As indicated in another thread I just started, I have a max level War Chariot at the moment... which is awesome and cool, singlehandedly killed the entire Sheim empire... all that.
But I realised he isn't all that unique. He's the exact same as every other theoretical lvl 27 War Chariot... Orthus' Axe, a Golden Hammer and Blessed help a little... but in what game of this level wouldn't you have these things?
So then I was just thinking about the XP system in general, and it occured to me that a lot of the bonuses you take later you simply take because you have nothing else to take, making that level up pretty weak.
Then I hit upon it: what if you could grant special bonuses at certain levels? Like some random bonus at lvls 10, 15, 20 and 25, or something at each that you have to decide -- ie, you can't get every possible promotion, have to make some choices.
Wouldn't that make sense? Differentiate the strongest warriors... we already have that in the form of a sort of Prestige Class system (if you've played D&D you'll know what I mean), where you don't qualify for certain upgrades until lvl 6. But then the level dependent things stop abruptly. Why?
Why not a special upgrade which requires you to be lvl 10 to take? Or lvl 20?
Why not have promotions that are actually difficult to take -- that any old hero unit with his 100 free XP won't just automatically grab up, but will need to get another hundred or two XP first?
Theoretically you could even work in bonuses for having units like that -- I can imagine the hometown of the unit would see a boost in productivity and happiness when they hear of the legendary warrior who isn't one of these crazy heroes, just an ordinary working shmuck like them. Maybe give a bonus to production that unit type? Like, one Champion hits lvl 20, suddenly everyone else wants to be a Champion, and the many eager recruits vastly lowers recruitment cost.
What this would accomplish is empire specialization. Base Civ does that in the form of an event "so and so has produced better axe handles, the [empire name]'s axes are the best in the world," but it's often silly because you don't even have any axemen when you get that. FFH is already set up to encourage city-level specialization via the building requirements... but that tends to break down for me in the late-game when I start building everything everywhere. Giving extra bonuses based on successful units would cause a lot more differentiation.
But I realised he isn't all that unique. He's the exact same as every other theoretical lvl 27 War Chariot... Orthus' Axe, a Golden Hammer and Blessed help a little... but in what game of this level wouldn't you have these things?
So then I was just thinking about the XP system in general, and it occured to me that a lot of the bonuses you take later you simply take because you have nothing else to take, making that level up pretty weak.
Then I hit upon it: what if you could grant special bonuses at certain levels? Like some random bonus at lvls 10, 15, 20 and 25, or something at each that you have to decide -- ie, you can't get every possible promotion, have to make some choices.
Wouldn't that make sense? Differentiate the strongest warriors... we already have that in the form of a sort of Prestige Class system (if you've played D&D you'll know what I mean), where you don't qualify for certain upgrades until lvl 6. But then the level dependent things stop abruptly. Why?
Why not a special upgrade which requires you to be lvl 10 to take? Or lvl 20?
Why not have promotions that are actually difficult to take -- that any old hero unit with his 100 free XP won't just automatically grab up, but will need to get another hundred or two XP first?
Theoretically you could even work in bonuses for having units like that -- I can imagine the hometown of the unit would see a boost in productivity and happiness when they hear of the legendary warrior who isn't one of these crazy heroes, just an ordinary working shmuck like them. Maybe give a bonus to production that unit type? Like, one Champion hits lvl 20, suddenly everyone else wants to be a Champion, and the many eager recruits vastly lowers recruitment cost.
What this would accomplish is empire specialization. Base Civ does that in the form of an event "so and so has produced better axe handles, the [empire name]'s axes are the best in the world," but it's often silly because you don't even have any axemen when you get that. FFH is already set up to encourage city-level specialization via the building requirements... but that tends to break down for me in the late-game when I start building everything everywhere. Giving extra bonuses based on successful units would cause a lot more differentiation.
