[Azatol]

I think I'd keep the normal ship sizes for the normal races and then do as you say with Elves and Orcs.

I also currently give some extra space in the ship sizes for horses (movement) and packs (supply and cargo). I never knew that rule with tractor beams.

I've play tested the Human set a bit and found combat to be a little slow, but also interesting. I had three big battles and all of them were grinding long battles that lasted multiple attacks and left lots of warriors on both sides dead. The tactical map is really a bit big, because archers can retreat for a long time before meleers and pole ranged fighters can back them against the wall. So I've uped movement speeds a bit and I'll see if 30 turns is enough now.

The balance between melee, pole, ranged and spellcasters (as well as speciality units like the Orc elephant) is pretty delicate. Pole and Melee units are both going to take plenty of weaker shots from ranged units, but I want things to work out so unsupported those ranged units will get mowed down once melee combat starts. That happened pretty much, already, but archers are able to fire and retreat rather well because of Se4's mechanics.

I still need to test how max range strategy works with the archers firing against meleers, and I suppose that will influence my balancing.

Pole ranged units, on the other hand, seem to do best in situations where the melee positions are filled up by other parties. Lots of meleers can get things clogged up whereas ranged and pole units can fire more effectively in big battles.

I've got Orcs designed and their components are included, now I just need to add them in, and I still need to test the human high tech warriors (Gunman).

All I can say for battles, is find out what mount your enemy is using before battle. I had 11 Small Questbands with regular unmounted archers and knights lose to 3 Medium Questbands with Heroic mounted knights (of course the 3 ships cost a lot more too). Number of ships doesn't tell everything with the way mounts are currently.

I may have to increase overall damage levels to make combat a bit more swift. Its not bad in strategic, except you'll need to attack more than once often in even battles, but in tactical the battles take forever and don't resolve a lot. Especially with lots of archers with their low damage attacks.