Heroes in the mod

[orlanth]

I think its better to just have the mages purchase the spell promotions as normal.

I agree too. The simpler and more HoMM-like the better; the planned system combining Mage/Warlock etc with purchasable Hero promos should be just what's needed.

one thing id like to suggest is that we could allow the Champion/Lord promotions to give very slow XP gain above 100 (say one every 10 turns)
This seems plausible. And of course, FF allows us to use fractional XP gain. So we could just have the [Champion, Lord, High Priest, Archpriest, Champion of venom, Venom lord, Champion of chaos, Favored of chaos, Mage, Archmage, Warlock, Sorceror, Elementalist, Elemental master, Shaman, Ice princess, Ice Queen.] promotions all gives +0.1 xp per turn.

An excellent solution - gotta love those FF tags

I'm a bit busy in RL so the heroes will be delayed for a few days, but I've got 7 of them done so far.

No worries Mimic, that's good progress in my book. I hope it won't be too difficult to merge Mimic's heroes with the rest of the units deadliver is implementing; but I think with FF XML this could literally just be a 10 second copy-paste job.

 

[deadliver]

So we'd still have create 2 new unit spells for each caster, one for their mage spells and one for their archmage spells.
I think its better to just have the mages purchase the spell promotions as normal.

What I posted was regarding heroes gaining magic promos not mages. Now I am confused.

 

[Ahriman]

Yeah, it was a bit confusing

The original hero design had spellcaster heroes automatically gain spell promotions (like High Magic 2) by upgrading into higher tier versions with those promotions built in.
Then we moved to the promotion-based design, where casters would automatically gain Mage or Archmage type promotions that boosted their strength and acted as promotion pre-requisites, but we still needed a way for the heroes to gain the promotions they would need to cast spells.

Your suggestion as I understand it was one means of doing this.
You suggested having spells requiring the promotions.

So for example suppose we wanted Teclis to gain the High Magic 2 promotion when the education tech was researched and High Magic 3 when Arcane Lore was reached.
Your method (as I understand it) would mean we would need a "Teclis2" spell that required the Eduaction tech, and granted the High Magic 2 promotion. And a "Teclis3" spell that required the Arcane Lore tech, and granted the High Magic 3 promotion.

Since every hero would be getting different spells (Teclis got high magic 2 and 3, ariel got athel loren 2 and 3, etc.), we would have to create 2 new spells for each caster in order to make this work, which seems pretty clunky.

The alternative we are going with is to NOT have casters gain spell promotions for free; they must spend their normal level-up promotions on them.
However, to prevent the heroes from gaining lots of levels early, before they have the tech pre-reqs for the spells, we will prevent them from purchasing non-spell promotions except for Combat 1-5.
So if a caster hero gains enough xp for level 7 (after already gaining combat 1-5), it can't level up any further until you research techs that grant access to more spell upgrades (though it still gains xp) because there are no more promotions to select.

Does that make any more sense?

So a caster hero will ONLY be able to select magic promotions and combat 1-5. They will gain levels rapidly from their Hero promotion, and will spend those promotions buying the spell promotions they need like normal upgrades.

* * *
By "mage spells" and "archmage" spells, I just meant the second and third tier spells that we were going to have the hero casters get for free.
So, "mage spells" would be High Magic 2 for Teclis and "archmage spells" would be high magic 3 in the example above.

 

[deadliver]

heh heh I didn't think about the many many heroes that would need the mechanic I mentioned. Thanks for clearing that up. Heh maybe some python work would be easier?

 

[Arexack_heretic]

More good ideas.

I like the idea of making various passive aura effects be promotions selectable only by heroes. I could see a "tactician" promotion line that boosted combat strength/first strikes/withdraw chance for units in the stack, a "trainer" promotion line that trained units in the stack, a "siegecraft" line that boosted the bombardment rate/city attack/bomabard strength of units in the stack, and maybe some others. A magic resistance line? A defensive line? An improved spellcasting line (that reduces miscasts, boosts summons and gives extra damage?) An adiministration line (that gives happiness/production aura)?

I think though that I would combine this with the current design, rather than replacing it.

Leave the free Champion/Lord/mount promotions as they currently are designed, I think these work well.

Make heroes ONLY able to learn Combat 1-5, city attack 1-3 (for some heroes), magic promotions and then some subset of these special hero promotions.

With the mage heroes, we could just exclude them from getting most of these secondary hero lines.

Rather than programming the available lines for each hero, we could also just tie them to the particular Champion/Lord promotions. So for example, Tactics 1 requires the Footman promotion OR the champion promotion OR the champion of venom promotion OR chaos champion promotion. Tactics 2 promotion requires Tactics 1 AND [the champion promotion OR the champion of venom promotion OR chaos champion promotion]. Tactics 3 requires the Tactics 2 promotion and the Lord promotion.

