Heroes

[Mesix]

I'm starting a thread for suggestions on heroes. I thought that it would be more appropriate to discuss improvements to heroes here than to clutter up the 0.82 release thread.

What I think would work better is to make the heroes more unique. Allow them all to be built a bit earlier and be upgraded throught the game. Make the hero a named unit of a particular type. For example, when you build Achilles, he might be Achilles (Hoplite), later he could be upgraded to Ahilles (Heavy Spearman), and eventually Achilles (Infantry).

When they start out, give them access to the Great General promotions, and do not require a Great General to be attached. It seems really odd to have a Great General attached to one guy making a unit of two. Maybe give them a few promotions that are unique to heroes similar to FfH where a high level hero can get heroic strength. I do like how you have to earn experience for the heroes. Don't make them generate free experience like FfH. Heroes should still be differentiated by the type of unit that they start out as (i.e. some civs would have an archer unit, others a spearman, others a warrior/axeman, others a skirmisher, and others a mounted unit). Perhaps one or two special promotions could be unique to each hero as well.

As an example:

Achilles starts out as Achilles (Hoplite)
Can be upgraded to Heavy Spearman, Infantry, and Heavy Infantry
Starts with Amphibious, Healer I, and Commando.
Can get GG promotions
Can get a unique promotion Mariner
Can get Heroic Strength promotion with Combat VI
Can get a Trainer promotion with Combat VI and Mariner

Mariner promotion gives +1 str to ships when onboard and +20% attack strength when attacking from a ship.

Trainer promotion allows Achiles to train Infantry and Heavy Infantry units (so that it is a late game bonus) to become Myrmidon units.

Myrmidon
National unit (3 allowed)
Starts with Amphibious and Mariner promotions
Retains experience and promotions earned prior to being trained

 

[graywarden]

Mesix,

I like the way you think. haha. All great ideas.
I will add one more idea, and that is the possibility of more then one hero unit. A long game on the Huge Map with 23 rival civs usually requires more then one war front, having a leader (not just giving exp points to generic units as you would now) would make the game more interesting, and make the heroes the center point of your army(s). Example Hannibal and Hamilcar for Carthage.
Maybe theres a way for a great general to become a hero or something along those lines???
I also agree with you that they should not receive free experience points ala FFH, but be able to upgrade their armorment as you suggested. That is a great idea.
In my first test as Carthage, I protected Hannibal and had the unit the entire game, but that was the most careful I have ever been with a hero unit. And he starts out much stonger then some of the other Heroes as well (as a War Elephant).
Heroes/leaders done right could really make this MOD stand out even more then it does now.

 

[Mesix]

You could make hero units spawn via the great general experience meter from BTS. One way to accomplish this would be to have one or more buttons added to the GG that allowed him to become a hero rather than just attaching to a unit. If you wanted multiple heroes, they could be made available through different technologies, and any hero that you hadn't built would be an "upgrade" button option on the bottom of the GG. It would work similar to a GP building a holy shrine, only a GG would build a hero unit.

 

[Shqype]

Interesting ideas, and I'll discuss them further later, but I'm not sure how I feel about heroes replacing Great Generals. The way I interpreted them was that a Hero would come along to aid you in your battles, he was a special kind of unit that could win battles for you, while the great general improves normal units by leading them more effectively. I think that they are 2 separate things.

Anyway, great ideas, keep them coming, and we'll see what can be worked out. The current heroes with the healing promotions are just placeholders; now that we're getting closer and closer to a completed TAM, it's time to go back and improve the various aspects of the game that need additional fleshing out (heroes, corporations, space race), and then add the final layer of polish.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I like everything that Mesix and Graywarden have said so far with one exception. That is that GGs and Heros should be separate. Keep GGs as they are now, but give each civ 2 hero units that cannot be rebuilt, but are "Born" so to speak when a civ researches a given technology. Then, allow them to be upgraded to aid in their survivability. Additionally, I like granting all Hero Units the mobility and Medic I, and II promotions to further aid their survivability. Finally, Hero Units should also come with a Heroic Strength promotion, where Heroic Strength is equal to Combat Strength I. This isn't over-powering, but allows this special bonus to stack with future combat promotions.

All of the above being said, you may want to consider the impact of the civilization's history on the kind of heroic unit they would create. For example, Greece and Phonecia are equally known for great Admirals and Generals. How would that be handled, or would it be much simpler to ignore the Admiral side of things?

 

[Sword Dancer]

On the subject of UUs, I would be perfectly happy to give up the Roman Onager to have a Republican Legionary to replace the Axeman, and a later Imperial Legionary to replace the Swordsman -- with an upgrade path between the two.

Something I haven't tried yet (and have been afraid to) is to see if unit promotions are kept or disappear when you upgrade. I'm thinking that a unit shouldn't lose all of its XP when it upgrades...

 

[onedreamer]

Promotions and XP are not the same thing. Promotions and levels are kept but XP reset to 10 in case they are more.

 

[Shqype]

Promotions and XP are not the same thing. Promotions and levels are kept but XP reset to 10 in case they are more.

That's easily changed ...

 

[wayeward]

Glad someone started this thread...

Upgradable heroes would be great, I found that they got outclassed in BTS because you could add a general to a single unit and overtime they could hose your "hero" any day of the week, mainly because you use them more to attack cities or units because you know they CAN be upgraded, while the hero soon becomes obsolete regardless of how much you use him.

On a stylistic point, how hard would it be to change the lists of great generals that spawn in the game? I mean, nazi and european generals of history being born in the MED is a bit strange, something to think about for a more definitive version...

 

[onedreamer]

That's easily changed ...

sry, didn't understand that was a proposed change. Yeah, it sounds good for Heroes.

 

[saint1979]

Im up for upgradable heroes, I miss that a lot since i like to roll play with TAM and after a while the hero become useless cuz of the low attack & def

 

[GoodGame]

I vote for making the Heroes a toggled option. The upgradeable Shogun from Civ3 conquests was a lot a fun, but I actually like that heroes are only a slightly stronger unit with advanced medic. They're good enough that you don't want to lose them, but they don't win the game, which plays more realistically.

 

[wayeward]

I vote for making the Heroes a toggled option. The upgradeable Shogun from Civ3 conquests was a lot a fun, but I actually like that heroes are only a slightly stronger unit with advanced medic. They're good enough that you don't want to lose them, but they don't win the game, which plays more realistically.

That sounds like a good idea.

In addition, it would be cool if the names of great generals that spawn could be changed to actual generals/heroes from the ancient MED, but of course be different from the ones already used for the heroes. Would it be possible to do this?