal:  Once the unit is killed by a normal weapon it respawns at the capital of its master. (Linked to units such as powerful vampires)

Lifeless: Units which have been animated from non-living resources such as golems.  These units are immune to life stealing, sleep, petrify and morale.

Aquatic: Units are only allowed to travel on water type terrains.

Lavatic: Units are only allowed to travel on lava type terrains.

Burrowers: Units can travel through the earth and dirt.

Fortune Teller: This unit increases the chances for a good event at its location.

Psychic: This unit decreases the chances for a bad event at its location.

Mindless: This unit has no mind and unaffected by spells which attempt mind control or mind damage.

Limited Life: This unit never regains hitpoints lost during battle or map movement.

Ambidextrous: This unit is able to use both hands equally well... thus no penalty for using two one-handed weapons.

Amquadextrous: This unit is able to use all four hands equally well... thus no penalty for using four one-handed weapons.

Dragon Slaying: This unit receives bonuses while fighting dragon type creatures.

First Strike: This unit is usually able to strike first when next to an enemy.

Wall Crushing: This unit is able to damage walls as well as buildings.

Knockback: This unit when striking might cause it's target to fly backwards.

NTJedi - I think the OP wanted to see what kind of abilites we hope to see without using magic.  Just special (Non-magic) equipment or special training.

When it comes to unit creation I would like to see a lot of different options under the training section.

Advanced X training - Unit gains a bonus to hit and damage with X type weapons.

Advanced Teamwork - Unit gives 1 defense to an allied unit to his shield side if using a shield.  Unit gains an a free attack against an enemy in melee range that is stunned by an allied unit on his weapon side.

Sammual at work (Can't take the time to write up any more)

The majority of what I've listed can appear as natural abilities without using magic for regular units.   All of what I've listed can appear as natural abilities without using magic for summoned units.

Come on dude, the list above actually has "magical" in it, and I can't parse this last bit to save my life. Are you sure you weren't just pasting from some copious collection of notes on game coding and modding?

p.s. Knockback was awesome fun in Champions, no idea how resource-intensive it would be for a modern TBS. I'd only want to see it in Elemental if overhead was very low.

I'll pull a few ideas from other games I've enjoyed:

Path of Fire / Water / Ice / Whatever: The unit is so awesome it actually changes the terrain it walks on to the preferred terrain for that unit type.

Area attacks: What they sound like, any attack that hits an area instead of a single unit (e.g. "Sweeping Strike")

Possess / Infect: Your unit actually goes into the body of an enemy unit and takes over. In many games if the controlled unit dies, the possessor survives.

Status effect attacks: Attacks that do damage and have a chance of causing status effects such as poison , stun, burning, etc that make the enemy unit less effective in battle.

A unicorn is a natural fantasy creature which could have been born in the fantasy realm, yet can be categorized as both magical and animal.  Any unit listed as magical is merely a tag providing the creature advantages and disadvantages during the game.

I was not pasting from any collection of notes... I listed specific ideas I remember being interesting from the many TBS games I've played during the years.  While I don't expect to see each of them used in multiple ways I would hope the list of suggestions are traits to appear inside the Elemental game which gamers can then assign to creatures they create.    

I definitely hope we see knockback... based on the screenshot below it appears at least two soldiers are being knocked backwards, yet this might be a killing blow.  At least the graphics for the knockback feature seem to exist.  

    https://www.elementalgame.com/Screenshots/Battle_Close.jpg

Heh. I don't have the kind of memory to throw down a list like that with any speed. Also, I meant no insult by the copy-paste remark; notes are a good thing on many occasions. Took me until about my 8th year as an undergrad to figure that out...

Anyhow, I still don't think you're really appreciating Fenhiro's interest in discussing explicitly 'mundane' abilities like stealth, trap-laying, poison use, etc. Sure, some things on your list, like burrowing, could be dressed up as mundane or magical. But things like being ethereal, well, that seems in no way 'mundane,' at least not without a clear Elemental back story chunk to explain how that sort of thing is 'natural' as opposed to 'magical.'

   The only one from the list which wasn't from memory was Wall Crushing which I recognized while having the AoW:SM editor open.  I've actually created several topics with long lists... here's just one:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/345423

   There's a few other topics I've been wanting to create which provide a list of ideas for the developers, but I haven't seen any indications the developers are using the  Elemental Ideas forum.  During the development of AoW:SM  I created a topic of important game features then a few others posted their ideas.  When Wazz (Developer for AoW) posted the list was very helpful it provided feedback to the community that not only were the developers reading posts in the forums, but they were also using ideas which were posted.  I organized the original post of the topic to reflect requests from the community... it felt so great the community was providing ideas for new content.   

