I like the possibility of stockpiling resources in some sort of the warehouse. Each mine produces some amount of the ore (or something). The production may be a fraction per round. The more mines you have, the faster you may build your advanced units (perhaps some upgrades may speed the mining too). If you start the production of a unit, the amount 1 is subtracted from your warehouses. If you don't have enough in stores, you can not start the unit production, but your already assigned production would continue.
 
This opens a question how to handle warehouses: I suggest this behavior:
- there should be several basic warehouse buildings - stables (any mounts may be stored there), armories (any produced weapon may be there - only if weapons are a comodity too) and general warehouses (bonus materials like the twilight honey are stored there)
- each warehouse can store up to xx units of the ware type (the number may be increased by some technologies). For instance the stable may accomodate up to 3 horses, or 3 horses and 3 bears, but not 4 horses (so you don't need to micromanage what is stored where).
- if you lose a warehouse, you lose fraction of your resources (1/number of warehouses in your empire). The one that got to your warehouse gets it.

Not going to add to the other (very good) ideas in this thread ; i'd go with option C, but this is not what worries me the most in all this discussion.

Please, no matter which option you choose, do NOT force the player to customize his units again and again. In Gal Civ2, when technology began to progress faster and faster, every 5 turns you had to modify your current design, to fit it with the most modern weapons, and i really hated that. I ended up opening the ship design tab, and putting all i could on the basic structure, it took some time and the result was not pleasant.

For Elemental i feel you (we) need to find a way to automatically adapt the units to the context (whereas it is technology progression OR a lack of resource), without forced player interaction with the unit editor. And this should not involve premade patterns "a la Galciv", which nobody used (except, maybe, for the good old "defender").

Option C I guess, but to avoid constant messages about substitutions being made, I'd rather have the ability to allow the computer to just auto-equip troops of your design with the closest weapon/armor if the gear you chose is unavailable.  Ditch rings, healing items, any other accessories if not available. 

Here's what I'd like to see using Draginol's unit example.  Materials like mithril, iron, leather, wood, etc. would have stockpiles in every city with access to them.  Either direct access as they have a lumber mill or mine or tannery in town, or indirect as they have a road connection to one of your cities producing them.  Or even trade agreements with other nations for an influx of those goods.  Rather than pester me frequently that the unit designed cannot be equipped as I chose, you'd get general warnings, or better yet just an inventory screen, of when they were dropping to critical levels.

Cities could then have optional buildings like the warehouses mentioned to extend the amount you could store for emergencies.  If you ignored the dwindlng levels of supplies of mithril for instance, and then ordered vast numbers of those Dread Knights, rather than make popups all the time, the computer would just replace the good with the next closest thing.  So you'd end up with Dread Knights wielding Iron Long Swords and donning Iron Helmets and Plate Mail.

What's critical I think with whatever route or mix of techniques you employ however is that units designed the same, but outfitted differently because of shortages must be able to enter a city and have a very simple way to order them to upgrade to their desired specifications.  It can take gold and turns for sure, but it must not be a command for each individual in undesirable gear.  Something as easy as an upgrade button, or even more wonderful would be units stationed in cities equipping new gear automatically as part of just garrisoning the city.  As imagined, your knights would be wearing all iron gear with a few lucky ones in mithril pieces.  Perhaps coming back from a border skirmish, the soldiers would rest and guard the town.  During their stay, mithril extraction is renewed and with a non-negative economy, the units turn in their old pieces for some fraction of its value, maybe 50% of its gold value, and gold is then subtracted for the cost of bright new shiny mithril armors.  The game would be smart about this and not try to equip a legion of troops over the course of one turn, but would exchange equipment if possible at some ratio between the cost of doing so and the city's current income.  A rich town would go ahead and splurge, while a poorer village would see a new piece of armor going to a trooper every several turns or more.

I don't think it is the same case. You  still have the old blueprints. I don't think the redesign of the units is a problem. However micromanagement of the city production in such case is.  So let the current production continue. After that no ore = no iron = no swords.

