Who likes national armies? (an idea for dom3)

[Turin]

Well the main problem I have is not the micromanagement.

My main problem is that regular troops are not cost effective later in the game. This is by design.
You can always choose whether you should spend your gold on mages as damage dealers or regular troops.
In the beginning troops are the better choice, because research is low.
Later troops have less damage power than mages, because research levels are high and you get efficient spells.
So mages will always be a better investment.

This could be changed, if there were more offensive troop buffs, but almost all are defensive(army of lead/gold, fog warriors, arrow fend,will of the fates etc) , only rush of strength, blood lust, flaming arrows and aim are offensive as far as I know.

If troops are free, you avoid this whole research problematic.

And it´s much more fun ripping a horde of 1000+ undead to shreds than having your SC win against the enemy SC, because he failed a MR roll. I want to have that massive army feeling with all nations.

[quantum_mechani]

You forgot one of the best ones: Weapons of Sharpness.

[Oversway]

Wind Guide, Touch of Madness, there are probably others.

Many of the best mass troop buffs (offensive or defensive) require gems. Perhaps if the AI was better at judging when to use gems for these spells it might be better.

[Chazar]

Maybe "Strength of Giants" and "Haste" could be considered as offensive as well...?

[Turin]

yeah well I forgot about some offensive buffs, but which would you rather cast:
fog warriors, will of the fates, mass regeneration and army of lead, or all the offensive buffs mentioned?

[sushiboat]

I have recently been using Mass Flight, which is awesome for storming castles with a large army. However, the gem use problem is there. Often another battle in the same province in the same turn will drain the caster's gem box before the castle storming.