One: You shouldn't be able to just hire any hero with any faction. I think it should be restricted based on faction: cultists can hire anyone except necros. Walkers, vaulters, and the rest can hire other races except necros and cultists, and necros can only hire necros (yes I understand how their faction quest has something similar, but you still get a necro out of it).



Two: When you take over a city it's silly that suddenly it's all your race, instead you should get the city at 1 pop and it grows as per normal (reduces the immediate advantage of taking a city). The previous population is dispersed into the surrounding area, ready to move back in if the previous owner retakes the city but bleeds away after a few turns. Maybe you get back 90% of your pop if you retake next turn with it reducing each turn until 10 or 20 rounds later you don't get anyone back.



Three: Stockpiles should be expended over time instead of an instant bonus, especially food. It takes time to distribute resources and it'd make things a little less drastic.



Haven't been playing long but those three things really jump out at me and the first two especially really break the great style of the game.

Just my opinion:



One: I think the reason they can hire any hero is because they are mercenaries...

I mean if a mercenary get's more paid on a different Nation they would obviously work for that one, right?



Two: I actually like that Idea, but some people could be integrated to your Nation, right? So the people could be reduced to half over a couple of turns befor it could grow again (except the Broken Lords, I mean they can be created with Dust, right?).



Three: Stockpiles give you bonus over turns (every STockpile IS a bonus over ONE turn... if you use multiple stockpiles, you get the bonus once for X turns (X is the Nr. of Stockpiles you used).... But as you said they seem in the beginning of a game pretty huge but get pretty weak (in my opinion) in the late game. Maybe the Bonus could be made something like +50 and +10% ... the +50 being a net increase of course.



(^_^)