Great Heroes?

[Rylock]

I'm enjoying playing FfH2 immensely, don't get me wrong, but there is one thing that I found a bit strange the first time I encountered it and that's the way the heroes are handled.

Specifically I mean the fact that heroes are "built" like a unit.

I do like the fact that only one ever gets built, but it still struck me as odd -- here you have this system already in place for extraordinary individuals to appear (Great Commanders, Great Sages and so forth)... why not simply extend that to Great Heroes, instead (or in addition to). Maybe it's just me, but I found the sages and merchants and such a little out of place in the fantasy setting as it is. Oh, they work just fine, but it seems to me that if extraordinary people are going to be arising in a civilization that these would be the perfect heroes.

You could even break down the heroes into different types: building lots of mage guilds and magical-oriented buildings could each increase the chance that an extraordinary mage would appear, just as military buildings could give rise to a warrior.

I guess the difficulty, really, would be in assigning some kind of scaling combat value to the heroes so that they were useful in whatever period they appeared in without being over- or under-powered compared to the units in use at the time. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Try playing as the Grigori.

 

[loki1232]

He's not wrong, but it seems hard to create a balanced system of hero GPs given the huge amount of differentiation between the heros. We COULD do it more on a civ 3 golden age system though--
Each player gets a specific unit that generates GP points whenever it wins a battle. Those GP points get added to the capital, and then eventually teh hero is born.
For example Losha Valos could be born through the victories of your vampires.

But I like the current system just fine.

And yeah, the grigori have a system like you mentioned.

 

[Rylock]

Each player gets a specific unit that generates GP points whenever it wins a battle. Those GP points get added to the capital, and then eventually teh hero is born.
For example Losha Valos could be born through the victories of your vampires.

I think that's how Warlords does it with the Great Generals... winning victories with your units gives you a greater chance of spawning one.

Thinking of adventurers, too, it might also be neat if they could actually adventure. Like if you had "ancient ruins" in spots around the map that only an adventurer could explore, sort of the same way ancient temples are explored now, except that the result is possibly death for the adventurer or rewards like promotions, magic items, etc. Just an errant thought.

But I guess if people prefer the current system, there's no point in discussing it. I had to look at the Wiki to see what was meant by the adventurers, and that's quite neat. If only there was some way to tie that in with the current "personality" heroes. Ah well.

 

[wilboman]

Mhm. When quests start revving up (a long way down the line), we may look into different ways of obtaining heroes. These days, if you want a GP hero experience, you'll have to play the Grigori, I'm afraid

As for the adventurers having a special exploration ability, that would make those ruins useless for you in any game in which you are not the Grigori. Which would be a bit sad.

 

[MrUnderhill]

You could just have Explore Temple as a spell/ability attached to the Hero promotion. That way every civ can get access to it.

 

[loki1232]

Not a bad idea.
Of course then we should come up with a few more buildings like the ancient temples, and some new bonuses for them.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

I've never been quite clear on what the temples do after they have been explored. what arethe advantages of doing so.

 

[Maniac]

Combat I for free for your adepts.

 

[Silverkiss]

And lots of gold on the tile its on

 

[Jono]

How about this, takes 2 GPs to make a hero. Not out of the blue or anything, they just go over to an already experienced unit, that unit is then upgraded to a possible hero of its military line, of course techs, civs and religions are considred. The unit loses all of its xp and gains the hero promotion, keeps its levels and promotions. Sounds decent to me...

 

[Bad Player]

Rylock as Loki said the problem would be that some heroes such as Madero/Sphener/War Machine are extremely powerful compared to some early game heroes such as Gilden Silveric. Therefore it would be unfair for the e.g. Doviello to get the War Machine for the same cost as the Ljosalfar get Gilden Silveric.

 

[Rylock]

Rylock as Loki said the problem would be that some heroes such as Madero/Sphener/War Machine are extremely powerful compared to some early game heroes such as Gilden Silveric. Therefore it would be unfair for the e.g. Doviello to get the War Machine for the same cost as the Ljosalfar get Gilden Silveric.

Yes, I realize that... as I said, the scaling of each hero's power would be an issue. Unless you could have the unique heroes appear only when a prerequisite has been met, I suppose.

Still, powerful or not, the idea is that if heroes appear as Great People and are not built, then they come as a result of you having invested in the appropriate sorts of buildings (or taken actions which generate a Great Hero), so powerful or not it's supposed to be a bonus. If you can't build them, after all, then you can't dictate when and where you get them -- so saying it's "the same cost" wouldn't be quite true. The Doviello might never get the War Machine, after all.

But it might just be that the current implementation of heroes with their pre-set Combat ratings and promotions wouldn't work as a Great Person system, I really don't know. All I'm saying is that building them makes them feel less like extraordinary heroes and more like something I constructed.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Well, heroes may eventually be tied into quests. But in the mean time, don't think of it as building them, but spending resources to track them down and convince them to join you.

 

[onedreamer]

For example Losha Valos could be born through the victories of your vampires.

What about, say, Corlindale ? He's pacific. I think the current system is more interesting and a GP system would be IMO too monotonous.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Mhm. When quests start revving up (a long way down the line), we may look into different ways of obtaining heroes. These days, if you want a GP hero experience, you'll have to play the Grigori, I'm afraid

As for the adventurers having a special exploration ability, that would make those ruins useless for you in any game in which you are not the Grigori. Which would be a bit sad.

It *should* be possible to have special goody hut (or, more likely, rarer things with similar mechanics) results for adventurers (or units with some promotion) - either insert a check for it before rolling for the result (and roll from a different list if it's passed), or include some results with a check which are then rerolled if it's failed. Not really connected to the original idea of the thread, I know...

 

[Switchblock]

Maybe great heroes can be found the same way treasure is in the Vikings scenario for Warlords, you research the legend of the hero, then you have to send out a unit to find him. Differant civs great hero legends can be researched at differant times, and maybe even add one or two that are available to all civs to make it a sort of face to find a hero and convert him to your side.

 

[Darque]

I suggest that a "hero" would be an upgrade from a unit. So for example if a unit reaches level 10, then it is eligible for a hero unit upgrade.
If this is done, can the upgrade still be allowed as a world unit(ie one per game)?

 

[Sureshot]

i think so, just like mages can upgrade to national units once they reach a certain level