Yeah, dodge penalty sounds good.

I like the suggestion of a dodge penalty to go with armor. Movement penalties are also a good idea. Wearing armor should make you less able to get out of the way of attacks, but much better able to absorb them.

On the other hand, as FE is currently set up, there is actually no advantage to wearing armor. Initiative and mobility trump armor in every possible way. Yeah, heavy armor sounds great, but I'll happily trade two attacks with leather armor-wearing, spear-using troops for one attack by plate-clad troops. A full unit of 6, using pikes, especially on horseback, is going to obliterate a plate unit before it even has a chance to move. As it stands, plate armor is the absolute last thing that I research because it has no value. In the late game, I simply steamroll through opposing formations with light cavalry backed by warg-mounted mages.  The only thing that even begins to hurt me is dragons because they have a high enough initiative that their fire breath will kill at least a few of my units before the rest obliterate them

I have to agree that Heavy Armor is underpowered and under-utilised. I often go with Dwarve^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z Ironeer custom races with an Armorer champion, and I have NEVER researched heavy armor before winning the game. So even though I LIKE armor, and want to base my race around using it, in actuality the game is over before I get to Heavy armor technology. 

With the research points I could put them into many things, and get great game-changing technologies like Magical Forging, why would I put it into researching Heavy Armor, which gives me a very small benefit?

To summarise the reasons why Heavy Armor is under-utilised (/useless):

- It takes enormous research to get it (better used elsewhere)

- It takes enormous resources (metal) to build it

- For heros there is better armor anyway through the magic tree

- It reduces initiative quite a bit

- Many attacks ignore it (fire, magic, etc.)

My suggestion would be to make it much more accessible on the research path and slightly reduce the initiative penalty.

I just want to say on the hero front, two hard-earned level-ups to wear heavier armor is underwhelming. It is not like balance demands it, because it was never there before and no one was complaining about it. There are already enough barriers to heavy armor: the end-game tech, the exorbitant buying cost (it is far cheaper to give it to 6 regular people than one champion), having to scrounge it from random drops. If you feel that isn't enough, slap a level requirement on it, but spending level-ups on something like this is bad. Like, only 20-30 more battles and then I can put on plate mail, if I spend 20 years of my game's economy for it kind of fun.

vvpeev, I think those are wonderful ideas. I really like that the idea of the trait reducing armor penalties instead of just allowing access. That makes it more exciting, and I believe level-ups should be all about adding excitement, since it is a reward mechanism.

Also in my last post I said something along the lines of "Like it's the kind of fun that I only have to fight 20-30 battles until I can wear plate mail, if I am willing to spend 20 year's of my in-game economy to do it." I am not trying to use hyperbole to get my way, I often state things like this because that is how I look at it as a player. I think things that seem reasonable in design documents thinking about the game in abstract can seem in the experience of the game to players like, "Do the designers hate fun?", which actually is hyperbole. I know the designers want the most fun experience possible, it just isn't easy.