Hi @raaaahman 
It is interesting some of the thing as apply to the militia as well. But having more capacities on armies have advantages over the fact of only using reinforcements: 
- If I attack you first you can not deploy your reinforcement until your turn, so I could just eliminate your 1 unit.

- Also, i could, potentially block your spawn area, so you could not use your reinforcement as well.

To clarify from the beginning you don´t have 9 slots, if not mistaken you have 4 at the beginning of the game, and then you increase it as you mention.

Daarkarr0w wrote:

- If I attack you first you can not deploy your reinforcement until your turn, so I could just eliminate your 1 unit.

- Also, i could, potentially block your spawn area, so you could not use your reinforcement as well.

On the paper, I agree. Although this doesn't seem to come into play pretty often:

• If my unit is alone, I'll probably flee anyway.
• If my reinforcement spawn is in my deployment zone, or just behind it, because I kept my armies close together, then I'll be able to protect it.
• If my reinforcing army is not part of the battle yet, I might choose when and where it joins the fight.

I still would like to see a way to restrict how many units/reinforcing armies can be called in per battle/turn. I realize it would be difficult to balance, especially in case of multiple armies that stand together and are called into battle immediately, but it sometimes feels cheap to just be able to pile units in indefinitely. Being forced to hold for a couple of turns before fresh soldiers can be thrown into a grinder would make for some tense situations, I think, though I can see how some players would frown at slowing down the pacing of battles even more - especially people playing on default and faster speed.

In general I feel like I'm having a vastly different experience by playing almost exclusively on Endless, from reading feedback, watching streams/videos and finally playing on Normal myself for Endless Mod sake.

DNLH wrote:
I still would like to see a way to restrict how many units/reinforcing armies can be called in per battle/turn.

Best way I can see this happening is through the Stealth Units.

Basically:

Having one stealth unit inside an army is enough to prevent all combatant teams from being able to reinforce ongoing battles, or even retreat, until those stealth units are eliminated.

DNLH wrote:
I realize it would be difficult to balance

Oh yeah:

• There WILL be complaints from players who hate that their overwhelming force is being defeated by a limited number of units using what is essentially an interpretation of gorilla tactics.
• There will be complaints from players who hate that they can't reinforce their battles--especially if out-of-battle-bombardment can not assist in battles where a saboteur unit is present.
• There will be  complaints from players losing wars--because another player is able to farm warscore through limited reinforcement battles.

The army slot system is currently useless. This system made sense on Endless Legend because only the attacked and defending armyi is deployed. On Humankind, all adjacent armies deploy. In the end, there are quickly dozens of units deploying in attack and defense. Having more units per army does not bring any advantage. This system has been adopted by default but does not correspond to Humankind.

"- If I attack you first you can not deploy your reinforcement until your turn, so I could just eliminate your 1 unit. "

In multiplayer, players do their best to attack first. They protect their main armies with scouts. If the enemy attacks a scout, you retreat whenever you want, and attack a main army (4-5 units). By the way, the advantage of the attacker is so great, that we apply a rule: it is forbidden to block army reinforcements in round 1 of a battle.

Jojo_Fr wrote:

"- If I attack you first you can not deploy your reinforcement until your turn, so I could just eliminate your 1 unit. "

In multiplayer, players do their best to attack first. They protect their main armies with scouts. If the enemy attacks a scout, you retreat whenever you want, and attack a main army (4-5 units). By the way, the advantage of the attacker is so great, that we apply a rule: it is forbidden to block army reinforcements in round 1 of a battle.

When you dev dont have better idea to solve this problem then it should be opposite ! Defender should have advantage over the attacker, so defender attack first :)

Jojo_Fr wrote:

In multiplayer, players do their best to attack first. They protect their main armies with scouts. If the enemy attacks a scout, you retreat whenever you want, and attack a main army (4-5 units).

Sounds like a fitting role for scouts. Maybe the attacker should not loose all its movement if the defender flees?

Pdraggy wrote:

More slots means

-you get a slight discount on having bigger stacks

-your iron reserves appears in stacks of x rather than stacks of 4, and when you defend from a siege

- ...

-you can ransack more easily and better

I overlooked these bonuses, thank you for pointing them out. Although I do believe that they are still a little underwhelming and hard to notice. What are the number for these?

The fact that the AI is more hesitant to attack bigger stacks might need some confirmation from the devs. I do believe that if the AI is capable of seeing your reinforcements stacks, it will calculate the total strength of the combined stacks before deciding to engage or not.

Pdraggy wrote:

That's the point though, as I told a youtuber hating on the Romans, anything you can do the Romans can do better! You can come in with 4 and reinforce with 4 or even 8 etc. well the Romans can come in with 5 and reinforce with 5 or even 10 etc.!

You obviously have more experience with the Romans than I do (since I've yet to play them). Although the debate is not only about the Romans, but any benefits of having more unit slots than your opponent at a given time (maybe because you tech faster, or focus on military).

What I don't really like with your example here, is that just because you have more slots than your opponent, it doesn't mean that you will automatically have more units than he does. So, in the case one player has three stacks of 4, 4 and 2 units, and another one has two stacks of 5 and 5 units (similar strength and army composition). Do you believe any player has a clear advantage just because of the stacks size? Or will any player that attack first have the advantage anyway?

Elchardus wrote:

The system of Endless Legend can be used.

So you have units slots inside your main plaza (first era 4 slots, can be increased with technology later on). When you create units, you can create only 4 units at the same time since the unit slots will be full. Only when those four units leave the slots/city (the garrisson in EL) can you create new units. It's also an easy way to garrisson units inside your city without seeing them standing on your city tile during the whole bloody game.

If the garrisoned units are free of upkeep, it might give another slight benefit to have more units per stack, yes.

I love actually dabbling with army composition and figuring it out, but that's really just for sake of own comfort, when you can just keep pouring units in. Additional unit slot is nice to have, but it doesn't give any actual advantage most of the time and may be even a source of annoyance when you max it out, but chosen Romans and now the army display is that ugly, uneven 9 ;P

I wonder if "only the units in the attacked stack get the defender strength boost" would make it matter more?