This is not only a problem of archers. Have a unit with twice the initiative and one move more than your enemy and you have the same problem for normal melee.

I wonder if it would be possible to have "total movement per time unit". If you have high initiative you might get three one move turns, while your enemy with low initiative would get just one three move turn.

The basic problem is that initiative multiplies your tactical movement, and thus if you get a little more of each, you have a really powerful unit at your hands.

I agree, and other bonuses should not stack.  I disagree in more general terms with separating tactical and strategic movement.  They should be the same, but strategic-specific traits should not affect tactical movement.

I think the solution I suggested resolves this.  If taking your full moves costs any unit a fixed amount of time, regardless of initiative, essentially no one moves more than they should.

I strongly disagree with specific rules depending on a certain weapon choice.  These kind of solutions are arbitrary and not intuitive.  The same rules should apply to all units.  Period.  Once you start goofing with the simplicity of the system, it gets ugly.

As I suggested, if attacks cost a fixed amount modified by initiative, you could give initiative bonuses/minuses to specific weapons to simulate faster/slower attacks and achieve what you are looking for in a slower ranged attack without inserting arbitrary rules.  Then if you don't like them, you can mod the weapon stats.

Back to the kiting problem, this should only be a big issue in 1 on 1 fights.  Multiple melee units should be able to corner a kiter by spreading out ( _ x _ _ x _ _ x _ ) to maximize the stopping power of their ZoC.  Once they have stopped the kiter, they should be able to close in and keep the kiter within 1 space of an ally, limiting his movement to 1.  If everyone just chases mindlessly after the nearest enemy, then the kiter wins.  You have to pick one target, focus on limiting his movement possibilities and trap him.

This sort of sounds correct. I definitely agree that movement should be restricted to 4-ish tiles.

And I STRONGLY agree that a horse archer army should be able to defeat an army with no Spells or ranged weapons of any kind.

Kiting is the symptom.  The size and availability of intiative disparities is the disease.

Hmm.

Maybe extra 'turns' via initiative should NOT allow for extra movement .. only extra attacks.

Agree with malekith here; initiative disparities is the exploit.

Someone posted earlier about higher base initiatives for all units, this could work but would need to be done very carefully so that spells like haste remain useful - I hope that whatever changes are made dont nerf initiative into being an irrelevent stat

100 Initiative for all units would be great. Then each trait could offer a +3 or +5 bonus without breaking the game. Or just limit the bonuses we already have. Impulsive is pretty unbalanced for mages and warriors. I would make it an Assassin prereq. 

From previous experience with changes of this kind, I have to assume that the most effective, simplest solution will be chosen. None of these solutions look significantly simpler than just teaching the AI how to kite. I wish we could try out mods using our own ideas and then post results here. If I had .80 I could at least try balancing the Initiative and Movement problem. Only four days left! 

The problem is not just initiative, or movement for that matter.  They just aggravate the problem.

An archer with equal initiative and equal movement can kite/attack for the length of the battlefield (and if they are really large...)

Some good suggestions but the one I find simple and appealing is ranged units cannot move and attack on same turn.

If ranged weapons still have limitless range, I think this is fair (for non-mounted archers)

Just to be clear, bows have different ranges:

Shortbows = 6

Longbows = 8

Yew Longbows = 9

Nerfing archers with a move then shoot will only solve half the problem. Weapons need some differentiation all around, but I am waiting until I have the Beta 2 to really go into it. A longbow would logically take longer to fire and move. Maybe shortbows should not have the move then shoot nerf, but longbows should. If you want to kite, you will have to suffer the penalties of shortbows: Crude -2 Initiative, -2 Accuracy, 6 Piercing Attack; Standard -2 Initiative, 8 Pierce Damage. There are a few magical options too, but they are a whole different balance issue. 

-20% Initiative feels about right for such a weak weapon. -2 Accuracy doesn't particularly matter with the current Accuracy system, but it helps. 8 damage is very weak for the tier it is researched at. That feels like a good balance because by that time in the game every player will have chainmail and be nearly immune to shortbows. In this case the problem is how to handle a battle where one enemy is too fast and can't do any damage. If we are keeping battles fast, just have Escape cast after so many rounds and call it a stalemate.

All of this is only in the case that one player sucks enough to only have mounted archers and the other player is terrible enough to only have slow melee units. The burden should be on the general to field a multipurpose army. 

Half of the kiting problem?

Kiting, if it's really a problem (I don't think it is too much- yet), isn't going to be solved by weakening kiting.

Weakened kiting is still kiting, it just takes longer.  You'd have to make it outright impossible.

Kiting can be done with any weapon. Half of the current problem is that archers make it so easy. The other half falls somewhere between weapon differentiation and the movement*initiative balance. Melee kiting only can happen when the kiter is able to move away before the other army can retaliate. This is generally a symptom of the kiter having ridiculous amounts of Moves and Initiative. Weapon differentiation could provide counters to kiting, but is useless to discuss until we get the new beta. 

I don't think of Melee kiting as a problem.  Why?  Because it takes significant amounts of bonuses to achieve.

If tactics are properly employed the kiter (who has greater movement) needs to be able to move three times to get a free attack without retaliation.  With only double the intiative proper tactics will force the situation of the 'kiter' getting two attacks per one from the non-kiter (non-kiter maintains kiter's movement range +1).  If the non-kiter is a less bonused unit this is not inappropriate.  If the non-kiter has double damage, or twice the chance to hit with the same damage then it's an equal chance battle.  If it is generally not possible to get bonuses to effectively double dodge/accuracy/damage as easily as getting double initiative (which gets harder if the opposition also has some initiative pluses) and +1 movement then that is a balance issue rather a kiting problem.

