Seems good except for the "Deciding pregame what minion types will be used", i think that the generals would like to use their strategies/minions on the fly based on how the game is turning out. They may want to switch between more defensive minions to offensive minions mid game, having a pregame selection would make this impossible.

The biggest deal I have with minions is getting them to do what you want. The UI needs some serious RTS improvements to allow things like return fire/attack all. Something I'd really like to see is a disable button for auto-healing clerics. Sometimes I want to heal a DG, but I have to wait 5 seconds for the cleric to be able to cast again. And being able to set clerics on heal only would be great as well. I know, they have great damage, but again, sometimes I want my clerics just to stay out of the fight.

I totally agree Viq I think that is partly why people have trouble is that they don't feel in control of their minions.  Maybe I just am unfarmiliar with the controls but they just don't seem intuitive.  What do you guys think about control groups, this is a simple concept from warcraft where you select a group then press ctrl + # and then whenever you press that nuber it selects the group.  It will make controlling units easier.

Yeah that is the problem I thought of too.  Because generals have abilities that are contolled by the number keys it seems like it would be weird but the control groups they already for the later numbers could be used or just numbers from 5 and on even though that seems less convenient.  If anyone has any better ideas about improving control groups this way put it up lets collect some ideas on this.  I was just thinking about using the keys z,x,c for the control groups but I don't know if they are for something now.  It would be nice just to be able to have a little more flexibility with units control.

I'd like to point out that spawning 4 minions per cast might be a little out of order. Yes, having 2 per cast means that you start with less than half your force, but it makes preserving your minions quite important. I'm not sure having 4 clerics in the initial skirmish would go down too well either - that's an extra *checks the files* 200 damage every 5 seconds (100 damage per shot, 5 seconds between shots, 2 extra clerics)? That's just under half of what Regulus deals off the bat (I think). It would also mean that you don't have to cast on the field as much - more mana = more bite/charm/bat swarm.

On the flipside, adding veterancy would be incentive enough to keep your minions alive, and fixing Generals may well entail a lowering of effectiveness of bite/bat swarm (not so much charm I think). But the extra damage is an issue, I think.

I'd like to point out, while I'm digging through these files, that minions have a max speed of 10 compared to DGs 7 (6.5 for Rook), yet when you select some minions and your DG and move them, if your minions are behind your DG, the DG will slow down until the minions reach him. I'm not sure if minions actually ever run at 10 speed - that should be enough to keep up with a Wand of Speed-ing Rook.

Something not on the list, but has been talked about on numberous occasions, and is pretty massive, is the gold investment minions require. I realise that the gold system is scheduled for change, but I'm not sure what's really going on with it, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Also on the list is this squad business everyone seems to want. Is this a reinforcing squad as per DoW (requiring GPG to rip a chapter right out of Relics book), or just an "all these minions run together" squad thing with each squad having abilities? If it's the former, there'd have to be a mana cost for reinforcing, a time delay between reinforcements and some other things I'd guess. A lot of work besides making the damn thing work. If it's the latter, what's so great about squads? Why not leave it as it is, but each minion type gets it's abilities - when one minion uses it's ability, the cooldown is activated for all of them. You retain control over exactly what each of the minions does, and you get a squad-like ability. I guess this increases micro and the RTT bit though - that might not be a good thing. Long and short of it - I for one am not convinced by the need for squads, but by all means, if it works, it works.

I'd like to suggest that the DG controlling minions gets XP/gold for the grunts those minions kill, even if he's not in range. This may lead to some overpowering of Generals, but I suggest it because it doesn't feel right the way it is. This might be a purely personal issue though, and has a lot of consequences. It may well be the way it is now because of those consequences.