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Hello Tomodev!

What richly detailed feedback, I appreciate you taking the time.

That is an interesting detail regarding the RAM usage, I had not considered such matters.  I shall look into optimizing this.  I would be happy to zip the files as well if that is the preferred method.

Yes, much of the UI is a default settings placeholder.  I intend to revise the retinue management screen to better represent the "Home Base" aesthetic.  I am doing my best to prevent myself from adding in an entire base building mechanic to take this menu's place, but the temptation is very strong to live up to my Factorio + Warcraft 3 initial vision for the game.  Regarding the mission select screen, I drew inspiration from Mechanicus' mission select, as I intend to have a variety of B-plot quest lines for each act to accompany the main quest line.  I intend to put some "Throne Room" flavour into this menu as well however.

I am pleased to hear you enjoyed the lore tidbits, I found much enjoyment in writing them.

There's a "Keybinding Menu" available when one presses Esc (per the request of the crab themed streamer a few demo days ago) which shows all the controls information I presented on the title screen.  I suppose I had aught to mention that somewhere though haha.

I shall experiment further with the combat log, I've set it to various sizes but when it is larger it takes up too much screen space, and when just the font is scaled up there's too much text wrapping for my taste.  Perhaps it needs to be collapsable and only opened when the player cares to figure out what happened in a rapid exchange?  This is most likely the best of my ideas at the moment.

Regarding the deployment screen, each Hero can lead a formation of their own.  The player must to select which hero they wish to add the generic units to.  Perhaps the prince had aught to be selected by default on the first level though, to make this easier on the newbs.

I am glad to hear you found the first level difficult, as I took design inspiration from Dark Souls and the "Hardest Map Ever" combat-puzzle custom maps from Starcraft Broodwar.  I'm still working on tutorialization of the core mechanics though.  I most likely need to find a better way of revealing the game controls to the player and set the expectation that the player is intended to scout out encounters and carefully plan their engagements.  I was hoping the hunting wolves and fire-familiar spell would help encourage this sort of thinking early on, but I believe it still needs work.

My condolences regarding your lost wolf, but I assure you he died doing what he loved.

Did you embark on the second mission with the maximum available manpower?  For the larger scale maps I took quite a bit of inspiration from the Total War series, although I've only ever watched people play those games.  I also drew inspiration from Napoleonic formation warfare with the enfilade and denial arrangement options.  I am glad to hear you got Age of Empires vibes, that is among the sort of RTS games I was thinking of when I initially conceived of the game.

Regarding the loot management at scale, I am planning some quality of life features to enable auto looting and refitting from a supply depot based upon a template (sort of how Factorio's Spidertrons work).  I also have a "loot review" feature in mind for the end of the level so you can pick out any rare items your soldiers may have auto looted before converting the rest to generic war material per usual.  I expect this will help immensely.

The loot window question has been quite the dilemma.  Anchoring it to a particular part of the screen feels like an easy solution, but when I've done that it becomes very unmanageable when handling large amount of individual inventories, as it is quite hard to determine whose inventory is whose.  I've contemplated a "trade" screen where two units are trading with each other in a fixed place, but this also feels somewhat inefficient.  I may gravitate to something along the lines of how Dungeon Siege handle's the party's inventory.  I'll most certainly revisit this once I've gotten some of those auto looting quality of life features in place, as the inclusion of gear templates and supply depots might make a good solution more obvious.

I'm impressed you've managed to play on a trackpad, I tried a few times and found it rather painful.  I recommend keyboard and mouse.

30-60 minutes per mission is about what it takes me, so you're charging through with the best of them.

My thanks for the thorough and thoughtful feedback, it has been quite a motivating read.

Wishing you wellness and prosperity,

- Eldritch