I honestly don't think physics will work all that great in a strategy game without lag, but then again this is 2010 and the game will be 2011, so. If they don't want to create their own physics system, they should save time and use Havok (www.havok.com) which has some great physics like cloth physics which could be used for capes and stuff. It also has ragdolls, AI, and destruction physics like asked for above. If Firefly does use physics I'd love to see what they can get done with this.

using cloth physics in strategy games is not that good idea... cloth calculations takes long enough even for few characters, not mentioning hundreds of them, but the ragdoll is pretty nice idea. about the armour penetration and things... maybe you noticed that you can hit a knight like 50 times and he will be still alive, i belive that 8-10 arrows would make him dead for sure. the problem is (i think) that the archers are too accurate, they hit almost every time even if the unit is moving. i would like to see this fixed also throwing the units backwards a little every hit would be nice (maybe the ragdoll could handle that)

Yeah cloth physics weren't meant to be literally used. But something that should be used is something similar to Age of Empires 3's destruction physics. As the building takes damage bits and pieces from it will break off or fall to the ground. Stronghold 2 only does something similar on the walls and when a tower is down to the very last bit of its health.

I'm suggesting that a game so implicitly involving the construction and destruction of large brittle structures, and the bearing this has upon AI movement, would greatly benefit from more dynamic systems. It would also allow for very entertaining siege weapons, and could indeed be used to depict a more interesting ballistics system for light ranged weaponry.

As for knights/archers, I agree - accuracy should be dropped and power upped. Take a look to Medieval: Total War for a good example of relatively realistic archery as applied in large battles.

to be honest, i dont realy like age of empires to much because you have to wait until all the buildings are built, that's a thing I realy like at Stronghold, but the physics based deconstruction of buildings and walls could be realy great.

I got bored of Age of Empires within a few days of playing it, but Stronghold 2 is a lot more fun. Was trying to bring up the destruction in it though not the game itself. But to your idea what would be cool is to have destruction like bricks from walls torn by catapults, as in while the bricks are being knocked off they can damage your troops if any hit them. May be a bit too much, but it'd still be cool.

No, debris-damage is an important consideration. In the age of stone projectiles and later cannon-balls, there was no explosive charge, so the 'area effect' came from splintering what was struck.

Many men died with shards of brick through the vitals.

Not quite as worthy a consideration as naval battles of later centuries, during which you had more to fear from flying wood splinters than original projectiles, but still worthwhile to think about.

It would be a sin to leave out ragdoll and some sort of physics in the destruction of walls and buildings (preferbly some dynamic form). And to those who suggest that there would be lag, newer stratergy games employ physics beautifully and most also have the option to turn off the physics.

PaciFIST, turning off the physics isn't so much of an option when we're talking about destroying a castle's walls - it's too distinct an influence upon the difficulty and flow of gameplay.