[1.08] Unrecruitable champions?

from Elemental Forums

What the Fallen!?

 

The very first hero I encountered in 1.08 is a "Champion" identified under his avatar in the 'card' summary as a 'Soldier - NPCs' whom is unrecruitable and can't be spoken to.  I have my Sov one tile away, and with my Sov selected, the "..." dialog has the red circle/slash to indicate I cannot talk to (if it were in a kingdom) nor recruit the character.  If I select the hero and go to actions, there's no "Recruit" button -- not one greyed out because I don't have the dough, but no recruit button at all!

 

Save file:

http://drop.io/chibiabos_elemental_001/asset/unrecruitable-champion-elesav

 

In the words of Timon the drag-dressing-and-hula-dancing meerkat:  WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!?

76,816 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

there have always been champion NPCs.  just another variety of monster.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I have seen the same thing.  These are not monster champions - you can't fight them.  The issue is the dialogue to hire them or their cost to be hired is not available.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I've never seen that before 1.08.  And its a 20% food production bonuser too ... what a waste. :(

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Has anyone yet found a hero they can recruit in 1.08?  I just found a 2nd unrecruitable champion, this one providing tech knowledge.  So far, zero recruitable heroes.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch. :(

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I didn't see it before 1.08 either, just started a new game and... the map's full of them (was using a sovereign with high sight to test a spell). I even saw a hero I created labeled as "Champion".

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I finally found one to hire, but the rest are all labled as "Champion" without names and unrecruitable.  Also, I killed one and got the popup that says you killed a champion and now the world hates you.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I am having the same problem, "Champions" running around everywhere like rats. The computer can't seem to recruit them either seeing as the heroes they have are their king and the children they have.

 

Kinda a big bummer, only get the normal side kick with 2 names and your sov, but other then that you can't get married or anything in game now. Especially since there is no option to marry a daughter of other rulers to your king :(

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I finally found one hero I could recruit, after about 6 or so I could not.  A food bonus giver ... which I expect will be even more vital to keep in my city now that some things have new costs to maintain including food, so I don't expect I should imbue him and use him as a mage warrior.  Might imbue him to have him enchant my cities with food, etc., though.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I also found half a dozen or more of these "Champions ; Soldier - NPC ; Armed with X"  Really annoying since every female I found was a "Champion" including Rilis (my favourite wife) :(

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Fortunately, for a switch I decided to make a female Sov.  I know, eyes rolling ... I "roleplay" a lot, including female chars, but believe it or not I had not in any of my Elemental games thus far chosen a female Sov.  I figured it would make it easier to marry, since most of the heroes are male.  I had no idea how crucial that would be now that, for some insane reason, the vast majority (at least 5/6ths) of the champions are no longer recruitable.  I married that farmer dude. XD

I think it would add diversity to gameplay if choosing a female Sov would make your nation matrilineal instead of patrilineal, such that marrying off children was reversed -- marrying off your daughter would mean the sons of other civs would join yours instead of your daughter going to the other civ while marrying off your son to another sov's daughter would mean your son would join their nation.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I might be wrong but isn't the recruitment connected to research certain technology in Adventure tree?

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I got this problem / bug too. 

Started a new game as soon as patch 1.08 came out, played for about 6 hours and ran into 18 or 20 male and female 'Champions' I have no way of recruiting. I was able to recruit 1 guy (Yoji) and Janusk on about turn 3 but after that no recruiting 'Champions'.

I'm on turn 205, have researched 6 in adventure and have 250 Gildar but the UI won't give me the option to recruit and won't show me the cost.

The game in general seems to have less bugs / problems than V1.07 but I'm going to see if I can go back as the it's no fun without the hero's  :(

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

I haven't been able to recruit a single champ either since 1.08.  My Sov is lvl 5, have almost 400 and something gold and have researched recruit ally upgrades.  Its turn 200 and something right now and still no luck.  I have only seen a total of 2 Champions to recruit the entire game.  Meanwhile I get messages all the time about the other empires offspring coming of age, etc. 

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Take a look here they are saying it is a bug and they are going to fix it.

 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/396757/#2775920

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

The only bug they say is it doesn't tell you what you need.  I'm worried that whatever is supposed to unlock them actually won't.  I researched every Adventure/Hero tech in the tree and Adventure/Notable level up to level 3 and not a single additional champion was recruitable.  If either of those Adventuring techs were meant to unlock recruiting heroes, they do not do so.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

The only bug they say is it doesn't tell you what you need. I'm worried that whatever is supposed to unlock them actually won't. I researched every Adventure/Hero tech in the tree and Adventure/Notable level up to level 3 and not a single additional champion was recruitable. If either of those Adventuring techs were meant to unlock recruiting heroes, they do not do so.
End of quote

 

Reply #13
Raa00
  • Member No.3,169,661
  • Karma+1
September 17, 2010 11:11:26 AM

Hi,

I just wanted to clarify that, as far as the devs know, no changes have been made to how recruiting works since 1.07.  This bug is not a result of harder recruiting standards or costs or anything like that, since the behavior that you all are describing makes it sound like the NPCs are simply being created as regular units (which is a bug), meaning they cannot be recruited.  We are trying to reproduce and look into the problem, so I wanted to ask for clarification: are you all seeing this in sandbox mode, with a new game?  Are you using the regular maps (any particular size?), or are you using a custom map you created in the map editor?  Are there games that you start that do let you recruit the NPCs around you, or are they always unrecruitable?  Any other info you have would be helpful.  Thanks.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

It was before the Friday hotfix.  It was a new sandbox game, I had no mods loaded.  A could SDers said in other threads on here that the code had been changed to prevent players from recruiting higher-level NPCs when they weren't high "level" enough, but didn't explain what they meant by "level."  Several other players confirmed in the IRC chat at the time that they were finding champions wandering around they could not recruit, either.

 

The Friday hotfix appears to have changed the situation again.  I can now recruit every champion I see, so long as I have enough gildar, but there are a lot fewer champions visible at the start of the game until I research new Adventuring/Hero-tree techs which shows more heroes to recruit who are unlocked so (if I have the Gildar) I can recruit them.  There are no more mysterious unrecruitable heroes.