MoM is one of those games with a cult like following, with the likes of Elite, X-Com, Syndicate and a few other rarefied games.

I want at least to be able to change the hair and skin color of the models I use for my race. And more clothing options.  People wearing robes being bald if they change into other clothes, is silly.  Also, my female wraiths don't have very good clothing options.  Need more clothing.  And Since my Empire can only recruit human heroes, it would be nice if those heroes could use all the equipment I make.

It's never been a secret that MOM is a major influence on Elemental. But you have mentioned the Total War series several times in relation to tactical combat early in the development. Quoted from a Gamespot interview:

Or from a dev journal on these forums:

Of course this is your game, so you can change whatever you like. I for one was very sad when you changed the combat system to be more like MOM (I guess, never played it) rather than Total War, as it was one of the main reasons I pre-ordered. I know you said you wanted to avoid a 'bait and switch', but that is exactly what it felt like to me. But that is totally your decision, if I want it different I'll have to make my own game. However, I do hope you'll understand when some of us wish for a more 'Total War-like' scale and/or gameplay, because as far as we knew that was what we were going to get until less than a year ago (IIRC).

Even so, it is hardly a bait and switch when you participate in a beta/game development...things change, now if you bought it after it was released then you could use that.  However, it was your choice to come in early.

Relevant part highlighted for your convenience.

Yes, I'm sure he meant 'Its got units fighting' by that

Right now it isn't even remotely like Total War.

I too was disappointed when the combat system switched.  Would have been pretty much awesome to have Total Ware style battles in a fantasy setting, with a TBS strategic map.

No, clearly he means "It'll be just like the scope of total war and whatever else you envision!" by it.

I never said that. However, Brad and others have said on multiple occasions that that was at least the general direction of what tactical combat would look like. People who have been on these forums longer than two weeks might know that...

Funny that you preface a post that completely misunderstands what I was saying with an insult to my reading comprehension skills. The irony fairy must be working overtime today.

Good to know, I certainly do not want Total War style battles.

People who have been on longer than two weeks?  You mean, like frogboy?

I would argue that total war IS the 'general' direction tactical combat has gone.  I won't argue about how well it's done, because that is silly, but anything from point A to B is purely in your mind.

I'm fine with battles being MoM styled, but the fact remains that the current tactical battles (and combat in general) are boring.  Magic is still boring.  The current poll seems to agree right now with the Magic system, The general combat system (not quite sure how this is different than the tactical battle system, but I digress), and Tactical Battles being the three areas topping the chart.  Until these things are fixed I will not feel like I got my money's worth.  There are a lot of other games (including 4x titles) that I have paid much less for and gotten a lot more enjoyment out of. 

Glad to see the effort is still being made and past mistakes are still being corrected though.  I'll keep stopping by to see the progress, but currently, I would not buy another Stardock title.  Hopefully, given time, you will change my mind on that as I would like to be a strong supporter of PC exclusive game development. 

It will never have total war battles.

But having squads just magically fade out the dead numbers, oh i mean soldiers (sorry, easy to lose immersion), is just so utterly dull that it makes combat just feel like a numbers game, like a die roll.
All i want is for some Visual goodies, something to suspend my disbelief and immerse me into the world, show me soldiers flying back, show me soldiers dying and their corpses slowly rotting down into the ground (if you HAVE TO have them remove mid-combat).
Show me ANYTHING to indicate that the soldiers are dying and fighting for their lives, not just fading away as if it was a game of chess.

Yeah, its not like it was brought up what they were doing...

I accepted long ago that it wasn't going to be Total War esque.  I, personally, think it would have been a far better game if they'd stayed on that path.  But I've played HOMM, MOM, Kings Bounty, and many other games and was hopeful that Stardock could emulate or exceed those games.  So, moving beyond the 'I wish it was Total War style combat' comment, I think we can all agree that tactical battles are in dire need to fixing, if not complete revamping.

For me the tactical battles could use a little bit of fixing, but frankly that ranks up with enabling multi-player for me and thats not very far.

First things first is that the stability and memory leaks need to be fixed.

Second the game needs to be fleshed out in several ways.

1. Revamp the magic system with distinct spellbooks and way more spells. Also change essense into a channeling ability and make spells take several turns to cast depending on your essence. Oh and lets not forget they need to fix the spells they currently have like drain life.

2. Next the game needs more models.. i.e. We need more npc's than a dragon, golem, wolf, spiders, a lizard and humans. Oh I nearly forgot Ogres. How bout skeletons, ghosts, vampires, lizardmen, draconians, faeries, elves, dwarves etc.. you get the idea.

3. Then fix the AI, its easy to beat the computer now, because all I have to do is fortify one city then wait for the leader to invade my city suicide style.

4. Then open the game up to the modding community through python etc...

Then they can work on fleshing out the tactical battles and making it more epic as some are complaining about.

This paragraph gives me more hope for the game than a dozen changelogs.  I've seen conspicuous absences of design focus and consistency ruin several of games and wondered if something like that was going on.  Organization Ftw.  That's not to say there was malicious intent by some mid-level designer to imbalance their race or gameplay preferences (though I think I've seen that too), just that it is hard for invidividuals spending years working on a game not to skew it to their preferences in a genuine effort to make it better--but if that is done in a discoordinated way one gets unpredictable results and different parts of the game not working together.  Most game companies where this happens never get so far as to admit the game is flawed, and it's just denial denial denial, so it looks like Stardock's introspective efforts are coming along well and I look forward to reading the past-mortem.  I welcome the iron fist of Frogboy.

It wasn't just in an interview with a video game magazine. It was in several interviews, features, first-looks, updates, etc, on several sites. But it was also told to us, by Frogboy himself, right here on these forums. Now, the dev's can obviously change whatever they like about the game, and they did move away from Total War like combat, but please don't claim that it was never on the table.

I mean people like myself, who have been following this forum ever since Elemental was first announced nearly two years ago.

I don't know how you would argue that combat is in the general direction of total war, but arguing about that would indeed be silly.

I´m here for 2 weeks and i dont care about what was on the table weeks/month/years ago. I dont wont total war -battles. Maybe this battles look epic, but i really dont like the gameplay, the rush and in the end its always a big bunch of pixels. 

I like battles in a HoMM Style (never played MoM) and thats what i get.   

Amen to that, I hated the continues turns/large battles idea from the beginning and am glad it was removed. If they could make tactical combat just like Kings Bounty, I would be in heaven.

I think he meant the real-time tactical, which got dumped.

Probably for the best that it is, this game is enough of a Frankenstein right now as it is, that getting some coherency is needed, and once it's achieved the game should really start to shine.,

Now that is one addictive game !!

Are you going to allow tech research in Book 2 and 3 or will it be like Book 1?