No doubt Stilbine, Eva, and a number of others have the right idea when it comes to Generals. At present, they are too RPG driven, and we know it's not something we want to play when it comes to Generals. Some people believe they are fine as they are, wanting to take thier Demigod into battle, etc. But this is the silver lining, is it not? We're supposed to have four, perhaps even five Gernals at some point, and there is an opening there to vary their gameplay styles.

   You could have one or two General types built to be more in field, and have their abilities reflect that. Such as a shield for Oak that protects him from long range attacks and spells. He can go into battle as a back-line, increasing the power of units with aruas and spells. Assassins will have to be cunning to try and kill a General in the back line, and may have to charge in to do it - likely a suicide mission. Other generals can be purely designed to be defensive structures in the base, allowing them to command and control units from afar.

   The thing I do not want to see for generals is the ability to build structures. Towers of Light are tough to kill anyway, at least when I play with the Towers on Full Power, which I believe should be the stock and standard for this game. Making a push beyond the tower is the point. But a General should be able to bolster the strength of presently existing structures, either with spells, purchasable units, or their own aura. This way they can not defend all structures, only those within their defensive proximity.

   I can see a game going fine in a 1v1 solo match for Generals even if they were base bound. I feel if GPG can figure out a way to have a General win a game without ever leaving the proximity of the citadel, they'll succeed the expectations of Generals for their customers and it should be their primary goal right now. Only after they achieve this would making more battle friendly Generals be more of an option.

   What we need is another Beta Phase where it's just experimental Genrals ideas, toss out the Asssassins for a while - they work, but their Balance is their key issue right now. Just give us all Generals for awhile, that needs to be the next step in this game's evolution.

   If that requires a postponement of the game, I'm for it. I would just hope Stardock agrees with such assestments.

A quick response to all this:

I have to disagree with you OrleanKnight, I think Demigod would benefit by having the Generals be more team-focused. One way to do that is to lower their number of attack abilities and replace them with structures or buffs (wards perhaps). I think Oak is by far the deadliest force in the Beta right now. That ability of his to weaken targets makes him an effective Assassin, (i just know it as 2! 2! 2! I spam the hell out of that spell).

However, you are right on the money OKnight about focusing on the Generals balance issues. The Assassins are fine, they need minor tweaks in comparison with the Generals.

Great thread, btw.

   Insanetitan, Generals currently are Assassins. If we can considering changing them to be within the bounds of what the currently are, we might as well just let all the other Assassins be able to purchase to Minions too.

   What we're trying to stress here Insanetitan is not that we want them to be more like we thought they should be, it's that we really don't want them to share any relation with the Assassins at all. The idea of Demigod is to offer two different gameplay styles, not slight modifications between the two. That is what makes Demigod, as a game, sell in the minds of the consumer. However, it's a very complicated thing to pull off, and the community is offering their insight to help the game be the best it can be.

   Gear and Equipment if the best example of a gameplay difference. It just doesn't make any sense to me why Generals should be able to purchase equipment, even for 'defensive' measures. That should be purely dependant on their skills and abilities and how you desire to adjust them. And when I mean abilities, I do not mean a few seconds of slight stat increase, I mean a good buff that holds over you for a solid 5 minutes and has a long recast time.

   Do away with the Equipment for Generals, it's just not right at all and should be purely an Assassin's pleasure.

I purchased the game because their promises me a double style gameplay.

Agree with OrleanKnight except for gear and building.

• Generals should build structure: this way they can choose beetween ressource, unit construction, helping assassin. They support the war effort by building structure. BUT they don't spawn light tower all around the map. Generals are restricted to certain area (outpost idea, delimited around a flag capturable (and all the structure with it).

Note that structure can be very expensive, depending of their type.

• Generals should buy equipement, they are demigod, they are hero. For gameplay and entertainement it is an important thing to equip my demigod no matter he is assassin or general.

• Generals have to participate battle not staying in the citadel, what's the interest of having a demigod if he can't equip and fight ?
  
