The only reason I consider levels "powerful" on champions is the access they grant to rare equipment and the emergency hp resivoir for when something unexpected/unfortunate happens.

Yeah, some of the leveling perks are nice, but very few of them are flat unbalanced, and the other stat gains from levels absolutely pale in comparison to the difference good equipment makes. Heck, even a level 1 champion with ideal gear can absolutely crush some pretty nasty monsters, and demolish troops.

The idea being discussed in this thread just nerfs champions.  Though I suppose if you were going for full lunacy, you'd also make it so that a group of units can only attack single units one-at-a-time.  Never-ending tactical battles!

As Sean and CogBurn pointed out twinking can be an issue, but balancing loot drops is small potatoes.  And, to be honest, I really haven't gotten that much swag for free in the games I am playing.  Mostly, it's crappy axes and bows and the occasional dog totem or escape scroll.

In my current game (on Hard) my champs are keeping pace with the quality of my opponents troops.  They're not dominant by any stretch (they can't go toe-to-toe with multiple groups) but with an army behind them to absorb some damage, I'm able to pretty much mop the floor with the AI.

In my previous game (also on Hard), my sov was pretty unstoppable but that was after questing, monster killing and finally defeating the boss from the frozen wastes.  Which, again, is the point of questing, monster killing and going into the wastelands.

What difficulty level are people with unearned dominant champs playing?

I usually play normal or challenging. If you wander and cherry pick goodie huts and easy monster lairs, nothing harder than a banished ogre, wolves, ruffians, darklings, mites, rock spiderlings, you will equip yourself well enough that you can dominate groups of leather clad standard troops, with almost zero risk after the first couple upgrades.

I think pulling any equpiment at all from unguarded goodie huts should be exceptionally rare, or if you do it should mostly be utility survival equipment, such as the compass, telescope, monster repellent, mushrooms, etc. Weapons and armor should almost never happen, that stuff should be fought for, or researched & bought.

Goodie huts should be much more than just free equipment - especially since there are only so many items and you'll have a couple repeated ones after twenty turns.

If exploring huts was more risky - there was a chance that you'll get attacked, or be cursed, or whatever dangerous - you won't be able to run around collecting shit.

Then again, having stronger, much more aggressive basic mobs (mites etc) would make the early game much harder and more thrilling. (I think I write the same sentence for the tenth time, and I'm sure I'll have to write it several more times)

To clarify my OP, I intended this to be a skill or trait that all creatures would have. Most ordinary mobs would only have a base skill of 1, meaning they could only damage one figure in a unit at a time. Packs of mobs, such as a pack of wolves, mites, and other grouped creatures would be able to damage more than one unit because each figure in the unit could damage 1. Stronger mobs such as ogres, dragons, golems and the like would naturally have a higher rating in this skill, so they could damage multiple figures in a unit.

 By making this a base skill that everything has, it would help balance combat and greatly increase depth. This could also be a trait purchasable for trained units.  Of course, like many understood, this would be a skill common for warriors, and perhaps obtainable by defenders, assassins, and governors to varying degrees.

Dont forget that it would scale perfectly alongside the increasing figure count in trained units due to tech, because a champion would be leveling as the game progresses. It could also even be that warriors increase this skill automatically on levelup or every other level.

 Along with better balancing of weapons and armor, I believe this would make combat a lot more dynamic and make groups of mobs/units a bit more relevant.

This seems to happen regardless of difficulty if you're decent with, to resurrect a Warcraft 3 term, creeping. I've done it on Hard at least and even have a save game lying around. The AI isn't very good at building stronger units.

Even without talking about champion power versus unit power, limiting the # of troops you can attack within a unit has great potential for increasing differentiation between "classes" and the game's tactical depth.

Would there be the opposing idea too?  A group of twelve guys can't all hit one guy, they would get into each other's way?  I don't like either idea really.

How exactly is attack and defence calculated regarding groups now? There appear to be a range of modifiers in play now although I don't know the specifics. I do know from observation that 5 guys with basic spears now does squat against guys in armour

From observation, it seems the Attack/Defense is calculated first and then the damage is multiplied by number of units. So a group of 5 with 8 Atk vs 8 Def will deal 10-20 damage (as per equal Atk and Def) rather than 16-33 damage (as per 40 atk vs 8 def).

i think this is a good idea if balanced right.

Golems are useless in the endgame, because they cannot equip magic armor. There is no upgraded version of golem like the obsidian one - basically one needs to design a unit with high defense and a simple weapon like the boar spear or - even better - one with elemental damage. A few levels later and this normal unit can kill high level heroes without gear - the AI tends to leave them quite naked.

I used im my game as Gilden a single unit model - armored horsemen. I think I lost one unit, and the fights included dragons and epic quests.

The AI keep sending armies that are beaten without a problem, leveling the units in the process.

Storm dragons are pathetic for an endgame unit. I even used my old 5 men squads instead of new units with the golem shield and so on, because they were invulnerable already at level 20.

We need more endgame units, and stronger monsters in the wildlands. And don't get me started about tactical spells versus the braindead AI ...