Hero Strategies

[GCL]

I found a devious way to use Anansi in the new Heroes and Legends mode: economic warfare. I walked him over to my neighbor and removed his luxuries and bonus resources. Culture / science for me, impoverisment for other civs.

Has anyone come across other interesting / unusual ways of depoying heroes in the new game mode?

 

[IsabelBraganca]

Armani is very useful. Every time you become suzerain of a city state (for the first time?), you discover a hero. I have just rotate her through all city states I had found first. I have used the hero that brings back to live the units he defeated. I gained a few units fighting barbarians and I have by the classical age an army that the AI will think twice before attacking me. I want a peaceful game and it's fine to save production building units.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Hercules with Babylon - build three districts for the first time and they will all have a level 1 building in them as well!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Just used Hercules to build 2 Harbours giving me Cartography on turn 51! Pity it's a small inland lake I'm on

 

[8housesofelixir]

Arthur, Beowulf, Mayan Twins, Mulan, and Oya are all straightforward combat-focused super soldiers.

Sun Wukong is a special case, for he is invisible, has high mobility and much longer lifespan; he can go behind the frontlines and pillage the hell out of your enemy without being caught.

Hercules is basically a reusable Great Engineer, great for peaceful city-builders.

Sinbad is basically Spain from V, try to get him early and let him out to explore to get all the golds.

Anansi, as OP said, can be used for economic warfare. Maui, on the other hand, can great resources, even in the water; he can make every Harbor of yours a gold powerhouse for extra sea resources; great for naval civs.

Himiko is basically an Envoy printing machine, she has 8 charges, so 8 Envoys maximum, enough to gain/snap Suzerainty of any CS before late game.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Finished my second game using Himiko.
Not sure what people are talking about with Bi-Plane Meta?
Why wait???
The game was over with Pikes and Calvary.
Hero Mode is too strong.
If you pair it with Secret Society Mode you should be arrested.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Is the AI at all good at using heroes? It seems like a mode that will be highly tilted towards the player. Hercules is busted in player hands (3 free districts is absurd in the early game).

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Is the AI at all good at using heroes? It seems like a mode that will be highly tilted towards the player. Hercules is busted in player hands (3 free districts is absurd in the early game).

No doubt.
I'm sure the AI doesn't think... "I should build 3 mines and instantly build an IZ!"
Not to mention all the other possibilities with Hercules.
In my third attempt, with Babylon, I snagged Hercules and built an HS, CH and IZ pretty quick.
I rushed over to kill Germany who had walls up.
I had 4 Pikes, 2 Horses, 2 Warriors, 2 UUs and a couple Archers that turned into Xbows.
It still took some time to crack all the walls he had up and that was from turn 50 to turn 65.
I probably didn't attack correctly.
I'm always losing some tempo building something that isn't Domination Focused.
All that being said I prefer Himiko over Hercules for Domination so far.

 

[Palo]

I had a game last night where the Mayan Twins with some helpers to tank and whittle down victims ate two barb swarms and captured 3 warriors, 2 scouts, 2 slingers, a spearman, and a swordsman. Then war was declared against the Inca and a catapult, x-bow, and another warrior were captured. That was nice.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Finished my second game using Himiko.
Not sure what people are talking about with Bi-Plane Meta?
Why wait???
The game was over with Pikes and Calvary.

Not every player is a warmonger who go all-in for Domination. Many Heros are useful in peaceful plays too.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Not every player is a warmonger who go all-in for Domination. Many Heros are useful in peaceful plays too.

Of course.
I was questioning why I keep hearing this Bi-Plane Meta talk.
My point was why wait trying to slingshot to Bi-Planes?
Himiko would be pretty good for Peacmongering as well.
You literally would lock up all CS's using her in your peaceful quest.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Ancient Era Hercules should also print era score as long as you have a few mountains around. Get +3 campus, holy site, commercial district down fairly easily. If you're a faith oriented civ without ancient era Uniques, guaranteeing a classical Golden Age for Monumentality is pretty valuable.

 

[Palo]

I have a feeling Ancient Era Sinbad plus a focused strategy using a leveled up Reyna buying districts might be able to out do Hercules when it comes to getting districts out. Or just use the thousands of gold he generates to upgrade a pile of slingers and spearmen to x-bows and pikemen. Obviously nobody beats getting era score like Sinbad (8 movement!) discovering every civ and most city states, navigating the globe, and zapping every coastal barb camp he finds for 500gp. He also gets gold for discovering continents and natural wonders so on a continents map he is easily worth 3k gold minimum and possibly 5k.

