Design: Heroes

[Kael]

I love the Hero concept as you have it. They really make the game more fun.

Have you considered adding a "Counter" Hero? Someone who spontaneously appears if you conquer say half the world's Civs or dominate 30-40% of all tiles? It would be in the strongest enemy Civ...

Yeah, that was the origional plan for adventurers, that they would be rubber band units that spawned in weak civs to help against the powerful.

 

[loki1232]

@feydras
I like this story very much. perhaps we could include him in a quest.

 

[feydras]

Just thinking about Rook -
Maybe the girl thing is overkill as Jonas already has a little girl head mace. We could substitute in a handful of minor spirits say he captured from an insane asylum. I could come up with a story. This would keep the spying potential and still mesh with the flavor of Rook.

Thanks for the comment Loki, anyone else have any thought about if he seems workable as a hero or not.

- feydras

 

[woodelf]

Any thoughts about changing the prereqs for Gilden Silverick? Right now he needs an archery range, but Elves don't need to build an archery range right away since they get Elven Archers with the Leaves. Maybe a Fellowship Temple would be better used to attract him?

 

[Kael]

Any thoughts about changing the prereqs for Gilden Silverick? Right now he needs an archery range, but Elves don't need to build an archery range right away since they get Elven Archers with the Leaves. Maybe a Fellowship Temple would be better used to attract him?

Im not sure why he has a building prereq, none of the other heroes do. Im just going to remove it entriely.

 

[woodelf]

Im not sure why he has a building prereq, none of the other heroes do. Im just going to remove it entriely.

Even better. I didn't recall any others having prereqs either.

 

[eerr]

the grigori adventurers seem a bit over powered
i managed to hook up copper just in time to make the much needed upgrade into an axe man before the nearby orthus arrived(at the city with the copper), then he captured that city... but i put my axeman outside waiting for him to attack, lo and behold he was defeated

a foolish elf civ declared war after orthus took the city on me and moved their commando/cmb 5 warrior near my capitol but then i smashed him with my new axeman, who then went on to pound every single elf city in turn (razed most) with archer and elf busting promos.
then i busted the other nearby civ(forget which) down to one city who was foolishly guarding most of his cities with scouts????, but the point is that i did this all with just my early hero axeman -he was still overpowered in the late age as an immortal but the great number of units overall toned it down slightly

i think maybe grigori heros should get the "heroic" promotion instead of the "hero" promotion(less xp per turn, therefore less promotions)
i could have easily taken the battle off continent early on just by upgrading the other hero i had sitting around for awhile

 

[Kael]

the grigori adventurers seem a bit over powered
i managed to hook up copper just in time to make the much needed upgrade into an axe man before the nearby orthus arrived(at the city with the copper), then he captured that city... but i put my axeman outside waiting for him to attack, lo and behold he was defeated

a foolish elf civ declared war after orthus took the city on me and moved their commando/cmb 5 warrior near my capitol but then i smashed him with my new axeman, who then went on to pound every single elf city in turn (razed most) with archer and elf busting promos.
then i busted the other nearby civ(forget which) down to one city who was foolishly guarding most of his cities with scouts????, but the point is that i did this all with just my early hero axeman -he was still overpowered in the late age as an immortal but the great number of units overall toned it down slightly

i think maybe grigori heros should get the "heroic" promotion instead of the "hero" promotion(less xp per turn, therefore less promotions)
i could have easily taken the battle off continent early on just by upgrading the other hero i had sitting around for awhile

Thats interesting to hear, most of the feedback has been that the grigori are underpowered. What difficulty were you playing on?

 

[eerr]

i was playing on noble
-quote "the most balanced level of play"
my axeman had very high odds busting everything on the continent with mobil I combt V anti archer anti elf basic promos
it didn't hurt that the other civ on the continent was defending some of his cities with scouts either

the ai(on noble) just can't compete with the early grigori hero rush(except maybe with "standard" archers)
if i hadn't kept my hero back to protect the best cities once or twice i would have had the whole continent before getting macemen or if i'd given him a city buster promotion instead of combat V
i still could have been crushed by orthus without extremely lucky timing though

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I've done pretty much the same thing with non-hero units who got lucky enough to kill orthus then upgrade to axemen or hunters. When you have Orthus Axe, shock, and someone to cover your back, it's easy to take several cities and level up almost faster than heros.
I'm not saying this tactic is overpowered, neccessarily, because its hardly reliable to have orthus attack you early, and survive to carry on his trade.

 

[feydras]

I've done pretty much the same thing with non-hero units who got lucky enough to kill orthus then upgrade to axemen or hunters. When you have Orthus Axe, shock, and someone to cover your back, it's easy to take several cities and level up almost faster than heros.
I'm not saying this tactic is overpowered, neccessarily, because its hardly reliable to have orthus attack you early, and survive to carry on his trade.

