Heroes

[Elda King]

Here's the start of a discussion in the COR, about the heroes. Really a lot outdated, but still worth putting here:

Well, I long ao decided to have heroes. The question is just: how many? The Shadow should be separated, there is another topic for it, but for the Light heroes we have three options: a few heroes (about 12) free to all, a reasonable amount classified by race (and some free), or about 2 for each race (and the free). My sugestions (without using any leaders); italic are the free for all and the others are to their races:
Must have:
Túrin, Beren, Fingolfin, Ecthelion, Gandalf, Thorondor/Gwahir (only one), Beleg, Gimli, Legolas, Boromir, Isildur, Théoden.
Nice Ones:
Tuor, Elrond, Glorfindel, Gildor, Mablung, Barahir, Ëarnil,, Anárion, Khamûl (one Nazgûl), Wulf, Thorin Oakenshield
More Options
Huan, Lúthien (both could be instead put into the Beren hero), Radagast, Thorongil, Tom Bombadil, Ghân-Buri-Ghân, Edrahil, Celegorm, Gwindor, Voronwë, Oropher, Amroth, Angrod, Fram, Tar-Aldarion, Rómendacil, Huor, Folcwine, Elfhelm, Tar-PalantÃ*r, Faramir, Narvi, Telchar.
(...)
I tried to simplify the heroes the more I could, I think that making wizards randomly appear would be boring: you research the Wizards tech, and can't get one single wizard?
The Nazgûl (except the Witch King and Khamûl, perhaps) should be National Units, because Heroes are unique and we had 7 more Nazgûl.
The same for Hobbits, I'd prefer to make a generic unit, invisible, than to make four heroes identical (Pippin, Merry, Sam, Frodo), or even more; but we could have them as heroes just to complete the Fellowship (Aragorn is out because he is a leader, but you could put Thorongil - it's the same, but he's disguised, so I think we have no problem).
We already have an average of 2 dwarven heroes for each civ, the same of the other civs; if we make more and the heroes are distributed be race, it would be unbalanced. But we can put some of those instead of Narvi and Telchar, who were truly craftsman and not warriors.
This brings back the question: what about the number and distribution of the Heroes? Race-specific, Civ-specific or Free for all?


About leaders, they should be another category of units, Kings, not just Heroes. We discussed it on CivFanatics and I came to one conclusion: we should have two kinds of Kings, Warrior-Kings (Saruman, Sauron - with his Avatars -, Aragorn, Dáin, etc) and Commander-Kings (Ar-Pharazôn, Celebrimbor, Turgon, etc.). The Warrior-Kings should have a good combat capacity, making them stronger early game, while the Commander-Kings should have skills that aid their armies (perhaps like a Great Genneral, or perhaps FFH's magic) rather than directly attack his enemies - weaker early in the game, but lasting longer. When a King is defeated in battle (easier with Commander-Kings, who have less strength), it's "wounded" and respawns in your capital, but your units should suffer damage (a percent of their strength?) representing the low Morale. I just don't know how to decide wich units, because probably when your king is attacked is because you don't have any more units in the tile, and possibly not even units so near.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

for a replacement aragon in the fellowship, we could jsut call him strider. (yes, pure genius at work, i know )

 

[T_F]

I really like the Kings idea, I was going to mention that it would be a good idea to make it kind of like modified Regicide.
For heroes, we could use the Civ-Specific Great People modcomp, and just call all of the above-listed heroes Great Generals (or make up a new thing).

 

[Love]

What about, one king unit and one civ hero?

 

[xmen510]

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[T_F]

Yeah, that's good. Maybe we can get a list going?

 

[Elda King]

I'd like to have actual Heroes, like FFH... Not simply leaders/generals (Turin, for example, wasn't a good commander, but was an awesome warrior), but units capable of fighting and with different skills. As they are single people, they woudn't have incredible strength, but they would have promos that would make them very useful. Like, for example, Beleg: he would have an average strength for an archer, maybe slightly smaller, but would have a promo that gave him bonuses in forests and a lot of 1st Strykes. Or Beren: a incredible bonus against Beasts and Archers, but terrible against Melee or Cavalry, Fingolfin best against king units, Boromir capable of demoralizing the enemies with his horn, Gandalf with some spells, Théoden giving bonuses only to Cavalry units, Thorondor a Flying unit with bonuses against other flying units... Great people should be Elrond, Maglor, Telchar (thought now he is a leader), etc. (great gennerals could be taken away, if we do put king units at least some of them would fulfill this role).
I was think of using a hybrid system: each civ would have a hero of it's own (and it's king), and some heroes would be free for all.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

that is how fall from heaven works. do we want the heroes to gain XP quickly (without fighting?)

 

[Love]

Religon heroes and?

 

[Elda King]

Here is what I was currently thinking about... Perhaps they gain XP quickly, but I would give them unique sets of promos - each hero would have a unique promo, that enabled other from the Heroes set of promos. Continuing with the example of Beleg, he would have the promo "Cúthalion" that gave him bonuses in forests and one extra 1st Stryke/1st Stryke chance, and enabled him to get both the promos "Mormegil" (also available to Turin by the "Turambar" promo, and necessary for the last to get the later "Gurthang" promo) and "Forest Archer" (also available to Legolas by the "Lasgalen" promo, that also enables other promos, and so on).
As soon as we have a definitive list of heroes done, I'll create a full set of skills for them.