I've been toying with an idea the past few days and I *think* it's a good idea but I'm not sure if it's a fun idea. I had the initial idea back in some other thread, but have expanded on it since. It goes like this:
- There should be *very* few (maybe none) recruitable heroes on the map. Instead, heroes are spawned from your armies. So each time an army levels up, there's a chance that you'll be given the choice "A hero has emerged" - you're then given the choice of taking a lvl 1 hero and the army either reverts to lvl 1 (or half its level? The idea is the army strength is reduced because the key leader has left) or disbands, or leave the hero in the army and it takes its level as normal. I would think something like a 0.5% chance of a hero emerging when a level 1 army levels, increasing to (and capping at) a 5% chance when a level 10 army levels. These percentages could be increased by researched techs (replacing the current recruiting techs) - things like "Talent Identification" and "Specialist Training"
- Reduce the number of HP a hero gets. The idea is that a hero is just a regular guy - maybe slightly smarter or stronger or skillful, but still just a person. I think an individual guy in an army gets ~10HP at level 1, but your average hero has 30+. This gets out of hand as heroes level up and end up having a couple of hundred HP. I think at no stage should any "person" (regardless of level) have more hit points than a dragon, or even a grizzly bear. Sure, they can be more skillful, or better at dodging, or have better armour, but they shouldn't have more hit points. If a dragon gets a good solid bite on a hero's head, it should kill him, not just knock off 10% of his hit points.
- Heroes can then be assigned back to an army unit, so the army becomes "this squad, plus a hero". In combat, they work as one unit, but the regular guys act as the hero's bodyguard - they all die before the hero takes damage. Hero traits that currently affect the entire army (e.g. that army dodge +1 trait) could then be made to affect only the squad the hero is assigned to (and maybe increased in power?). The hero can be removed from the army unit and assigned to a different unit (or left to go solo) at will. The unit would move at the rate of its slowest member (so if the hero has a horse but the army doesn't, you only get movement 2)
- The trade off to assigning a hero to an army is that no hero can then emerge from that army while the hero is assigned. People only step up and do something extraordinary (and stupid) when there's not some heroic fool rushing in and doing it first.
- Because heroes would tend to build up over time (or can be replaced), you can make it so that if they're killed in battle (or maybe only if their army loses), they are dead dead instead of wounded and recouperating in the Bahamas.
The advantages I see are that it removes the "champion stack of doom" and makes armies relevant - heroes wouldn't survive against armies or tough creatures by themselves (at least not reliably) due to lack of hit points. It also encourages you to upgrade your armies (so that they're better bodyguards), and gives at least 2 additional strategic decisions (do I sacrifice existing army strength to gain a new hero?, Do I assign a hero to the army to make it stronger, but lose the opporunity to gain more heroes?). And I think it would make it easier to balance armies vs heroes.
The disadvantages I see are that it's probably too much effort (and fun risk) for this stage of development, and it possibly makes heroes and hero development less interesting/exciting.
Thoughts?