This happened to me in my current game with a warrior who beat a weakened Orthus. He is currently a level 16 swordsmen with two hundred and fifty something XP and i'm only about halfway through the tech tree! Way more than Gilder whom i just got. I am still losing by quite a bit believe it or not, but my uberswordsmen has been supporting my economy by pillaging with impunity. I'm specifically not taking my enemy's (Infernal) cities so he will build more improvements and units to fight. In essence i am farming my enemy to create my own hero. I don't think this is unbalanced, just a different approach.
Other relevant info: huge map, raging barbs, 15 civs, epic speed. Prince level.
Oh, and after he got tough i never fight with odds less than 99% as i am terrified of losing him. This 'strategy' is pretty cheesy i know. I expect it will be much less effective once the AI is beefed up to not use scouts as its primary defensive unit early game.

- feydras

 

[lorgen]

I just think that he should be able to learn new spells. That way he remains somewhat useful even later in the game.

In Norrøn Mythology, Loke wasn`t just a trickster. He was also a shape-shifter, and he spawned some very powerful children. Among his children were Fenris (Fenrir the giant wolf ), Midgardsormen also called Jörmungandr, the sea serpent, and Hel, the queen of the kingdom of death. (He also spawned some more, in a shape-shifting form as a mare he even became the mother of odins horse, but the three above are the most powerful)

To make Loke more useful later in the game, could it be possible to make him spawn some of his children as additonal heroes/UU`s or have some shape-shifting abilities that could make him useful in combat as well?

Info about Fenris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir

Midgardsormen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörmungandr

and Hel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hel_(being)

Loke is also supposed to join the battle of Ragnarok leading a huge army of undeads from Hel against Æsene (the Æsir), so it might be an idea to make him develope into some sort of powerful necromancer?
(background story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki )

Just a couple of ideas. Hopefully some might be interesting.

BTW, I love the MOD, great work.

 

[lorgen]

computer lag, double post....

 

[Kael]

In Norrøn Mythology, Loke wasn`t just a trickster. He was also a shape-shifter, and he spawned some very powerful children. Among his children were Fenris (Fenrir the giant wolf ), Midgardsormen also called Jörmungandr, the sea serpent, and Hel, the queen of the kingdom of death. (He also spawned some more, in a shape-shifting form as a mare he even became the mother of odins horse, but the three above are the most powerful)

To make Loke more useful later in the game, could it be possible to make him spawn some of his children as additonal heroes/UU`s or have some shape-shifting abilities that could make him useful in combat as well?

Info about Fenris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir

Midgardsormen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörmungandr

and Hel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hel_(being)

Loke is also supposed to join the battle of Ragnarok leading a huge army of undeads from Hel against Æsene (the Æsir), so it might be an idea to make him develope into some sort of powerful necromancer?
(background story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki )

Just a couple of ideas. Hopefully some might be interesting.

BTW, I love the MOD, great work.

Sadly Loki isn't named after the norse god but our own crazed designer. As such he should probably have the ability to create entire civs and new units but that might be a bit unbalancing. As for his ability to sire giant wolves, you'd have to ask him yourself about that.

 

[loki1232]

Yah it would be nice to have a Loki god in their somewhere. I was just thinking, it might make more sense to have the balseraph hero be a Don Quixote (totally insane of course, with a bonus on windmills).

Instead, loki could be part of a late game questinvolving ragnarok and a giant war between the alignments. After he gets free from his prison (in hell perhaps) he leads the army demons and giants and monsters against the gods.

 

[Diminicius]

I have a little suggestion about Typhoid Mary... I think she is a little underpowerd when you get her... alchemy is still a rather late game tech and she still doesnt have a hero promotion... so if you are not planning on giving her that then here is a suggestion:
+give her 1 additional movement point, she does strickes me as an agile hero (since this is a minor change its not very important whether you decide to implement it or not).
+if possible give her the following promotion: Plauge Eater - +60% strengh against plauged or desiesed units (makes sense since her strengh lies in plauging units first).
+the last change is probobly the most interesting one... i was thinking of giving her plauge bearer ability a compleat makeover. It would work like this: when Typhoid Mary attacks the first time she would give all enemy units the "desised" promotion which would drain 15% of its hp and units in the same tile (not stackable of course) and will wear off in 3 turns, the second time she attacks the units whit the "desised" promotion have it replaced whit "plauged" which drains 30% of their health, this promotion will not go away untill it is cured. And finnaly a third attack will cause the "plauged" promotion to be replaced whit "tainted" prom, that drains a total of 45% of the units hp per turn and can only be cure in the city in wich the Aqua Suceluss was built (might be a bit much, since if i imagine myself ever leting it get that far i would most likely just delete the unit myself, less maintenece that way =) ). could be fun if you decide to implement this, would also allow her to be on equal footing whit Halfmorn who currently overshadows her whit his Lycantropy ability and the fact that you can get him far sooner then Mary.