  Even ethereal does not have to require magic to use.  A group of ghosts can exist without requiring magic and they would naturally be ethereal.  These ghosts could have been haunting an abandoned fort for centuries without any mages or channellers knowing of their existence. 

On the reaching-the-devs point, I guess you're a bit new to the Stardock game group. They definitely follow the forums and they definitely respond to player feedback. The changes to espionage through the two GC2 expansions are a fine example. (And on an editorial note, I suspect that your chances of getting an idea into a busy dev's head tend to be inversely proportional to the length of your post about the idea.)

And back 'on topic,' I'm still struggling to figure out your take. To me, you seem to want a complete laundry list that resembles a skills/abilities list in a point-based RPG like Champions plus some bits from what Champions marked out as 'powers.' I'm very interested in seeing Elemental's canon sandbox game play as a coherent choose-your-ending story, which means it will need to have a background narrative that *explains* how and why ghosts are possible and whether or not they involve mana and/or essence. But now I'm back on my tired old Integrated Metaphysics thing...

Yes, I see them actively reading and posting on the forums.... which is great, but I haven't seen any signs which ideas they have found useful or which ideas were being used.  I guess it would be nice to know what the developers were seeking, so we the community could help. 

I provided special abilities of what could naturally exist on units.  When I begin creating units I'd like to see these available.  Even Black Dawn listed  Possess / Infect which can be a natural ability for specific units... best portrayed from the movie "The Hidden" which had no magic.

The definition of mundane is "of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one." Ethereal, lifeless, petrify, etc. are in no way mundane... Basically, I think what he was looking for are abilities that wouldn't be out of place in the real world. And I totally agree with him and I hope such abilities aren't ignored in favor of more fantastical ones.

That said I still like your list of suggestions, NTJedi; and I also agree with you that many of the abilities you listed that aren't really mundane still needn't require any magic, like ethereal, petrify, etc. Obviously for a human (or fallen, probably) such an ability would require the use of magic, but for other creatures of the world they might merely be a natural property unrelated to magic.

ok, moving back to actual suggestions:

Charge: the unit dashes madly at the targeted enemy, dealing a significant knockback damage to them.  If the unit collides with an enemy unit (not the target) while charging, the enemy is knocked over/stunned momentarilly and recieves a little damage, but the charging unit would take an equal amount of damage (so you can't use this to stun a group of 50 soldiers and kill them before they recover, your units would die beforehand).  Limited range (no charging for 40 miles).

(X) Throw: Throws a piece of equipment at the enemy, could be a sword, a razor-edged sheild, whatever.  Does damage and varying effects based on object thrown.  INCLUDES tossing potions, which could function as a grenade of sorts (poisons all units nearby when it breaks, or explodes violantly, or causes temporary amnesia, heck, even a pacisfism potion could be interesting).  Limited range and single use (you only get to throw the potion once, and you arn't a major league pitcher).

Flaming Strike: Apparantly, nobody noticed that your weapon was dipped in tar.  Light it on fire, and watch people burn! Singe use.

Flaming Arrows: Like Flaming Strike, but for arrows.  It's a toggle ability, when enabled you lose some range and accuracy to do a lot more damage (and light dudes on fire!)

Adrenaline Rush: Unit temporarily becomes focused, and is able to attack much faster.

Devastating Combo: For melee units, attack with a multi-hit combo that literally devastates it's target.

Arrow Rain: For ranged units, launch multiple arrows at once, but loose accuracy.  Higher levels = more arrows.  Best used by groups of archers under the effects of Flaming Arrows and Adrenaline Rush (FIRE STORM!  :3)

My personal opinion on these sorts of things is that they NEED to be able to be auto-used.  I don't want to tell each and every archer to switch back and forth from flaming arrows, nor do I want to tell every swordsman to use his combo now.  Units should decide when to use them, based on certain parameters, and then do so on their own. While this would make commanding more streamlined, I think it would also make the battles more epic.  You can sit back and watch while your archers pelt the enemy with a barrage of flaming arrows, or simply watch one swordsman run around and be surprised when all of a sudden he goes sushi-chef on some poor enemy.  That sort of dynamic would, in my opinion, add a lot to the depth of battles in Elemental.