Wow!

Derek, love the idea for random effects at the beginning of tactical battles, sounds cool for a patch down the road.

On the tactical battles portion, I kinda agree with the critics there isn't a lot of variety.  Positioning importance is a bit too simplified IMO, as archers have unlimited range on the tactical battle, a few spells or equipment like Throwing Knives have some limited range.  I think ranged combat needs more variety ... maybe heavier-damage ranged weapons that have shorter range, suppression fire that can reduce the attack strength of their target, maybe crossfire when attacking a target from multiple archers from multiple angles that offers successive shots increased to-hit chances, bows that can reduce another unit's initiative or at least tactical movement, etc.

Great podcast! Excellant way to have a tour through Derek's brain in what he hoped/planned/executed in FE. Solid listen!

Some of the points mentioned requiring improvement that really stuck out for me were:

• 'Building a second city is not spam'. LOL. Fantastic line and so true. However, that said, building 10 outposts and a second city within the first 100 turns IS spam IMO. The fact that the pioneers are still taking up the majority of the queue time takes away from troop construction. Would still really, really love if city construction and outpost construction were separated into two separate units: A more expensive one for cities, and a cheaper one for outposts. The cheaper one would be equivelant cost to the current pioneer. I recommend that scouts be the unit of choice for the cheaper one, giving terrain travel bonuses to help locate those quality outpost locations. 
• Trading loot between champions. Totally understandable that moving loot from battle to battle would not be fun at all...I totally agree with Derek that this should not be possible. Adding incentive to delay or charge for equipment transfers would be a really neat idea. MoM had a vault that you could send to in the shop....maybe worth considering?
• Tactical 'global' effects. VERY interesting idea. Would definately recommend being able to enter these battles with 'eyes wide open' though. Should know what effect is attached to the areas of the battle so that you are not hoodwinked by some unknown effect once the battle is underway.
• The lack of tactics during battle. I understand that Derek wants FE to be primarily a 4x game, but there still appears to be sufficient demand to increase tactical battle complexity. Players are wanting to enter the battle as the 'under-dogs' and challenging themselves to come out on top through the use of the landscape and troop arrangements. It's really cool that different factions have diffent strategies towards combat and there are multiple ways of dealing damage of being protected against different types of damage...it would be nice if this aspect were heightened further so that no single SMASH strategy would be 100% effective.
• AI and diplomacy is still lacking. 'Meh' really outlined that. They were right in saying that the monsters are still more scary than the AI factions and they hit the nail right on the head where heros are being separated from their armies. Imo, there needs to be more diplomatic options and better balancing of those options.
• "Influence is Useless." Heard it twice and completely agree. Other than the few exceptions, influence really sits on the sidelines, and it's a real shame because it can have so much potential. I've posted comments before on this matter in other threads, so I'll be brief here, but I still completely think that the hiring of champions should have an Influence payment instead of a Gildar payment. In addition, there should be a balancing mechanic in place to make that the more heroes you have, the more expensive it is to hire your next hero.

Again, great podcast! Would love to hear more of this.