A very well written post with lots of good reasons for bringing back encumbrance and detailed explanations about why it's good. I congratulate you for it.

My issue with removing it is all the extra work it creates.. which is time and effort that could have gone towards other things, like new stuff, fixing bugs etc.

If removing it is clearly making the game "better" then the effort is worth it, but i'm not convinced that is the case.

The above counter-points are why I've suggested a two-track approach, having one system for troops, one for heroes.

Streamlining troops isn't the end of the world.  Champions you have more attachment towards, so having more details is necessary, plus with champions, there are a host of other issues that have popped up from removing encumbrance that are unfun or quests will need to be reworked.

I don't understand this.  Are you seriously playing the game and going "Man, I wish I had encumbrance to make it so I couldn't carry this shield I found unless I take off my boots!"  Because, realism!  (Speaking of realism, if you can't lift an axe, sitting on a horse is not going to change that!)

Encumbrance on champions sucked just as much (if not more) as encumbrance on units. 

I think getting rid of encumbrance was a brilliant move.  They need to put in systems to make, for example, dual-wielding gigantic axes have a penalty (to init and accuracy, I would imagine).

This is a fair point. If the AI couldn't handle the encumbrance mechanic, I'd sooner have smart AI without encumbrance than dumb AI with it.

Question: Could a simplier version of encumbrance be implemented such that the AI can handle it?

Maybe have the following: 

• Cloth Armor (full suit) have weight 0, -0 init
• Leather armor (full suit) have weight 1, -1 init
• Chain (full suit) have weight 2, -2 init
• Plate (full suit) have weight 3, -3 init
• (note that for the full suits, each piece could simply be 1/X of the weight value where X is the number of pieces in the suit....or scale the system upwards into whole numbers)
• Light weapons have weight 1. -0 init
• Medium weapons have weight 2, -1 init
• Heavy weapons have weight 3, -2 init
• Trinkets have no weight. Backpack increases weight allotment by 1.
• Heroes all start off with weight allotment 2, but can obtain professions to increase the weight alotment. At most you would ever need weight allotment 6.
• (obviously the init penalities would have to be balances within the current init mechanic of the game. I do not know if giving a Defender -5 init because of his armor is balanced)

Nice simple system that gives flexability to the player to be creative in how to suit up his heroes, yet simple enough to allow the AI to easily pick without hampering itself by lack of options or always picking the same low encumbrance equipment.

Thoughts? Comments?

Is something like this even moddable? (so that if LH isn't changed, at the very least it can be incorporated?)

An ideal sentiment from a gamer perspective, but not a realistic one from a developer perspective.

Regardless of the AI, I really don't understand this almost fanatical attachment to the encumbrance system. It always felt like a provisional arrangement at best that never really worked. Thinking back now, I don't really see how it brought any meaningful depth to character management, just some hassle and staring at a singular weight counter.

I do however understand that some people mourn its removal because the new system feels shallower in comparison at the moment, simply due to the fact that all items and their properties have to be remade as to adopt sensible inherent limitations. If the deed is done, I think the new system should be better not just for the sake of the AI, but for the sake of the player, too.

I think the OP makes some pretty valid points. The system would have benefitted from some fine-tuning, for instance by as Trifler500 suggested introducing several more encumbrance tresholds. However, I'm not at all convinced that getting rid of the system was a good idea, but I guess time will tell.

Who would have ever thought it would come to a thread like this. Encumbrance is gone, it won't return as there's no proper use for it, it only complicates all kinds of things. Life's much easier without it. Please leave it at that. 

There are a lot of military concepts that could be modeled that would be more interesting than encumbrance. What about morale or supplies? Why does encumbrance have to be the one burden concept that is so hard to let go? I remember when this game had strength, dexterity, and constitution ect. for each unit, but it seemed to kick up less of a fuss when it was cast away, or maybe I wasn't paying as much attention to the forums then.

Of course at this point I wouldn't want to add any of them, just fine tune everything that is there, but I am with good riddance crowd in general about encumbrance. I never thought it was very interesting to begin with, and just another bag of numbers that affect initiative when they can just get rid of the numbers and affect initiative directly.