Then we could leave the +1 xp per turn at the hero promotion, knowing that mage heroes will only have a handful of eligible promotions until they get enough tech to learn the magic promotions. So the caster heroes can learn combat 1-5, but then won't have any more promotions to select until they learn the mage promotion or elementalist promotion or whatever, which allows them to start choosing more magic promotions.

So for example, Ariel could be built in the early game, and select combat promotions 1-5 as she rises up to level 6. Then even though she gains enough xp to reach level 8, she doesn't gain the levels because there are no more valid promotions to purchase. Then you research the Education tech and she gains the Mage promotion, which suddenly allows her to spend her level-up promotions by purchasing the Lore of Athel Loren 2 promotion and the Lore of Beasts 2 promotion (if she has the tech pre-reqs for these).

Karl Franz at the start of the game could select from the combat promotions and maybe administration 1 and tactics 1. Then later he gains the Champion promotion for free with Feudalism, and so gains the ability to get the Tactics 2 and administration 2 promotions. Even later he learns the Lord promotion which allows him to learn the Tactics 3 and Administration 3 promotions.
- Show quoted text -

Couldn't find this post again, but was shown in notify mail.

I like the idea of great general promotions representing commander wisdom that benefits an army he/she commands, such as siegemaster, Marine/pirate Raider, tracker, Master tactician etc.
Giving a small bonus to all units on a stack such as +10%city def/att, from ships, forest affinity, etc.
Similar to the GG-dissolution singular XP boost, but linked to the presence of the hero.

Alternatively, have some of the general tactical/combat promotions give additional stackwide bonus when on these heros.

 

[Ahriman]

Take a look at post 152 in this thread. It sounds like we're all thinking along similar lines. If you have more particular examples then post them and we can add to the list.

Highest priority for now though is the tech tree.

 

[Nelia Hawk]

hmm.. gonna bump an idea from page one again:

all heroes can be built again 10 turns after death. (they are heroes they get heavyly wounded instead of death)

as there will be just one hero what about makeing that one lasteing for the whole game?
what would be wrong with this idea?

instead of that immortality promotion that was in discussion, the hero could just be allowed to be build again after 10 turns from his death.

he would be a new unit with exp 0, but it could be good for the problem with the "levels and magic promotions" that was discussed a bit above somewhere.

or change the immortal promotion to:
respawns 10 turns after death in the capital. (basically he cant die... the whole game. you always have the hero)

or maybe:
respawns after (level*2) turns in the capital.
so a lvl1 hero would respawn after 2 turns, while a lvl 10 hero would respawn after 20 turns.
(actually i think this might be the best)

so even the AI could throw them away in turn 69 and get him back after some turns like the player does.

as the chosen leader is more or less the never dieing "empire king" the hero could be the never dieing army leader and you could see the hero lead your troops over all his 3 evolution levels. (as long as you have a capital) over the whole time he would be in battle somewhere... and not die in his first battle (at turn 50) because of a weird arrow or something like that and never be there again for the rest 200+ turns...

even in the table top the heroes dont die and fight battle after battle even when they get beaten and lose a battle, they will be back in the next one with new troops.

 

[Ahriman]

Rebuilding them wouldnt' work; that would spawn extra copies of their equipment.

As for total immortality.... that seems too strong, and would encourage the player to just throw them at the enemy rather than use them carefully. They'd also possibly end up gaining xp even faster at high level because you could be throwing them at the enemy even with ~75% battle odds, and so earning a lot of xp from combat.

It could also break immersion if they just kept coming back over and over again.

I dunno tho, I can see some design gains from it, it *would* mean that the heroes were around and would mitigate the bad AI.

I think the intention as well was that the hero you can build was the one who *wasn't* your empire's leader. If you play Morathi you can build Malekith; if you play Malakith you can build Morathi. The leader sits home while the alternate goes around the map as a military unit.

Though I could see it go either way.

 

[orlanth]

Maybe later we could code a expensive Ritual to enable further rebuilding of the Hero after Immortality lives run out. Like Dominions 3, Master of Magic, & similar games where your ruler can easily get "killed"/banished/incapacitated but can eventually brought back after extensive efforts by acolytes.

Similarly I'm not sure it would be worth the effort to create loads of pythonchecks modifying hero availability based on the leaderhead you happen to pick. If Karl Franz is the Emperor, it would be pretty unusual for him to lounge around not participating in wars, he would definitely be out there. Could make more sense to allow the ruler to act in the world as a Hero, a la Dominions and Age of Wonders 2.

 

[deadliver]

I like Nelia's idea of repeating heroes. I played the Star Trek mod, in a scenario where you have only the Enterprise which resets to XP 0 anytime it is defeated (and takes several turns to return to full str). Only problem I see is that Warhammer is not a fairy tale, people die all the time sometimes pointlessly and or tragically.