The idea of units without a bonus item (replenish it later) may solve this problem, but  imagine the level of micromanagement! If you lose the resources, the mentioned above dread knight may have no horse (you lost horse resources), has no weapon (but some of them do, because you first have lost horses, while ore mine few turns later). So units with the same name vary from the bare handed man in underwear to the heavily armored knight with a war horse.

I though I favoured B before reading this, it makes sense a player could recycle old iron for example of they had lost their iron mine, but it would take longer.

However the point about finding a balance point where possesing the resouce is still relavent but it doesn't take so long producing a unit isn't worth it is a very good point. So over all I'd go with C.

I'd go for option C, definitely NOT option B. I like the stockpiling idea, if it's doable to get it in the game without too many complications. But otherwise things shouldn't get any more complicated. I totally agree with Ugrok that the player shouldn't be forced to spend too much time creating units. It's a fun addition for the people who like to micromanage their units but players who like a faster paced game shouldn't be punished for that.

Shoot me if I missed this bit of information. But I hope that there will be unique items too. Legendary items that can only be wielded by rulers and heroes?

Edit: I'd like to go further than what I've stated here too. Cut out the unit design. Might be a harsh decision, but like other posters stated, it just doesn't fit a magic oriented game. Put the focus of customizing units purely on the heroes and work with unique units per faction just like in Civ IV and the Age of Wonders series.

Sorry doublepost.

Upon further thought, I agree with those who advocate less unit design.

I don't want to spend all my time designing units as in Gal Civ 2.  The only thing that made unit design interesting for me in Gal Civ 2 was the structural design of the ships, not deciding on engines, etc.  As I think about it, this was primarily because, unlike MoO2, for instance, Gal Civ 2's technologies were basically improved versions of the same technologies (faster engines, smaller lasers) rather than unique technologies (gyro destabilizer, troop shuttles).

Give us predefined units and spells, but a great variety of them, that require specific magical reagents as a prerequisite.  Basic units, like basic materials, should be automatic and not require tinkering by the player.  If you're wedded to the idea of letting us design units of all types, give us enough pre-designed units that doing so is completely optional.

Heroes should be where the unit design time and effort go, because there will be relatively few of them and the micromanagement will be less tedious.  Also, because powerful magical artifacts with unique powers should be rare, something you bestow on your favorite hero, not all 15 squadrons of giant squirrel calvary.

In Gal Civ II, if I had Lasers I and the need of building some defenses, I'd build some ships with Lasers I. And the only way for me to create ships with other Lasers (II, III...) was only if war was close and needed some buff in my army. The only other reasons would be having reasearched some milestones in weaponry and the need to start making ships with them to increase militar strenght to avoid wars and/or prepare myself to start a war. You don't have to desing a new unit whenever you research something new. Only if you really need it. My Crappy Fleets of Defense know what I'm talking about. My Top of the Line Fleets of Invasion know too.

I expect Elemental work in a similar way.

Either option A or C. Perhaps a mix of both.

I do think you should change something though. Notice in your example you have items that are made from the various resources and that these items are what is granting the bonuses. I think you should have to research and build these particular items to be able to equip them on your soldiers to make custom units.

Just because you control a "twilight bee apiary" doesn't mean you should automatically get the "twilight honey pack". You should have to research and build the honey pack separately and then you'll be able to equip how ever many you made to your units in the designer.

This frees up your "Resources" to grant bonuses (or even minuses) on their own. Example:

You control a "Iron" deposit. This allows you to make all the items you know of in Iron. Swords, Spear Tips, Shields, Armor. Because Iron is a "basic" metal it wouldn't get any serious special bonuses. It would just be a hell of a lot better then weaker materials IE Fur, Leather, etc etc.

Later on you find and take over a "Mithril" deposit. Mithril is a "special metal" or "magical metal/material" so Mithril has a bonus all it's own. (Say +3) This applies to everything made from Mithril along with the standard bonuses of weapons and armors.

Some material Resources can/should even be mixable through "Alchemy" to add more bonuses or minuses. Some things could grant great bonuses but also carry a penalty of some kind. "Ohhh this Bloodrock Ore adds + 6 to all my stats but it drains 5 health every time the unit takes a step". Now a unit could carry a special sword that did massive damage but also drained the soldiers own life. The player would now have to pick and chose what battles he'd like to use that specific sword in. That's just a thought.