• RTS aspect should be easy so RPG player can play general without problem.

Sparika, saying Generals have to participate in battle may be taking away from their General-Feel. I'd say the best route would be to make some Generals more suited to participate in battle, and others more suited to stay in the base. Let the player decide what they want to do with the General.

Lifekatana, you said "give us ways to deactivate them for a long time" - by them, you mean Portals. Well, at present you can. You can capture an enemy portal and lock it down for 30 seconds. May not be a long time, but long enough to at least ensure you get one good wave of units out of it before the enemy takes it over again. Also, you support the Assassin-type play style of the General, that is well and good, and I feel we should keep that to some degree! I'm not saying we should whipe it out altogether. I just feel there needs to be more to the Generals, and not just an Assassin knock-off.

If you don't wanna stay in the base, that's fantastic. You should be able to choose a General that is more offensive. If I want to stay in the base, I should be able to choose a General more built for that.

The power of choice is the key importance here. We don't "have" to have this or "have" to have that. With so many Generals, they all should differ somehow.

That is true, and should certainly change, but:

Erebus and Oak are great visually and conceptually - take away their ability to purchase the "general items" (minions), leave them with their special unique minions (nightwalkers, spirits), call them Assassins and be done with those two. Having Assassins with a few minions doesn't exactly break the game - and you can concentrate on making real Generals without having to scrap two awesome Demigods.

Is it really such a huge issue if Demigod doesn't have 4/4 Assassins/Generals at release? If we can't get Generals to work (and they don't want to scrap their awesome Sedna and Queen of Thorns ideas) just leave them out to be implemented after release.

The release date won't change - so the only alternative to finishing them later is rushing them through now. And that'll only hurt the quality of the game.

I agree the generals play very "assassin-like" in this incarnation and I'd certainly like to see their playstyle differ much more. I don't however think you need such drastic measures as have been mentioned so far to achieve that.

The things I don't see as a problem with the current system are :

• The summoning units system as opposed to barracks
• Experience and gold earning system
  

The summoning mechnic itself is fine and is actually a more unique system than the traditional barracks system in most RTS, it's also already implemented and a shame to waste. Earning experience and gold in the same way as assassins means both demigods have the same goals if very different means of achieving them. If they had different goals they could end up ignoring each other while they focus on achieving their different goals.

As I see it the main points encouraging a general to play like an assassin are :

• The generals themselves are stronger than a full set of minions (skills and basic attack).
  
• Unit effectiveness diminishes as demigods level (AoEs get stronger, demigods can outrun minions, minions don't get stronger).
  
• The general can spend far more gold upgrading himself than minions through items.
• The benefits of leveling up only slightly help minion power.

My solutions :

Demigod strength - Of a general and his force, the general provides the majority of the damage and as he levels up it just gets worse. I propose drastically reducing the generals damage output, by half or more. Not just by reducing the damage of his default attack but also changing most of the direct damage skills to deal less damage and emphasising the secondary effects (Stronger slow, greater armour reduction, bigger armour bonus for friendly units, better health drain ratio, etc.).

The general's health and armour however should remain about the same to stop them being too much of a soft target, they should be toothless compared to an assassin, not fragile.

The only other change that might be nessecary would be to make all generals slower than assassins and increase minion speeds. So the generals have a chance to finish fleeing assassins without being able to escape/kite too easily when the situation is reversed.

Minion strength - The primary solution is to have the strength of a generals minions increase as he increases in levels. Increased HP, faster regen, increased damage, increased armour and increased speed. This is would be one of the general's main incentives to level up, if he keeps up in levels the combined fire of his units will still be as frightening at level 25 as it once was at level 5.

Also, reduce the summoning skill cooldowns to ~10 seconds, make them summon one at once and make the casting time even longer than it already is. That way a general replenishing lost units must be immobile and vulnerable for a long period for each unit he replaces, so each minion loss in an indirect way dissables the general for a short time.

