Experience doesn't give improved Attack power

Yes. You're in left field.

You are making assumptions about the battle system that simply don't reflect the game.

If that's the case, then I appologize, but I'm having a difficult time getting a clear picture on what the combat system is.  If "hit points" aren't actually just what it classically is in most games (meaning your ability to take more damage), then I'm sure you can understand why it might be confusing.

So as has been established in another thread, HP is not just a unit's capacity to take damage, but also it's ability to deal out extra attacks.

So hitpoints represent more than just how many times a player can be stabbed through before dying? Will my level 3 swordsman's higher hitpoints allow him to cut down his opponent faster than a level 3 swordsman might've been able to do?

Will my level 3 swordsman be able to survive a lightning bolt that would kill his level 1 counterpart? I hope not! No amount of combat experience is going to increase your odds of not being fried to death by a bolt of lightning...

Well, this is the same problem that we have with almost every role playing game ever created.  If a bullet hits you in real life, it doesn't matter how experienced you are, you won't be fighting very hard for very much longer.  But being able to suspend our disbelief or assume that, in a fantasy world, wounds aren't handled in the same way, adds to the total diversity of combat and unit possibilities.  I've played pen and paper role playing games long enough to accept this paradigm.

If you need a creative resolution revolving around bolts of lightening being fired, you might assume that a warrior with more HP knows when to "duck and cover" or how to carry himself into combat to begin with in order to minimize damage from magical effects (prepare my armor so that parts of it that might conduct electricity aren't touch my skin, etc.)

It represents your units overall combat effectiveness. Maybe your level 3 unit reacts faster and dives from the lightning bolt, so it only partially hits him. Maybe he's been hit previously in his life and just shrugs it off. Maybe its dumb luck that it doesn't kill him.

That's pretty much what happens in most RPGs. The level 1 Barbarian with 12 HP isn't more able to survive a sword through the chest then a level 1 Wizard with 4 HP is. The Barbarian is much more adept at evasion though, so the hit becomes a cut rather then a fatal strike. That's the main abstraction HP represents. (In Elemental's case HP seems to not be the best term for it, see the other thread.)

But this isn't a role-playing game, even if it has role-playing aspects. Combat in role-playing games revolve around a very small number of participants, and so being able to do things like survive being shot in the chest is necessary for combat not to suck.

But combat in Elemental is going to involve tons of units. Each of those little units should die if an arrow hits them in the face, or if someone catches them with a well-aimed sword stroke. There is no reason for regular units to be able to survive ridiculous things based on experience because we have large numbers of them. In an RPG, if my character dies he dies - that's it. In a game with dozens, hundreds, and thousands of units in play at once, it's not the end of the world if they, as individuals, cannot survive a lightning strike for example - because there will be more left. 

That's just silly. Can you imagine reading a book where an experienced battalion of troops goes into combat walking like freaks and overall doing really bizarre things to minimize contact with their metal armor in case of a lightning strike, something else in case of a fireball, etc? I'm sorry but that'd would lend any fun. And what about someone wearing leather armor? What's an experienced leather armor wearing soldier going to do to make him more resilient to lightning than the green recruit? Hide under a rock all throughout the battle?

It is obviously not the end of the world if experience provides extra HP to regular troops, but it's not intuitive at all. For heroes, sovereigns, fantastical creatures it is more believable. But I know that no matter how experienced I might become in medieval combat, none of it will help me survive a lightning strike better than the next guy. And I imagine the regular people of your kingdom to be just like you or me; they don't have magic, they aren't magical in any way...

Hey man, I'm right there with you, but units with more than one hit points generally makes for a more interesting and workable combat system.  If we assume that a lightening bolt will kill a level 10 unit just as easily as a level 1 unit of the same type, where does that leave the player?  Well, it forces the player and AI to always select the highest level of a specific unit to target.  What rational player would choose to vaporize a level 2 unit when they could kill a level 4 unit of the same type, unless it was in some critical location on the battlefield.  Not so good... Ultimately what we have here is a game that benefits from standard units often times having a little more than 1 hitpoint at the cost of some believability.  As I've said before, I care more about solid game mechanics than what kind of flavorful thought experiments those mechanics might invoke in the player.  Fortunately, this is a fantasy game.  In the Total War games, I expect my units to have 1 hitpoint, because part of its allure is its presentation as historical.

