Heroes in the mod

Redesigned with promotion method (edits completed)

Aggregate promotions
Heroic resilience. When this unit is killed, it respawns in the capital city (as immortality) and the promotion is removed. Requires tech: nil. Heroes start with this promotion.
Champion: +2 strength. Requires tech: Feudalism.
Lord: +3 strength. Requires tech: Military tradition.
High Priest: +1 strength, +1 holy strength Requires tech: Tactics (priesthood is too early).
Archpriest: +2 strength, +1 holy strength. Requires tech: fanaticism
Footman. Gives +20% vs melee. Requires tech: nil, some heroes will start with this.
Mounted: +1 movement, shock cavalry class, +20% vs archer, REMOVES Footman. Requires tech: Stirrups.
Aerial mount. +2 movement, flying, +1 first strike. Beast class. REMOVES Mounted, Removes Footman. Requires tech: Monster bonding.
Champion of venom. +1 strength, +1 poison strength. Requires tech: feudalism
Venom lord. +2 strength, +3 poison strength. Requires tech: Military tradition.
Summoner. Summoned units start with the Strong promotion. Requires tech: nil, some heroes start with this.
Champion of chaos. +1 strength, +1 unholy strength. Requires tech: Feudalism.
Favored of chaos. +2 strength, +1 unholy strength. Becomes Demon race. Requires tech: Chaos incursion.
Inquisitor promotion. Can inquisition cities without sacrificing self. Requires tech: nil (some heroes start with this).
Defender of the forests promotion: acts as immortality, but revives the unit ONLY if it dies within friendly cultural borders. Requires tech: tracking.
Mage. +2 strength. Requires Education tech.
Archmage +2 strength. Requires Arcane lore tech.
Warlock +2 strength. Requires Arcane mastery tech.
Sorceror +2 strength. Requires Chaos incursion tech.
Elementalist +2 strength. Requires Elemental magic tech.
Elemental master. +2 strength. Requires elemental mastery tech.
Shaman +2 strength. Requires WAAAGH! tech.
Sigmar priest. Gives sigmar spells. Requires priesthood tech.
Liche priest. Gives khemri spells. Requires necromancy tech.

Ice mage. Can cast level 1 ice spells. Requires: nil.
Ice princess. +2 strength. Can cast level 2 ice spells. Requilres Education tech.
Ice Queen. +2 strength. Can cast level 3 ice spells. Requires military tradition tech.
Bearmaster promotion. Can cast the polar call, summons a permanent polar bear. (1 bear, permanent summon, tied to caster). Requires monster breeding tech.

Empire


Woodelves


Dark elves


Brettonnia


Kislev


Dwarves


Sylvania


Tilea


Estalia


Kurgan/Norsca/Hung
Share 4 heroes. Each may only have 1 of the 4 heroes, and there may only be one copy of each hero, and if they die the hero is gone. So if Kurgan builds the Khorne champion, then Norsca can build any of the other three.


Ork


Goblin


Khemri


Araby


High Elf.

Bear in mind that a single promotion will always have the same criteria set; so the tech at which you would earn High Priest is consistent for anyone that can earn it.

Click to expand...

You ninjaed me. Will edit above keeping this in mind.
So, I should include the Tech requirement for each generic promotion with the promotion, then I can just write "can get champion" promotion in the hero if that hero is eligible.

I think minor things like training and such could be added as tweaks later to buff weak heroes and nerf stronger ones, but we will get the main stats and powerful effects done now. Will need some playtest, there are just too many here.

PROBLEM:
How will this work for channeling?

I need to be able to give different heroes the channeling 2 promotion at different techs. The civs can't all research the same techs, or use different techs to get their magic.

Can I still have promotions given to particular heroes with particular techs?

if its necessary we can make new promotions for channeling for heroes that cant normally access it (ie Sylvania), with identical effects just differen names and tech requirements.

also fantastic work there Mimic

You ninjaed me So, I should include the Tech requirement for each generic promotion with the promotion, then I can just write "can get champion" promotion in the hero if that hero is eligible.

Click to expand...

hiyahh! yes, any tech or resource requirements remain consistent, and then specific units can be made eligible or not. Also there's no need to have generic Aerial Mount or Mounted promotions if a set of specific ones (Griffon Mount, Dragon Mount, Warhorse, Cold One Steed etc) are given.

Maybe it's best for at least some of the Hero promotions (esp the generic strength ones like Champion etc) to be earned through XP as usual (they could still have the tech prereqs if desired); if getting all of the Hero promos for free, people will load up on generic unit promos like Medic and City Garrison not really suitable for WH Heros. Are we planning to have heroes earn 1XP/turn to 100 cap a la FfH Heroism, or just spellcaster heroes earn this through Channeling?

BTW how about "Assassin" and "Master Assassin" instead of Venom Champion/Lord.

