As I've read through this, I have realized that there is a critical flaw in the movement of units.

To begin with, these units will be smart; and all I mean by that is that they will know whether or not they should engage in battle with another particular unit based on the formulae of the outcome. If a unit is near enough to attack them, the about-to-be-attacked unit (which wishes not to be attacked) can avoid the attack by continually moving forward! The only way for the attack to work is if the runner runs out of food or if he runs right into an obstacle.

It would not be very useful for a unit to be running after another unit for several turns merely to attack it. The attacker must have some sort of "attacker's advantage" to prevent this. For example, allow attacks to be diagonal, or allow units "in pursuit" to travel two squares while units "not in pursuit" travel only one.

I do not wish to further complicate the initial version of the game, but unless I'm missing something (please point it out if I am!), the attacks will be a great disappointment.