New Heroes

[ls612]

From my Unit's Thread;

@Everyone: In a series of PMs, the idea was suggested by Koshling that I should take over Heroes for the time being as SO is busy adding new civs. He also suggested that a post be made here for everyone to suggest new heroes.

So, this is how it works; In the Civilopedia, the Bonuses tab shows all the culture resources, named "Culture (whatever)" Each of those should have links to one Hero, a Major one and a Minor one. The ones that don't are the ones that need new Heroes. Any suggestions for historical persons as heroes for these cultures should be posted here by the community, and I'll make the units have appropriate combat stats based on era and combat role. Thanks to all in advance.

SO suggested that I make a new thread for this discussion. Post away!

 

[strategyonly]

From another thread:

I just had a brainwave!! (at least I think so )

How about if heroes worked like this:

• Initially they are always only modestly good military units with fairly modest special initial promotions (like warlord corporals and so on)
• They get a special hero-only promotion line that grants access to special builds, leading eventually to the achievements (so we could have a basic hero building that maybe adds culture or military specialist or something they get near the start, right up to the all-city achievements some of them have today)

This way you have to actually promote your hero up, all the time risking his destruction, to get access to the powerful achievements.

The benefits are:

• No need to limit hero availability to one per civ, or make them too hard to get
• New-born heroes are not especially powerful
• If you want to get to the powerful options you have to take risks. The extra tension of do-I-try-for-more-promotions vs build-what-I-can-now adds to gameplay
• Optionally the promotion line could branch, so that (for example) if you choose a 'lesser agricultural guru' promotion (which gives rise to the ability to construct the 'lesser agricultural achievement') which precludes then getting other 'lesser guru' promotions, but enables 'greater agricultural guru' (which allows you to build 'greater agricultural achievement')

This might need an extra prereqPromotion tag on unit constructions, but that would be super easy to add.

I dislike this idea because it still doesn't address the issue of civs either never getting heroes or getting too many. Also some cultures have none while others have like 4.

Also if you have a hero what if you are not playing a warmonger civ and want to play the game peacefully? This would mean you would have to fight in battle to get anything. I have another idea ...

You have 2 types of hero units a "Strategist" and a "War Hero". Every time you get to a new era you can pick a "Strategist" OR a "War Hero".

Strategists
Strategists are weak and main purpose is to build one of the Achievement buildings.

War Hero
War Heroes are strong for their era and can actually take heroic promotions. Upon reaching the next era you can upgrade your current hero to the next level. If you wish to retire your war hero you can make a "Heroic Monument" Which is not as nice as the Achievement buildings, but gives a good decreasing War Weariness.

What do you guys think?

I quite like this, but I still think the achievements are far too strong to 'just get'. The reason I wanted to do it via a promotion chain was to force you to work for the higher levels (via risk taking in combat). Perhaps there can be experience-granting missions of a non combat nature.

Alternatively, for the strategists perhaps they could have a series of achievements in each branch ( agricultural, scientific, etc.), and you can't build the greater achievement in any line until you have built the lesser. That way your first hero has to choose an achievement type to start off, and you still have to work for the bigger achievements, spending multiple heroes to get the best ones.

I am just throwing this out there but what if there were "Hero Points" in the same way there are "Great People Point"?

I like the idea of experience granting missions. I know some games have "Achievements" or "Badges" you can get. It would be very cool if we made a series of Heroic Achievements or badges that you could get by doing not only military battles but doing domestic things. Such as build X number of buildings to get X badge. Or build 3 specific wonders to get Y badge. Or even obtain X number of resources to get Z badge.

I like the Achievement building upgrade tree. That would make a lot of sense and give some great goals.

Hi,

As requested I'm posting my 'super heroes' ideas here. I should have done this first, but I didn't know this thread existed.

My idea would be for very powerful 'super heroes & Villains' with names such as Captain Marvelous, The Bulk, Dr Gloom and any other take on comic book heroes names. If at all possible, they should have different specs, maybe for movement speed, flight, strength, defense, maybe a bombard option. For me, it would seem best if these heroes became available after the discovery of Homo Superior or similar. They would appear in the same way as great people. However, villains would appear as 'super barbarians', while heroes would be available to the player as 'super soldiers'. It might also be nice to some of both appearing as an 'event'.

Also, maybe a 'super hero' could build a special building in a city called "Super Base" which would increase the changes of 'super heroes' appearing slightly and maybe add to a cities defense.

I also don't know how possible it would be, but could 'super villains' be made to build a 'lair' as a terrain features which could spawn henchmen, which again would behave like barbarians.

I guess, it would be best to include this as an option as I'm sure 'super heroes' aren't to everyone's tastes.