How I need to be able to give different heroes the channeling 2 promotion at different techs. The civs can't all research the same techs, or use different techs to get their magic

Click to expand...

I thought you were planning to create new magic techs enabling Mage and Archmage level casters, if so you could use these techs to enable Channeling. Otherwise if you really need to grant free Channeling at different techs, sounds like a job for python. EDIT: P_L is right as well, it would be possible to grant a new promotion with the same effects as Channeling if you really need to.

It sounds like these heroes are being planned to appear a lot earlier than FfH heroes, like right at the start of the game. Is the build cost also going to be low? If you're concerned to help save the AI from burning through one life too quick, might be better to hold off till at least the early midgame. Alternately, if you have one Lesser and one Greater hero per civ, you could make the Greater one buildable midgame; one-shot Immortality on each of those is more than enough chances for anyone.

Finished the edits as best I can, there are a handful of units that have some extra issues, and the channeling/spell slot issues can be problematic.

I think all mounted units can use the same promotion and all aerial mounts can use the same promotion, they just trigger different art upgrades for different heroes. The differences in mount can be purely cosmetic.

Assassin I think can have too many connotations with the Marksmen promotion for FFH, and assassin in Warhammer tends to mean anti-hero. I agree that "Venom champion" is very clumsy, so alternatives would be appreciated.

I had assumed heroes were all getting the +1 xp per turn from the hero promotion.

The problem with having some of the promotions *not* be free is that you could be punished by gaining levels and promotions before you meet the requirements.
Eg suppose your hero gets to level 10 or so before you get to military discipline tech; then you won't be able to earn the Lordship promotion without reaching level 11, which could be really hard once you're above the 100xp cutoff, particularly if you're stuck at the lower strength level.

THe point of providing channeling is that channeling is a requirement for other magic promotions.

So for eg, Morathi with channeling 2 and dark magic 1 and 2 could also choose to spend normal promotions on getting Lore of death magic 1 and 2.
Lore of death magic 1 should require Channeling 1 AND [dark magic OR high magic].
Lore of beasts magic 1 should require Channleing 1 AND [high magic OR lore of athel loren 1].
etc.

And then Lore of death magic 2 requires Channeling 2 AND lord of death magic 1.

So the point of channeling was to allow the casters to diversify and upgrade as the player decides while using the existing uprgade requirements.

I wouldn't say "right at the start". It will probably be 50 turns before you get to Warfare tech, or any of the other tech requirements. But yeah, I thought the intention was to have these available pretty early. Basically at the same time as the tier1 units, or slightly after. We could easily push them one tech forward if you wanted, to military discipline rather than warfare.

But anyway, take a look at post 101 and then consider from there.

Lesser and Greater would require a ton of redesign, and I am too burned out right now, so if you really want that, mention it again in a few days.

That looks good for now; hopefully we can playtest using one or 2 relatively standard heroes per faction & further detail can be figured out later.

THe point of providing channeling is that channeling is a requirement for other magic promotions.

Click to expand...

Hm.. in that case, you obviously wouldn't be able to substitute a new promotion with a Channeling effect. You could try to tweak the requirements of the original Channeling so that Morathi and other needed Heroes could be eligible to buy it; otherwise, probably a python thing.

I wouldn't say "right at the start". It will probably be 50 turns before you get to Warfare tech, or any of the other tech requirements. But yeah, I thought the intention was to have these available pretty early. Basically at the same time as the tier1 units, or slightly after. We could easily push them one tech forward if you wanted, to military discipline rather than warfare.

Click to expand...

Eh, I'll leave it up to you and we can see how it playtests. My thought was that Heroes will be definitely the most powerful unit in the early game, and human players will be better at using them for an early advantage than the AI.

So how do multiple heroes get the Warhorse and Griffon promotions? UnitPrerequirement doesn't work in PromotionInfos

mimic said:

So how do multiple heroes get the Warhorse and Griffon promotions? UnitPrerequirement doesn't work in PromotionInfos

Click to expand...

Maybe we could use <PrereqTier>?

My thought was that Heroes will be definitely the most powerful unit in the early game

Click to expand...

Well, at level 1 they have basically the same stats as an axeman warband or horseman warband, except that they have the hero promotion.
But I'm definitely not fixed on where they should be. Leave it for now and playtest is probably a good idea. Its definitely possible that the AI would use them like FFH Lucian, who always seems to get killed off in an initial rush attack.
Though I think it *would* be pretty cool if at least one of the AIs (ork or Kurgan) basically adopted this tactic; rush their hero and melee units and try to blitz a neighbor.

@mimic
One idea (and I know nothing about xml) would be to make all the generic promotions available at tech X to anyone who has the hero promotion, and then specifically block for each hero all the promotions that they *can't* get.
Kindof clumsy though.