Uses for gold - Get rid of the totems and start the game with the ability to summon all 3 units. A general is his units, don't make the ability to use them in the first place an expensive purchasable. Instead restrict all the current items to assassins and add a range of general specific items that increase various aspects of his minions, so he can customise his army somewhat through them. They can take up slots just like the items do on assassins so there's a choice about which 5 items you want but the items should primarily help the minions with few (if any) secondary benefits for the general himself.

Adding some consumables that have a use to generals would be nice too, with area of effect buffs or a cheap quick summon item.

Those changes don't require too many (I hope) drastic changes to the current system but would certainly shift the playstyle of generals strongly towards his units and give the diversity between generals and assassins we all want.

I actually wasn't talking to you (no offense).  I was talking to those asking for the pure RTS gameplay promised 6 months ago, which is completely unrealistic at this point.

There's been plenty of good ideas here to change generals without redoing the entire framework, you just don't agree with them.

There've been RPG/RTS hybrids that have worked perfectly before - the claim that it's impossible is simply wrong. Look at Spellforce - they had full blown RTS, and full blown RPG. Both of which worked on their own, and in mixed situations.

Incidentally, I still think General Favor Items should be unique minions, of which, since you only have one slot, you can only have one type in any given match.

I agree that Generals should differ in how they play, but I don't think the way to achieve that is to have some stay at the base. If you want to play a General as you'd play an RTS, your General should still be in the battle, especially early game. If you look at SupCom, DoW, or WC3, they all have commanders that feature highly in the early game.

You can say, quite rightly, that DG is not any of these games, so let's take the case that a General does stay at the base. This necessarily requires that minions can go toe to toe with an Assassin, and can cap flags. If this isn't the case, then the Assassin has map control, which should mean that the General loses, in any game. Given that minions are now a match for an Assassin, what happens if you take your General out into the field with the minions? With a little bit of dancing/kitiing, you should be able to take out the Assassin easier, right? Or at least, cap the flags as you have the advantage; therein being the problem. I can't see a scenario where General at base >= General in field.

Also, by staying in the base, there is no risk for the General. If an Assassin dies to another Assassin, the winner gets gold/XP. By having a General in a positon in which it is extremely difficult to kill him, with no detrimental effects to his ability to win the game, the Assassin is at a disadvantage - the General has a chance to kill him with minions, but the Assassin hasn't any hope of killing the General.

Generals need to be different from Assassins, but having them as base builders is not the way to do it IMO. I like the idea of a customisable upgrade system for minions though, and I especially like the idea that Generals shouldn't get equipment (if Generals get minions, Assassins need something unique to them too).

I  agree with droopy the dog except that I think generals attack shouldn't get worst, it should either barely go up or just not go up. It will make it so generals do what they should do help their units. All u people that say generals should stay in base because thats rts are not very smart. Take almost any rts the heroes help out with mostly their spells but can very well fight. Also u should not be able to build towers right now because the tower system is perfect. I do think that we should defintly get a good look at generals so as to better judge them. To those who said generals were going to build I have something to tell u. Game producers can change their minds to make things work better. yes generals need alot of attention but by the community. I think it would be awesome if stardock gave us multiple versions of how the generals could play and we can say which is best or what ideas from each is best. but right now if u eliminate assasins out of the equation it wouldn't work. Assasins are fine so we should use them to find a way to make 1 team with a general and 1 team with an assasin equal if they were of the same skill. Its like simple algrabre and generals are our variables.

@ oKnight, why even have a unit in that scenario called "the General?"  What purpose does a base-bound General serve in this game? 

@ Droopy, I hear you on minion-limited buffs, but as it is right now grunts don't affect gameplay (with the exception of catsaurs) and they should.  If you make the items general then you open it different play-styles and builds a bit more.  Maybe you could make General's items buff minions 100% and regular grunts 50%, for example. 

Umm, that makes no sense to me.  The analogy means nothing without knowing how you go about achieving this.  Also, what's the point of the general at this point?  He has no need to be on the battlefield, so why have him?  Spells can just be general buts that you click from a building.  Basically, your ideas, you can put your general in the back of the base and forget about him.