I know these bonuses might sound a bit much but in the current state of the game her whole concept is overshadowed by Halfmorn, absolete by the archmages meteor storm (it is a LOT more useful agains SoD's then Mary), and nearly useless in an actual war since when you want to capture a city you will not want to wait 5-7 turns for the plauge to weaken the defenders of the city even whit the posible advantage of losing less units to make it worth while you will need to attack whit Mary first and since she will likely to attack into a fortified longbow by this point of the game there is a high chance of her getting killed, of course you could use catapults first but that would just lead to the following scenario: catapults bombard a city to make way for Mary to attack, Mary attacks to weaken the defenders, attackers wait 5-7 turn for the enemy to get weakened enough by the plauge and then attack... Now the problem whit all this is that a war normaly needs to be fast, the longer a war lasts the more taxing it becomes for the attacker, making the whole concept of the plauge less usefull. The only time when this can be actualy very effective is when you manage to plauge an attacking
enemy stack, by the time they reach your city they would have already taken a huge load of damage from the plauge unless thay had a healer in that stack.

Again just my 2 sents on the matter.

 

[Kael]

I have a little suggestion about Typhoid Mary... I think she is a little underpowerd when you get her... alchemy is still a rather late game tech and she still doesnt have a hero promotion... so if you are not planning on giving her that then here is a suggestion:
+give her 1 additional movement point, she does strickes me as an agile hero (since this is a minor change its not very important whether you decide to implement it or not).
+if possible give her the following promotion: Plauge Eater - +60% strengh against plauged or desiesed units (makes sense since her strengh lies in plauging units first).
+the last change is probobly the most interesting one... i was thinking of giving her plauge bearer ability a compleat makeover. It would work like this: when Typhoid Mary attacks the first time she would give all enemy units the "desised" promotion which would drain 15% of its hp and units in the same tile (not stackable of course) and will wear off in 3 turns, the second time she attacks the units whit the "desised" promotion have it replaced whit "plauged" which drains 30% of their health, this promotion will not go away untill it is cured. And finnaly a third attack will cause the "plauged" promotion to be replaced whit "tainted" prom, that drains a total of 45% of the units hp per turn and can only be cure in the city in wich the Aqua Suceluss was built (might be a bit much, since if i imagine myself ever leting it get that far i would most likely just delete the unit myself, less maintenece that way =) ). could be fun if you decide to implement this, would also allow her to be on equal footing whit Halfmorn who currently overshadows her whit his Lycantropy ability and the fact that you can get him far sooner then Mary.

I know these bonuses might sound a bit much but in the current state of the game her whole concept is overshadowed by Halfmorn, absolete by the archmages meteor storm (it is a LOT more useful agains SoD's the Mary), and nearly useless in an actual war since when you want to capture a city you will not want to wait 5-7 turns for the plauge to weaken the defenders of the city even whit the posible advantage of losing less units to make it worth while you will need to attack whit Mary first and since she will likely to attack into a fortified longbow by this point of the game there is a high chance of her getting killed, of course you could use catapults first but that would just lead to the following scenario: catapults bombard a city to make way for Mary to attack, Mary attacks to weaken the defenders, attackers wait 5-7 turn for the enemy to get weakened enough by the plauge and then attack... Now the problem whit all this is that a war normaly needs to be fast, the longer a war lasts the more taxing it becomes for the attacker, making the whole concept of the plauge less usefull. The only time when this can be actualy very effective is when you manage to plauge an attacking
enemy stack, by the time they reach your city they would have already taken a huge load of damage from the plauge unless thay had a healer in that stack.

Again just my 2 sents on the matter.

I think your right and love the idea of giving her a bonus against plagued units. Chalids working on a better way to build anti-promotions (bonus's against units with certain promotions). Maybe once that it is we will use it to give Mary this boost.

 

[H.GrenadeFrenzy]

I have a hero for you guys. A surprise if you will, and my role-players will be angry I'm giving it to you instead of them.....too bad. When, if you are going to have one, will be the contest you hinted at for designing a hero....I don't have to wait but it is juicey and liberating and if you don't like it I will sacrifice my second settler for my next 100 games...That is how confident i am....squeak

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Heya,

I had an idea for the Ljosalfar civ.
How about, because they are primarily elves, but are also at-one-with-nature, they get a treant hero, who can only be gained the same way as normal treants (ie randomly summoned from ancient forests) except there is a 10% chance that he will pop up instead of a normal treant after the hidden paths tech is discovered.

He could have the ability to increase the growth rate of forests (ie change a new forest to a Forest to an ancient forest; and even increse the chance on new forests randomly appearing around him), cast bloom, entangle and summon vines. however, the catch is, that he cannot travel outside of forests or the owners cities.
I think these advantages and disadvantages would make him perfect for defence, and also encorage the elves to plant LOTS of forests so he can move around, however he will be totally innafective against taking enemy citys because he cannot enter them.

So summed up:
Unit type:
~Treant/Dryad type unit
Abilities:
~increse forest growth rate
~New promotion: Woodland Guardian
+100% defence in all forests (new, normal and ancient)
Cannot exit forest (or the owner civs city) squares
Spells:
~bloom (Perhaps make bloom be castable on ajacent squares as well...)
~entangle
~summon vines
~(Maybe summon Treant, but that may over power him...)
disadvantages:
~cannot exit forest or owners city squares.
~(probably another disadvantage, to ballance but cant think of any)

Im not too sure how practical that would be with python and that, but thats my idea that i think would be a nice addition to the elves (hint hint )

 

[feydras]

Another disadvantage for your treant could be Fire vulnerability.

- feydras