Ok, those are my thoughts, it would be great to see it implemented, but I'm sure you're very busy with all the ideas.

Thanks again for this mod and thanks for reading.

I am going to stop you now. While we have alternative timelines, I have drawn the line at magic, super powers and paranormal stuff. Even with Homo Superior having a "super friends" group is just silly and should stay in the comic books and cartoons.

As for Trans-Human Heroes, I don't see why not if linked to a trans-human culture.

I think founding the Cyborg Justice League is no more fantastic or unreal than time travel or whatever the heck a "Dual-Flux Quantum Temporal Rift" is, but that's just my two Bat-cents.

 

[ls612]

@SO: I think that we should stay with the current hero system for now, for two reasons;

1. The AI knows how to use Heroes at the present, and actually uses them effectively. Koshling has said that any large-scale revision of the system would require new AI scripts, and I personally am fine with the current system for now. That said, I am totally in favor of revising the Heroes after we get all caught up with Cultures and Heroes, and am working on a framework for such and overhaul.

2. As it works now, we have a Major hero, which can build an Achievement after it is done in combat, and a Minor hero, which can 'only' become an in-city GP. I think that some of the new heroes for the new cultures should be totally non-combat, and instead provide benefits to the city they are in, via the Property system. What I mean by that is that we could have a few 'hero' properties, the ones that come to mind now are Administrative, Inspirational, and Industrial. These properties would have sources in certain Heroes, and would be spread over trade networks. If a city has x amount of that property, say Administration, they would get a beneficial triggered building, IE something like "Administration (Excellent)", similar to how Crime works now but in a positive fashion. These noncombat heroes could be left around to rack up the property benefits, and could sooner or later be converted into an Achievement or a GP, depending on their level.

Also, if anyone has suggestions for new Heroes, please post them here and I will make them, using graphics from existing Culture Units as appropriate or new graphics if they can be found.

 

[strategyonly]

If anyone has suggestions for new Heroes, please post them here and I will make them, using graphics from existing Culture Units as appropriate or new graphics if they can be found.

I cant believe NO ONE has and ideas on NEW Heroes with the NEW Cultures, come everyone, this is a RALLYING POINT here, lets start thinking and writing here, thx.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I still like my idea of each civ getting a hero version of the leaderhead they pick rather than getting multiple heroes from cultures.

These hero units could upgrade over time and would be given at the start. They would be stronger than other units of its era, however if it dies it is dead.

Perhaps as the unit upgrades you could have it upgrade into different unit types such as melee or mounted. Likewise the higher the unit the more powerful building they can special build. This if you build a special building early it might benefit you for the time but it you hold off until later a better building could be made. But you risk the unit of dying.

In a sense the hero is like your own personal avatar.

EDIT: Or maybe death or upgrade could be like having it passed on to your offspring like a royal linage.

 

[strategyonly]

I still like my idea of each civ getting a hero version of the leaderhead they pick rather than getting multiple heroes from cultures.

These hero units could upgrade over time and would be given at the start. They would be stronger than other units of its era, however if it dies it is dead.

Perhaps as the unit upgrades you could have it upgrade into different unit types such as melee or mounted. Likewise the higher the unit the more powerful building they can special build. This if you build a special building early it might benefit you for the time but it you hold off until later a better building could be made. But you risk the unit of dying.

In a sense the hero is like your own personal avatar.

EDIT: Or maybe death or upgrade could be like having it passed on to your offspring like a royal linage.

The LH stuff, i definitely like.

 

[Koshling]

I still like my idea of each civ getting a hero version of the leaderhead they pick rather than getting multiple heroes from cultures.

These hero units could upgrade over time and would be given at the start. They would be stronger than other units of its era, however if it dies it is dead.

Perhaps as the unit upgrades you could have it upgrade into different unit types such as melee or mounted. Likewise the higher the unit the more powerful building they can special build. This if you build a special building early it might benefit you for the time but it you hold off until later a better building could be made. But you risk the unit of dying.

In a sense the hero is like your own personal avatar.

EDIT: Or maybe death or upgrade could be like having it passed on to your offspring like a royal linage.

I like them being linked to cultures. It gives a strong incentive to contuinue to strive for new cultures throughout the game, both for obtaining your own heroes (MUCH more so than other unique units which I actually find are often useless by the time you can get the cultures), and to deny them to your opponents.

The place to start is probably not poeple trying to suggest new heroes out of the blue, so to speak, but by enumerating the cultrures that still need them as a list, which people can then suggest historical figures to try to fill them in, much as was done to complete the list of required resources to be able to build the cultures in the first place.