So back on into those flavorful thought experiments... If you can believe that characters in your roleplaying game can be hit with a swarm of meteors and survive, it's not a long stretch to apply it to other individuals as well into a strategy game.  And what's more, if you assume that a hero can have many, many hitpoints, why can't a soldier have at least more than 1?  Once again, we can assume that a low level lightening bolt fired by a wizard isn't as powerful as ones from the sky (as in it has lower velocity and less punch) in which case a more experienced soldier would be able to dodge it and would be able to prepare before hand with his knowledge to mitigate damage that he might take.  Or a low level fireball may not incinerate everything that it touches (perhaps it would be about as damaging as if you threw gasoline on a fire and got a nasty scorch?" 

It's not silly to assume that every spell thrown by a wizard must kill a real life person on impact--- just the ones that get progressively more powerful.

We are thinking of relabeling the stat "Strength" or something like that rather than HP since it does lead to confusion.

Awesome   I appologize for climbing to the top of the tallest belltower in Elemental Ville and shouting at the top of my lungs.

Whoa whoa whoa. When did I say anything about only having one hitpoint? I only said that experience shouldn't make a regular, trainable unit more able to survive things like lightning bolts. I'm sorry, but lightning doesn't travel slowly. I suppose this is a fantasy world and we're talking about magic so anything could happen, but that just wouldn't feel right. I would really rather units have whatever HP they start out with, and not gain any more than that from experience.

However, given the current combat system HP seems inextricable from overall strength, so I think I might be SoL here...

Either way, even if a specific spell was able to kill a level 10 unit as easily as the same class of level 1 unit, it would be poor game design to make every damage spell work in this fashion.  Sure, we can assume a lightening bolt is undodgeable and would kill a trained unit with the same ease as an untrained unit.  But it should be the effect of one specific spell amongst a host of other spells that are influenced by a units level, otherwise you end up with less variety in spell selection.  Otherwise we're back to forfeiting good game mechanics because "it just kinda rubbed me funny that X could do something like Y instead of Z..."

I just don't agree with you. I don't see why combat experience should aid in surviving against magic damage. Increasing actual hitpoints would result in all magic damage spells being less effective against more experienced units and I just don't see the sense behind that. Some effects on the other hand, sure maybe. Perhaps battle-hardened veterans would be more resistant to mind effects or something. But they shouldn't be any less vulnerable to a lightning strike, a blast of fire or ice, etc.

I disagree. After years of living in Toronto, I am much more resistant to cold effects.  

Clearly "Canadian" needs to be a unit ability.

Well i don't mind the HP system making your troops more survivable as they gain experience.

Cause its no fun at all seeing your experienced army you spent time to groom get totally decimated by a fireball spell. If we make an elite troop equally as vulnerable as a green troop then that really sucks the fun out of army management.

Well, you at least have to recognize the implications of making a spell kill all standards of soldiers equally.  You will always target the best units first.  If too many spells have this effect, you will have a massive collapse in broad spell utility.

yep, high levels should be able to survive everything/anything easier than a newb troop. End of statement, simple as that.

Of course, If they find themselves in a situation where they end up able to give no damage .... then they are kind of SOL anyways.

Well I never said all standards of troops. I am only referring to the same type of unit with different experience levels...

The more I think about it the less I care, I suppose, but I still think it's a bit odd. It wouldn't be the way I'd go about things, but I'm not making the game, am I?

Yeah, it is odd everytime we try to reconcile any kind of fantasy with real life physics. 

I can see that happening a Lot in the months to come. We're always going to have two camps here. One that leans toward more realistic battles and game mechanics, and the other camp that will lean more towards the "Fantasy" aspect. Luckily there have been plenty of "Fantasy War Games" to come before this so they have a successful formula to follow while they add their own spin on things. The hardest part of making these games is finding the right balance between realism and fantasy and making it work in the game.

I am more of: i don't care how unrealistic it is, as long as it is fun and rewarding to play.

I can totaly agree with this, the more fun the better. If we have to choose between two more or less equally fun options, I'd go for the more realistic one, but if it's between one fun unrealistic option and one unfun realistic one, I'd go for the fun one.

Off course, it never should get so unrealistic as to completly suspend my belief in the game world.