I played another game with the Mayan Twins and they are just crazy good with archers and some cavalry to escort them and whittle down enemies for them to convert. Their classical CS of 42 means they only occasionally have to rest for health but fortunately there's usually some farms to pillage.

I had a brief game with Hipolyta and her classical CS of 46 was really nice. She auto-heals 20hp every turn so she usually just gets to attack every turn and stay at full health. She usually beats up on wounded units with an escorted archer/x-bow which shoots twice due to her once a turn unlimited special action refresh she can do before making her attack.

Hercules is great for everyone but I had a game with a lot of tundra and dance of the aurora plus work ethic. Classical era hit and I settled three crappy cities deep in the Tundra and along came Hercules and instantly I had some +7 or +8 HS doubled to 14 or 16 faith/production per turn.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I had a brief game with Hipolyta and her classical CS of 46 was really nice. She auto-heals 20hp every turn so she usually just gets to attack every turn and stay at full health. She usually beats up on wounded units with an escorted archer/x-bow which shoots twice due to her once a turn unlimited special action refresh she can do before making her attack.

Thanks for the write up.
I recently tried Hippolyta because I misread her ability.
I thought she healed all wounded units.
I found out it was just her but the Deity AI could not kill her and I found her very powerful with warmongering.
Not as good as other heroes but still very strong.

 

[GimliLegolas]

I found a devious way to use Anansi in the new Heroes and Legends mode: economic warfare. I walked him over to my neighbor and removed his luxuries and bonus resources. Culture / science for me, impoverisment for other civs.

Has anyone come across other interesting / unusual ways of depoying heroes in the new game mode?

I think Sinbad is really powerful: playing as Kupe on a Terra map at diety level I beelined Sinbad by building heroic tales and then used his charges to take out 8 outposts and his lifespan to discover 4 continents and 3 natural wonders, make contact with 5 other civs and discover 6 tribal villages (sent a scout to profit from them); the accumulated cash bought a great prophet on the turn my holy site was built, 6 settlers and six builders

 

[cain3456]

Just discovered that if you use Beowulf's challenge on a vampire, that vampire is permanently dead. Not sure if this is a bug or working as intended, was posted in the bugs section. If it is intended, obviously if a neighbor has vampires, get Beowulf ASAP to hunt them down.

 

[HalveBlue]

I had hercules in a recent rome game, playing on emperor. The first go around, I used his ability to build three holy sites, granting me the first religion in the game.

Later, I resurrected him for my war against Gaul. His combat strength proved vital in breaking through the gallic lines, and eventually conquering his capital.

 

[Leucarum]

I think Sinbad is really powerful: playing as Kupe on a Terra map at diety level I beelined Sinbad by building heroic tales and then used his charges to take out 8 outposts and his lifespan to discover 4 continents and 3 natural wonders, make contact with 5 other civs and discover 6 tribal villages (sent a scout to profit from them); the accumulated cash bought a great prophet on the turn my holy site was built, 6 settlers and six builders

I had a similar experience with Rome, at first I was lamenting my poor, coastal starting location... Then along came Sindbad and he bought me 4 settlers in around 20 turns...

 

[walkerjks]

Himiko is basically an Envoy printing machine, she has 8 charges, so 8 Envoys maximum, enough to gain/snap Suzerainty of any CS before late game.

I tend to use Himiko mostly for the faith in games where I am not generating a ton. I build Himiko just-in-time to get them to a city state I am already suzerain of (with Amani) and starting with the first turn of the classical age, burn all 8 charges on the same city-state, generating 600 faith. That's both a great jump-start to the monumentality city sprawl and allows me to move Amani to gain suzerainty over another city-state, so while spreading out the envoys might be better for suzerainties, I can get the faith and an extra suzerainty this way. I haven't played Pericles in a long while - I would be much ore tempted to spread them out with him.

I also like to use Anansi at the start of the classical age as well. Very early Anansi is obviously great for just plowing through to PP, even without any eurekas, but wait until the classical age starts and the yields go up and you can use it to push through to feudalism quickly (possibly with significant progress to exploration).

 

[Buktu]

Maui can be pretty broken in corporations mode. I got him early on, created a uniquie luxury resource just outside my capital and got an instant 100% monopoly this way. 25 gold extra per turn around turn 20 was pretty nice.