So that leaves ranged units.

Right, it is a balance issue with melee. The Movement*Initiative balance is way off. It is too easy to level a hero to the point of getting the two moves necessary to attack and then run farther away than the other unit can reach. It needs to be part of the discussion because there is no feedback from the devs yet on whether or not this is being fixed.

Archers are a more complicated problem because kiting is at the core of the ranged strategy. Shortbows are fine to shoot with no movement penalty as long as accuracy and initiative are penalized. Longbows should get better range, but have to make a choice between movement and attacking. I would say make shortbows 6 range to start and longbows 12. That is the simplest solution to stop rampant kiting, but not eliminate it from the realm of strategic choices. 

Yes but the attack and run away (hence no retaliation) can only work repeatedly (and hence lead to 'excessive kiting') if it is triple the initiative and +1 movement, or double the initiative and twice+1 the movement. 

That's a lot of bonuses and probably a much superior unit which is losing many of its attack opportunities.  I don't have a problem with this.

True, right up until the slower unit gets backed into a corner.

There is another side to the problem that seems like it is being missed, which is what happens with small amounts of initiative.  Champions are already playing a different game than trained units (or monsters) and making initiative less powerful would only make this worse.  Limiting how much initiative is potentially available might help.  Some form of diminishing returns might help.

Having 1 more initiative point than an opponent won't matter in most combats because combat is over before any extra actions are gained.  This is why I suggested randomizing when combat starts.  Combat could still be quick,  it would give any initiative value a chance to matter, and high initiative units wouldn't always go first.

Some suggestions seem to be favoring a tick system (like in Exalted) where actions have a time cost associated with them and initiative lowers that cost.  This could work, but would require more frequent input from the player, would slow combat down, and seems unnecessarily complicated (any action would have the potential to reorder the queue, for starters).

There seem to be three different meanings of Zone of Control being bandied about:
1) ZoC = moving into a tile adjacent to an enemy uses all remaining movement.  This seems to be how it functions in game.
2) ZoC = moving out of a tile adjecent to an enemy requires additional, or all remaining, movement.
3) ZoC = moving out of a tile adjacent to an enemy triggers a counterattack (basically the D&D attack of opportunity for moving out of a threatened tile).

None of these would help against a unit that can act 3 times as often.  <insert Gilden Silveric quote here>

It's not that many bonuses. To get Fast, Traveler's Boots, Impulsive, Dagger, Horse, and two of the many other Initiative bonuses I only need to be level 5. Then I have double the Initiative and +3 moves on any regular unit. So a level 5 unit can now defeat every trained melee unit in the game without taking damage. It doesn't matter what level the trained unit is. Add a Wind Shield and even archers can't stop him. There needs to be some balance here. I am fine with a level 10 or 15 hero having this kind of advantage. It should be something we have to work hard for though. It belongs in Act III where there are more options to counter it. 

Yes, these are good points. 

The trained unit could have horses themselves, or have been hasted, etc.  So it is not 'every' trained unit  which is automatically overpowered at level 5. But the general point is a good one.  It will be a question of thresholds and capacities to get bonuses, and what we think is reasonable. 

One on one a unit can be pushed back into a corner - then only double inititative and +1 movement is needed, assuming other units aren't involved.  If it is a multi-unit battle then all sorts or other things kick in - including opportunity costs.

No unit should get 3 turns when others have only 1. Even at level 15 or 40 or 45000. Only magical means could let you get such an advantage.

Closed turn would mean initiative is a let down, still usefull but still a letdown (getting twice the initiative of someone else wouldn't help you much).

Maybe a "Taunt" ability  that halves the initiative of the target, and the taunted must target the taunting unit for the next 2 actions with  amalus to accuracy ? A stat (charisma ? Mental will ?) would reduce the odds of getting taunted, and another one would reduce the taunting effect.

How about allowing any unit which entirely skips its turn get one counter-attack?  This would prevent any Melee kiting (no point moving away any longer) if the unit is prepared for it. 

Sorry for bringing this up once again, but how about the stances proposal? If your enemy has only archers you can rush-kill em. If they have balanced troops, you need to first kill the melee units (otherwise they will get to hit you when you are rushing). If your enemy has 2x initiative, +1 move so that he currently can attack-withdraw, you can still rush-attack him. He will get to hit you, and hit you hard, but at least you can cause some damage to him.

The "rush" stance would be actually simple to implement. It is just a special ability you activate on your turn. You get +2 movement. Your defence/dodge is reduced by 50% until next turn. Not that complicated. To make it a stance instead of a special ability the only needed change is that it sticks (once activated it is active until some other stance is activated). Basically, making it a stance instead of a special ability is just an UI issue.

Still more ideas: Make leaving enemy zone-of-control cost 2 extra moves (if you don't have that many, you can of course still leave the ZOC). So, melee "move in - move out" style attacks wont work. If you once catch an archer unit, it will be in trouble.

Archers should have severe range penalties, so you can't start by moving away + shooting. I would say they need to be most effective 2-3 moves away, still somewhat effective up to 5 moves away and further than that effectiveness should be really reduced. They should be most effective when used as support troops: you have a line of defender melee units, and then behind that you have the archers.

On further thought forget about the "stances" part of the proposal. Just implement the rush as a special ability (available to nearly all units) and be done with it.

Maybe charged spells shouldn't use the standard initative system, but instead take up a number of initiative points and then cast regardless of initiative?  The actual casting a spell should stay the same as a melee attack though.

That would solve the impulsive+spellcasting issue.