Just finished the terrain, would like some feedback on the game play. Map shot can be found here: [You must login to view link]

Basic idea is that kill rewards will be new units as per usual, but razings will give villagers. You would also start with a few villagers, and as you can see by that map shot you can gather resources at the back of your base. With the resources you can either cast spells, buy one off units such as dragons, balrogs or villagers, or you could just use your blacksmith. Also possibly might allow people to build towers and/or walls, but undecided.

Main idea behind the terrain (the circles) is that most if not all of the spells would actually be sabs with huge blast radius. Middle explosion would be a sab with 10 attack dying, perhaps 10 or so one after the other. Panic would be a sab with 10000 attack dying in the middle of your base. Lastly would be the one to attack or defend someone elses base, my idea was to have you research the spell like you would the others, but to select a player you must flare in that persons base. Does this sound too hard for people to pick up or not?

Another idea for a unit to add to the barracks is a spy plane. It would be able to go anywhere, wont be able to attack and enemy units would have to target it manually. Do you think this would be a good thing or not?

Units:
Start with champions and arbalests.
50 kills = Elite Berserk
100 kills = Elite Longbowman
150 kills = Elite Woad Raider
200 kills = Elite Chu Ko Nu
250 kills = Elite Jaguar Warrior
300 kills = Elite Plumed Archer
350 kills = Elite Huskarl
400 kills = Elite Throwing Axeman
450 kills = Elite Teutonic Knight
500 kills = Elite Mangudai
550 kills = Elite Cataphract
600 kills = King Stormy Sky
650 kills = Paladin
700 kills = Elite Mameluke
750 kills = Hero Pikeman
800 kills = Elite Conquistador
850 kills = Uldin the Hun
900 kills = Robin Hood
950 kills = New cavalry hero
1000 kills = Sultan Murad
1100 kills = Subotai
1200 kills = Harald Hardraade
1300 kills = Carles Martel
1400 kills = Ent
1500 kills = Genghis Khan
1600 kills = Troll
2000 kills = Otto the Great
2500 kills = Balrog
5000 kills = Dragon

Looks good

Comments on the line up would be appreciated also, it is a bit unorthodox so would be good to get back feed back on it. The units taken from teams td iii are identical.

I see that you want to make the new unit counter the old one, but won't Longbows be better against some of the later units? Feels like the units up to 300 kills are pretty equal.

Also, aren't Balrogs better than Dragons?

I'm not sure if they would be or not, would be interesting to see what does and doesn't get used. You will start with no tech and unsure how popular blacksmiths would be, so archers would be weaker in general unless you do some researching.
in LotR? I wouldn't know, I had to get impeached to tell me the names of the balrogs and ents, I just had the graphics and don't follow it at all. But in TTD3 i made dragons better than balrogs, tho originally I did have them the other way around.

Maybe after testing, I have a hunch melee will be the most popular from the start. Middle will give resources.