Home Regions really need a garrison. In the first game I ever played, I mounted a massive 'alpha strike' against my opponent's Home Region on the final turn of the game - it wasn't actually guarded though, so the game ended without combat or any sort of fuss at all. Rather than that great "Aha, I won!" feeling we look for in a game, I got the "Oh, I won?" feeling that we generally seek to avoid. Now that I know better, I realise the climax of the game often comes several turns before it ends (if at all), which makes those last few turns more of a chore than a challenge.
The trouble with doing this is that it would need to scale with the gameplay - a set-value defense would likely be easy enough to walk over, but would also likely hinder aggressive strategies that seek to attack Home regions early. What you
want is for the Home region to match the power the attacker is at, so that it's always a
challenge but never insurmountable - even if it takes a few attacks to break through, it shouldn't feel completely out-of-reach.
My first thought in this regard was to have the garrison 'absorb' unused Mana; Mana would accumulate in the garrison, and its MaxHealth and Damage value would increase based on that. Essentially, the Garrison would be a "Row 3" Unit (and its stats may vary by faction - Kingdom would have higher Health and less damage, for example) that never moves from your Home Region. You could still place Units in front of it as defense, but even without them it would offer some defense of its own. Additionally, this would ease the feeling of 'wasting' Mana - no-one likes to be wasteful, and putting the excess to good use would feel better than having it disappear. Conversely, though, it would send a mixed message - especially to new players - who aren't sure whether they should be spending Mana on Units, or letting it go to their Garrison. Players who did would consistently lose games for doing something that the game 'encouraged', which doesn't feel good at all.
Addressing that issue was my
second idea, which is using deceased Units as a form of 'spirit guard' in one's Home Region - that way playing Units and engaging in Combat are
doubly encouraged, and it eases the 'sting' of losing one of your strong Units (like a Herald) especially early on. The big issue here is that long games can have a lot of Units lost, and that could seriously convolute the battle in an unintended way - the biggest upside is that it would be really,
really awesome.
wink
EDIT: Some combination of the two might be possible, as well - where the Home Region automatically summons a number of your dead Units to its defense, based on the Mana its absorbed (starting with the strongest Units, and working its way down). This ameliorates most of the issues with both methods, and retains most of the benefits, at the cost of being a bit more complicated. However, since it's something that occurs automatically rather than relying on interaction, it should really only be as complicated as the player wants to make it.
EDIT EDIT: If those re-summons were
permanent, this might actually serve as a come-from-behind feature; players would need to avoid attacking the Home Region needlessly, lest they give the opponent more Units with which to re-establish a board presence. That said, it seems almost a little unfair, and I think it would be possible to find other come-from-behind mechanics that don't.