Chronic Logic

I think one interesting way to add a little variety to the game is allow for more dynamic settings, for example:

Board Size - allow a range of board sizes

AI - there's something to be said for scaling AI, but perhaps you can also set it to something within a given range

Unit Types - I hear a lot of people complaining about different units being far too effective etc... like assassins, personally I don't see a problem with them... But rather than hearing these people complain, you could put in settings to allow/disallow certain units...

AI Start Locations - in coop, the AI really is pretty easy no matter what difficulty, as long as your both pick something that works well together giving the AI more starting locations would allow them more spawning points, which would actually make the game more difficult. Rather than selecting how many 'castles' they get, you could select how many 'deployment spaces' they get.

Templates - the ability to turn on/off certain or all templates

There are probably other settings that could be made more dynamic to allow the players some control over how they want to play, etc... Regardless, its something to think about...

I really like the template idea though, regardless of how AI changes, I'd love to see some units that actually apply them, for player use as well as computer use.

I couldn't find a thread about the new AI, so I started one...

I like the variety offered by the changed AI, however, I think it makes single player a little too difficult to be enjoyable...

I think the following might be an interesting way to implement the new variety: Rather than starting as "Mighty" or "Speedy" or whatever, allow units the chance to gain those templates and advance within them as the game goes on... For example, say a unit uses 2 actions to move, you might give it 2 chances to gain the speedy template at the end of the computer's turn. The percent chance would be a function of the AI level, etc... Could get a chance to gain the mighty template each time it damages something, the resilient template each time it survives an attack, etc...

And of course, were this to be implemented, it seems like a viable toggleable option for vs games.