Mimic, my take from the MMGFF (great documentation xienwolf!) is that promotions can be set up to have standard criteria (like TECH_STIRRUPS and BONUS_HORSE for Warhorse); and specific unittypes can be made eligible or ineligible to get them by using <PrereqPermission> in promotionsinfos and <AllowPromotions> in unitinfos.

Edit: Wait, even easier. You can simply set eligible unittypes using <PrereqUnits> in the FF promotioninfos.

Ah so its basically UnitPrerequirement but with a different name

An alternative for the Archmage issue is to create a Warlock promotion that is identical, but comes with Arcane Mastery, and a Chaos Master promotion that is identical but comes with Chaos incursion.

All civs will be able to learn *either* arcane lore OR arcane mastery OR chaos incursion.

Its also not that important for the mage heroes to be able to pick and choose their magics.
We could just hardcode in all their magic access. This would remove the need for heroes to gain channeling higher level channeling promotions.

We would still be faced with having to give them the promotions for the spells at the right places though.

Can we add three OR promotions into a promotion requirement?
Another alternative would be to have a Mage promotion that gives +2 strength instead of using Champion, and then use the Mage/Archmage/Warlock/Chaos Master as OR requirements for particular magics, and have Mage/Archmage/Warlock/Chaos Master give a free promotion.

So for example:

Currently Ariel is a mage caster who needs to access Wood Elf and Beast magic.

Ariel


One way is to use python to add the lore of athel loren and lore of beast promotions at the apporpriate techs.

Another way would be to have Ariel start with Lore of Athel Loren 1 and Lore of Beasts 1, and no channeling.
Then she gains the Mage upgrade with some tech (probably Feudalism) which gives +2 strength and +1 free promotion.
And the we make the Lore of Athel Loren 2 tech require Lore of Athel Loren 1 AND [Channeling 2 OR Mage]
And we make the Lore of Beasts 2 require Lore of Beasts 1 AND [Channeling 2 OR Mage]

Then she gains the Archmage promotion with the Arcane Lore tech.
And the we make the Lore of Athel Loren 3 tech require Lore of Athel Loren 2 AND [Channeling 3 OR Archmage]
And we make the Lore of Beasts 3 require Lore of Beasts 2 AND [Channeling 3 OR Archmage]

This would let us basically achieve what we wanted using only the promotion system.

But it requires promotions to be able to have X AND [Y OR Z] as requirements.

Similarly, we would have:
Mannfred von Carstein


And we make Necromancy 2 require Necromancy 1 AND [Channeling 2 or Mage]
And Necromancy 3 require Necromancy 2 AND [Channeling 3 OR Warlock

Sure, that makes perfect sense actually - for the spellcasting heroes just use Mage/Archmage/Warlock/Chaos Sorceror promos instead of Champion/Lord etc, and add these promotions as OR prereqs for the appropriate magics. AFAIK the FF XML should be able to handle that through using <TechPrereq> along with several <PromotionPrereqOR>s.

Ok, cool.

Here then is a complete set of spell promotions.

(I forget the names of the winds of magic, so I will just use Lore of X; similarly I will put Elemental Y to make these distinct from the colleges even if they end up being Y Magic; the intent should still be clear.)

Generic caster promotions (these promotions are applied for free to any hero or unit who is allowed to learn them as soon as their tech requirement is met.]


Magic promotions (these promotions are normal promotions with tech requirements and promotion requirements, and must be purchased like normal combat promotions when a unit gains a level.
Note that many units get around these pre-requisites by starting with the promotion automatically.

Elemental magic


Winds college magic [Intention; college mages can learn only 1 path. Dark elves can learn Death, Shadow or Metal. Wood elves can learn Life or Beasts. High Elves can learn any.]


Elven magic


Chaos magic


Other magic (incompletely designed)

Post 101 updated; that is the one I will keep updated with edits.

The hero upgrades are now very clean; only a handful of heroes have issues that are NOT fully solved by the generic free hero promotion mechanic.

All right, I'll upload an updated pack of heroes (including karl Franz) within a few days, now I have a better idea of what to do.

Awesome, thanks mimic.

great work guys.

one thing though ahri: human civs cant get high magic so making high magic an AND requirement for the winds of magic should be removed i think.

one thing though ahri: human civs cant get high magic so making high magic an AND requirement for the winds of magic should be removed i think.

Click to expand...

You might think that
But college mages automatically start with the level 1 promotion of their own college. So they don't need to be able to purchase the promotion as an upgrade.

The AND requirement is deliberate; it stops college mages from learning the level 1 promotion of other colleges. If I removed it, then a Fire mage would be able to learn death magic if the owner of the civ had researched that tech.

Continue to look closely at this for bugs, but there are a lot of subtleties that are actually intended.