After a hero is defeated in combat there should be a chance they recover based off of the old injury tables in battle. There should also be an equal chance they die.

One way to easy the sting of losing major heroes, wait there is no way to ease that. How about if players could build minor heroes Grigori style?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

im fairly opposed to heroes comming back. The AI use their heroes fine in Fall Further. why do we need to make them immortal in Warhammer? a one shot immortality is MORE than enough to help the AI.

 

[deadliver]

You have a good point PL, I think the only hero who has a really terrible track record is Orthus and he doesn't really count.

What do you think about giving heroes a chance to survive combat but come back with war wounds? That would be a little darker than rezzing them.

Also I think this thread is relevant here

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333147

Are we going to touch the commander system from FF?

 

[Ahriman]

What do you think about giving heroes a chance to survive combat but come back with war wounds? That would be a little darker than rezzing them.

I hate the idea of Heros dying or not based on some random 50/50 coin flip - thats not fun. Strategy games need to be reasonably predictable. We should also try to avoid strong incentives for save/reload.

I wouldnt' be opposed to an expensive late-game Ritual that could bring your hero back once.

But honestly I think we should go with the 1-shot immortality for now and then playtest.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

id rather not have any other mechanic to try extend the heroes life span. as it is they will most likely be the civs most powerful unit, and with one shot immortality, youd have to be an AI (Artificial Idiot) to lose them early on.

Although a one shot ritual COULD be quite a cool idea with one of the later techs, which ressurects your lost hero (without the second wind immortality thing). it would have to be very expensive though i think.

 

[orlanth]

I'm in agreement with just the 1-shot immortality for now & see how it goes; P_L has a point it's just not in flavour for a single unit to keep popping back effortlessly forever.

It's also really worth thinking about deadliver's earlier suggestion (I think it was deadliver?) re enabling minor generic Heroes to be occasionally born as Great People by using the Grigori Adventurer mechanic. Having a cool, customizable minor hero unit would be loads more interesting than autosettling a Great Prophet for an extra plus-whatever.

We could easily enable a few base Minor Hero units by GP type and make them eligible for some appropriate Hero promos (a Champion-track minor hero for Great Lord, a High Priest-track one for Great Prophet, a spellcaster for Sage, etc).

This would ensure that heroes would never be totally unavailable, and add tons of flavor since minor heroes like this come up in WH all the time. If you want to nerf them a bit more from the national ones, they could lack the Greater Hero promo with its Immortality and bonus XP.

It should even possible to have them get civ-appropriate proper names and graphics without making more units, I've seen that done as a cosmetic GP tweak in other mods.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

It's also really worth thinking about deadliver's earlier suggestion (I think it was deadliver?) re enabling minor generic Heroes to be occasionally born as Great People by using the Grigori Adventurer mechanic. Having a cool, customizable minor hero unit would be loads more interesting than autosettling a Great Prophet for an extra plus-whatever.

We could easily enable a few base Minor Hero units by GP type and make them eligible for some appropriate Hero promos (a Champion-track minor hero for Great Lord, a High Priest-track one for Great Prophet, a spellcaster for Sage, etc).

This would ensure that heroes would never be totally unavailable, and add tons of flavor since minor heroes like this come up in WH all the time. If you want to nerf them a bit more from the national ones, they could lack the Greater Hero promo with its Immortality and bonus XP.

It should even possible to have them get civ-appropriate proper names and graphics without making more units, I've seen that done as a cosmetic GP tweak in other mods.

i really like this idea

 

[deadliver]

I hate the idea of Heros dying or not based on some random 50/50 coin flip - thats not fun. Strategy games need to be reasonably predictable. We should also try to avoid strong incentives for save/reload.

I wouldnt' be opposed to an expensive late-game Ritual that could bring your hero back once.

But honestly I think we should go with the 1-shot immortality for now and then playtest.

True. Then how about heroes returning with injuries that are removed next time they level. As a hero that is only a matter of time. Save/reload doesn't matter as much because 1.) the hero is still alive with full xp and 2.) the unit is temporarily hindered at best while still providing an incentive to be careful with them.

Of course this is such a minor issue I just want to playtest

 

[deadliver]

i really like this idea

Seconded! Of course it is a good idea!

 

[Arexack_heretic]

How about the 'watch out Sir!' mechanism from TT as a mechanism that prevents the hero's death when in a stack and instead kills a random or the weakest unit in that stack, while reducing the hero to 10% health (or applying that 'severely wounded' promotion). Hero without a patsy will be destroyed as there is no escape.
In any case, do most battles still result in the defeated running off with 75% (or so) health?

It's just an idea. I'm not convinced it will be fun.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm not opposed to a minor heroes mechanic, but I think it should be low priority; we should get the main heroes and faction UUs working first, then think about more features like that.

The other option is to just use the great general mechanic.