I think the BEST achievement for generals would be having COMPLETE control over minions. If you can do that and balance it out well (im not too sure but i imagine that wud be freakin hard...but i have no idea how they;re gunna turn out) then thats job done.

this is instructive:  http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42359.html

I think a General unit should have the ability to drop 'beacons'.

These beacons can lure the major creeps to go/focus in that direction.

So I am thinking something like this.

Generals can upgrade this but have a limit as to how many groups he can have.  Also a limit as to how many in each group.  These groups you can give basic commands, move here, hold, attack, etc.  The general should be able to choose who is in each group, so one group with archers and another with tanks, etc.  Because these units are like the normal spawns, I think the general should be able to have auras, and 2 different kinds.  1 Aura type of aura which is a global one, so it effects the whole playing field, but of course they would have to be weaker then the 2nd type of aura.  The 2nd type of aura should be a local aura, a certain distance from the general, but stronger effects then the global ones.

The tough part about being a general is the number of auras you can have on at a time.  Perhaps 1 maybe upgradable to have more.  I also think that with these aura limits, they will have to chose weather to have a local aura or a global one on at the time.  The different kind of auras should be anything from movement speed, to more health, more damage, more range, etc.

I didn't have a chance to read all the others, but I thought I'd give my 2 cents worth.

I just don't want a time limited on my units
(Well, the summoned ones fine, but I want to be able to depend on my general general units)

I think you should either spawn all creeps with your skills instead of buying them or at least use your skills for you greatest creeps. In order to not have to many skills for each type of creep you could have one skill called "Summon", that when used would give you a selection of all the creeps you can use at that lvl. As you lvl summon you get access to more creeps. You could have sevral summon skills so you can summon more than one at a time. Skills further down the tree you could have a supercreep. Or something like this.

How about consumable items that you have to buy, but then you use the item once and you learn the ability to summon, and then you spend mana to actually summon them, or something to that effect? And maybe you need the lesser summons before buying the better summons, or the cost of the more better ones is less if you've bought the previous levels of the same creep. I guess we'd need an extra action bar for generals then, but it doesn't seem fair that generals have less item slots because their creeps take the spaces up.

What would be awsome is if generals could create creeps, but more than that they can attach their spawns to assassins (ranged attacking spawns) making that assassin awsomely more powerful, but assassin moves would cause the creeps to start falling off unless the general can keep them fastened (using magic or some funky tricks). Meanwhile the oponents can eliminate the attached creeps from assassins, not to mention that they are immobile and easy to hit (lower hp than normal).

Some spawns attached should be exploding spawns which are a double-edged sword. If hit they hurt the assassin by exploding, but the assassin can hurl them like bombs. Without the assassin they are walking bombs but harder to get to a destination.

This would make a team of assassins and generals attacking a very poweful team, where the general opens himself up for attacks by attaching his defencive creeps to an assassin, and the assassin becomes a more powerful killing machine who also now has to defend the general in addition to his normal role.

Ah that would be awsome... tossing pigs at enemies as a rook, having little goblins jump from your head attakcing enemies... Having the "rook riders" as a bunch of funky little demons who ride the rook with bows and all sorts of funky weapons, getting thrown off from the rook when he makes some powerful attacks, and the rook has to try and catch the spawns falling offa him.

In that gamespot review it said commanders would all get the same set of units. It seems a pity that the customization isn't available there. I'd like to see either a unique set of units for each general, and/or the addition of units to the skill tree, so the generals can play as differently from eachother as the assasins.

As one of the players who saw this game as a gateway to playing with my Warcraft 3 hero loving brother, while I prefer my RTS, my preferance would be, akin to having 1-10 "mini" heroes with direct control, perhaps giving players options on how many and how powerful.

Example:

Player A (General) picks 1 mini hero giving mini hero a % bonus to abilities, then he chooses a hero type.

Player B (General) picks 5 mini heroes giving mini heros no bonus to abilities, and then gets to choose the hero type for those 3.

Player C (General) picks 10 mini heroes giving mini heros -% penalty to abilities, and then gets to choose the hero type for those 10.

Hero types in my mind, the way demigod is setup would be Tank/Ranged, AOE/Ranged, Tank/Melee, AOE/Melee, Stun/Slow. Probably limiting Stun/Slow to one mini hero, cause frankly, I don't like chain stunning when its being done to me.

The idea would be, balance would be based on a 3 part component. Number versus Bonus for using less.. penalty for using more, mini hero type, and the general itself. As long as the general is alive, his "troops" continue to spawn either next to him, or back at the spawn point and have the general with an ability to rally all his troops across the map to him (on a cooldown of course).  All in all, what I hope for, is something along the RTS lines that doesn't resemble playing an RPG assassin. 1-10 units I would think would be entirely plausible for playing, and if folks don't like the idea of playing a "RTS general" then they can play the assassin, that is why you have elected to have differences after all is to allow for that choice. I personally have offered no opinions on assassins as generally speaking I don't particularly care for that "type" of gameplay, and have myself been looking forward to the introduction of Generals.

One of the Warcraft 3 maps we played on was called Heroes and Empires, which as the title describes, allowed you to pick a hero (rpg) or empire (builder/army).  For those who have played AND enjoyed that map, you'll understand why I say that was the easiest thing we could play togther.

that sounds kinda cool, but not at all in the direction demigod is going. I can't imagine have 10 mini rooks running around. 

Generals will get the same 3 recruitable/puchasable units, but they will get 1 unique unit each.  Also thanks to auras and other abilities, they will play differently.

Would be nice if the Mino Captain, Siege Archer and High Priest would be unique to each General in terms of abilities and such.

Seems like doing things different for the sake of being different.  I like the simplified, easy accessability of Demigod, with the complexity placed on the demigod abilities.  Hopefully, we get a real look at this soon instead of just making guesses.

What would the Vampire Lord do with a passive ranged damage bonus from a Siege Archer for example? It's not for the sake of being different, it's for the sake of benefit to suit each Demigods' needs.