Bottom line...the More variables that can be mixed and matched the better.

Go with either option A or option C.

I think Elemental should go with Option A but with stockpiled resources rather than income based.
You can build the mithril armoured swordsman only if you have the required amount of mithril in your stores. I find this to be the ideal solution. This also makes trading valuable, something that is sorely lacking in certain other games *cough*civ4*cough*. For example, trading surplus mithril to your ally so he can pump out some better equipped soldiers to deal with your common enemy in exchange for gold. This system opens up all kinds of strategic options if you think about it.

Maybe one of your rivals has found a way to transmute one resource into another, rushing you to capitalize on the opportunity to trade him the resource he needs for a fat profit. Can think of more examples later. The possibilites are endless.

C seems good to me too, however I don't see why it would be complicated to have a pop up window that says you are building units with an item no longer available.,..

It would make things a lot more straitforward.

I like the idea of the game giving you a small visual/audio notice that what you are building it not being built at peak capacity, speed, or with certain equipment. I do think you should have certain restrictions in place however, to ensure resources matter.

When you don't have enough resources for a unit, but you do have possession of that resource, it should take much longer based on how much of a certain resource you need (i.e. you have 20 silver, the unit you're building needs 40, you only make silver at 1 point per turn, assuming all things remain the same, it will take you at least 20 turns to build that unit). This way, you are able to build the same unit, it will just be delayed (and obviously even if you have trace amounts of a certain resource, you will be strongly encouraged to find more when you have units that now take 700 turns because you only make .1 of fire soul enfused crystals).

When you don't have that resource at all, but it's an upgraded resource (i.e. mythril instead of iron or steel), you will br prompted to replace it with the next highest resource, but you will obviously loose the bonuses of said original resource. This will again allow you to use the same resources, but you will not be able to produce units as powerful as they were intended to be. The nice thing here is that this system could be adopted to prompt players to upgrade their equipment as well (i.e. you have steel now, so when you try to build units using iron, it will offer you to use steel instead, you can of course accept or decline).

When you don't have that resource at all, and it's exotic/rare, you can't build those units without replacing the equipment, period. If you design the Errant Knight late game, and give him the Sword of Angel Soul, Holy Bright Armor Set, and the Halo of Destiny (let's assume this would require, angelic essence, spark of the maker, holy water, and angels tear), there isn't anything that you could do to make that unit early or mid game. You can design a new one, maybe after you're able to make the armor, but ultimately, you cannot make that unit.

I also think it would be neat to have some resources that were more like holy items or relics. Where having them gave your Empire/Kingdom a bonus, or the ability to craft certain items (i.e. you have the Holy Chalice, and it allows you to bathe your armor in it giving it an aura of protection).

I think it is fairly easy to resolve this issue by ranking the different metals. For example, copper, bronze (only available when you have both copper and tin), iron, steel (requires iron and maybe coal), Mithril, Adamantium. Then you have weapon technologies, such as short sword or long sword. Those are just "concepts" for how you turn a particular metal into a particular weapon. If you design a unit that normally uses Bronze Long Sword, then if you loose your Tin mine, you automatically fall back to Copper Long Sword. If you have a Death Knight with Adamantium Long Sword, and you loose your Adamantium mine, then you fall back to Mithril Long Sword (as long as you have a Mithril mine), or back to Steel Long Sword, etc., until you find the highest metal you can use to make the long sword. The player should receive an alert about how much resources they have left in storage and how long they have to retake the mine before their units will start using inferior metals, and leave it to the player to decide whether or not to retake it. This way, there is no micro management involved, no "backup designs" or anything else. The one thing you will need in this case is the ability to re-equip your units with the better stuff when it is available again, putting the lower-quality stuff back in storage for use on other troops. Re-equipping with better / worse versions of the same type of equipment should be only 1 turn. Re-equipping with new equipment should require some form of re-training.

Well Im thinking option C.