 

[strategyonly]

The place to start is probably not people trying to suggest new heroes out of the blue, so to speak, but by enumerating the cultures that still need them as a list, which people can then suggest historical figures to try to fill them in, much as was done to complete the list of required resources to be able to build the cultures in the first place.

Good point.

 

[Hydromancerx]

What about both then? What if there were heroes (linked to cultures) and an upgradable Avatar unit that is given to you at the beginning of the game and increases the longer you keep the unit alive.

 

[Koshling]

What about both then? What if there were heroes (linked to cultures) and an upgradable Avatar unit that is given to you at the beginning of the game and increases the longer you keep the unit alive.

Fine by me. I am just pushing to get the (existing) hero mechanic balanced out a bit more across cultures right now. I have no problem with a new class of civ-hero also.

 

[Hanny]

What about both then? What if there were heroes (linked to cultures) and an upgradable Avatar unit that is given to you at the beginning of the game and increases the longer you keep the unit alive.

A sort of UU at start you mean.

If it started out as zero movement,and gained movement later in game, by promotions, and had a high def, low attack value, it would help prevent early game conquest of AI`s.

mil building line could increase the base rate of exp the unit receives while in the city, and thus allow it to gain promotions.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well it would not be so unique since everyone would get one. But over time as you play the game it would become more unique to your game.

 

[strategyonly]

OK, here are your first Heroes units i need for the Apache Civ:

 

[Sgtslick]

Are you guys 100% sure that AI uses the agricultural bonus/ science bonus/ trade bonus etc from there hero units.. they should automatically spend the hero on one of these bonuses (if available) and never use him/her for fight, coz i've never seen them use them for this and im pretty sure you an check with the projects/wonders list. This could be another reason why AI is so easy atm.

 

[Koshling]

Are you guys 100% sure that AI uses the agricultural bonus/ science bonus/ trade bonus etc from there hero units.. they should automatically spend the hero on one of these bonuses (if available) and never use him/her for fight, coz i've never seen them use them for this and im pretty sure you an check with the projects/wonders list. This could be another reason why AI is so easy atm.

Yes, though if the hero is militarily much their most powerful unit they will use it militarily first and only 'settle' it if it survives until they have somewhat comparable other military (unless they achieve sufficient scale that the achievement benefit outwieghs the gap in military strength).

Obviously this decision involves a comparison of the benefit of the achievement vs the military power at the time, and its quite possible that the conversion between those two needs a little tweaking, so if you see an AI using a hero militarily when you think it really shouldn't be, post the save and we can take a look at the values it calculates in that save.

 

[Sgtslick]

Personally i would never use it militarily coz once u get a few of these achievements going they are incredibly powerful. Unless im about to lose a key city or something or losing a war badly, its just not worth it to waste them as a unit.

Also because this is a turned based strategy game, if I get certain achievements 100 turns before you do, thats 100 turns i have +1 food on all sea squares for example.

 

[Koshling]

Personally i would never use it militarily coz once u get a few of these achievements going they are incredibly powerful. Unless im about to lose a key city or something or losing a war badly, its just not worth it to waste them as a unit.

Also because this is a turned based strategy game, if I get certain achievements 100 turns before you do, thats 100 turns i have +1 food on all sea squares for example.

Well, in my current game, I have 6 cities and a strength 12 (base strength, but he also gets hero super-promotions) hero, when the best military is basically archers. He is FAR more valuable to me coupled with a great commander in the field than the CURRENT benefit from any achievement. Obviously as I scale up to more cities (and get better military) this situation will change, but its at least a rational choice o use him militarily for a while, even if it's a debateable one. Obviously if the unit in question isn't very significantly more powerful than oher military, or the civ scale was somwhat larger, the equation would change, but essentailly that is the balance the AI tries to calculate. Examples where poeple can see specific heroes and beleive the AI has not made a rational choice are very welcome, because it probably needs tuning (comparing military value to achievement value is a bit apples to oranges so obviously I might not have the convesion set right).

 

[Sgtslick]

i think early ancient is the only good example of where you should use them for military. I've rarely gotten one this early b4 tho usually get strength 12 or 14 when longbows and swords and stuff but they can die easily if you are not careful.

 

[Koshling]

i think early ancient is the only good example of where you should use them for military. I've rarely gotten one this early b4 tho usually get strength 12 or 14 when longbows and swords and stuff but they can die easily if you are not careful.

I agree at that point, and its the evaluation of the cross-over from when the risk (of not keeping them alive to later found achievements) outwieghs the benefit that is the question. I **think** the AI is getting this about right, but please post saves if you see what you believe to be arguable counter-examples.

 

[strategyonly]

OK, here are your first Heroes units i need for the Apache Civ:

I am still waiting for these