What are the top five things you'd like to see fixed/added to Elemental?

1. More personality and distinction between "races".  Right now they're almost all the same, with different color skin.

2. More "uniqueness" to the environment and buildings in cities.  Every city really is the same as the last.  Where is the Elemental equivalent of really high quality planets from Galciv 2??  The joy of discovering these random gems was awesome.  

3. Tons and tons of random events, these were so great in GC2, I can't believe they're not in Elemental.

4. More information in general about your civilization, tons of numbers, remember we love these games because we love numbers and statistics.  Also, more detailed info about our relationships with the other civs...right now, I don't even know what treaties and trades we have.  

5. Control spamming cities somehow.

**Oh, one more...for the love of god, give archers a limited range based on what kind of bow they have.  being able to peg any square on the tactical grid is too powerful**

In short, many of the things that made GC2 so unbelievably great are missing from Elemental, and for the most part they would be great additions...

Good ideas, subscribing.

1. Dungeon maps that only sovereigns and champions can enter, not army units.

2. Combat specific unit commands (shield wall, charge, withdraw). Each tactical combat turn a combat units can select an action.

Example: Withdraw - Unit automatically withdraws 1 tile when enemy unit enters adjoining tile. (cost: -2 movement, automatic morale check for defender if unit withdraws 1 tile - i.e. peasant units are more likely to panic and run if ordered to withdraw)
Example: Prepare for attack - Defending Unit makes first strike if attacked. (cost -2 movement and requires training; i.e. expert or elite training)
Example: Shield Wall - +4 Defense, -1 movement (requires shield and training)
Example: Charge (infantry) - +2 Attack, -2 Defense (cannot start turn adjacent to enemy unit)
Example: Spear Wall  +4 defense against mounted units, -2 movement

3. Flank and Rear Attack Bonus to Attacker or Penalty to Defender

Example: If attacked from the rear the defender makes an immediate morale check at a 50% penalty

4. Line of Sight in Combat - Terrain and some spells (i.e. Fog, Smoke) block line of sight for ranged attacks

• Fire: Smoke - Dense acrid cloud of smoke reduces line of sight for all creatures on the battlefield to 1 tile.
• Water: Fog - A misty fog reduces the line of sight for all creatures on the battlefield to 3 tiles.
• Air: Wind Gusts- A strong wind reduces the range/accuracy of ranged attacks by 50%.

5. Defenders strength in cities is unknown unless a spy unit is sent into the city or magic is cast - i.e. Air - Vision: See strength of army in city. This would make attacking a city more risky as you would not always know the strength of the defenders.

1) Uniqueness of champions.

The right approach is probably with talents or skills taken each level, and magical items found in quests.

2) Better UI in general

Enough threads were made on that point, so I don't think I need to elaborate. I do need to emphasize that I'm talking about better and easier control, not about better graphics.

A better quest journal (as suggested by tjashen), is one very needed change. So big that I consider it a bug more than a lack of a feature.

3) Unique elements

The game needs spells that are more than just summon or attack, and then a division of spells to make each element attractive in a different way.

For example fire can have more effective offensive spells, while earth is more defensive.

AoWSM, MoM and even most Heroes games are examples for the request, but it doesn't mean that it needs to duplicate the spells. Elemental has plenty of new concepts that allows the creation of new and original spells.

4) I second charon2112's suggestion of random events, adding also more and better variety of regular quest locations.

5) Random map generator!

Creating a random map with parameters such as size, shape of land and availability of resources is a key feature if the goal is a re-playable game.

Oddly enough, in the manual, it mentions lots of options for setting continent type, strategy vs. RPG, and other things...and they don't seem to be in the game.

Good lists. Agree with all.

I know some of these are mentioned here and elsewhere (probably all of them) and I know some of this is getting worked on, but here's my list.

1. AI with heavy emphasis on the I.

2. Random maps with controllable variables.

3. Random events the force the player to react, both good and bad events.  I'm mostly interested in bad events (oh shit moments) but good ones are necessary to balance it out.

4. Improved adventuring.  This includes but is not necessarily limited to: useful champions, more meaningful goody huts (magic items, etc...), more quests, more challenging quests, basically what ever will make champions not feel like scouts/junk collectors.

5. Balancing/improving techs, equipment, units, and tactical combat so that I have a reason to actually build melee units and not just companies of Uber mounted archers of doom.

The stuff that I want is all scheduled for 1.1. I can reevaluate after I've played that.

1. I want minor nations to expand and in extreme cases they could win the game

2. I want minor nations to expand and in extreme cases they could win the game

3. I want minor nations to expand and in extreme cases they could win the game

4. I want minor nations to expand and in extreme cases they could win the game

5. What the rest of you said

Oh, I'd like to add one more to my wishlist, hot-seat multiplayer option.

I know it is considered a low priority feature that is likely to be completely ignored, still, it's the only multiplayer option I used (and still use) while playing AoWSM.

I had a question about this.  If the minor races expand and can win, aren't they not minor anymore...?

I want minor nations to be able to defend themselves.  I don't want them able to expand, but I do want them to have a special city, that is especially hard to take.  And a better diplomacy than "You weak, me attack" or "You strong, me friend" thats in the game that causes all nations to declare war on the minor factions.

1.  Better AI...I'm sick of winning.

2.  Uncommon/Rare/Unique item drops...I'm tired of the same boring weapons and armor.

3.  Better diplomacy...I want more realistic trade options/values and I want the AI to be able to ally against me.

4.  Control city spam...Cleaning up the little AI outposts everywhere is tedious and boring. 

5.  UI improvements...I need better notification of events (i.e. building/unit completion, etc.), improved quest log (i.e. what's next to complete a quest? where do i go?), interactive kingdom views (i.e. change what a city is building or zoom into that city from kingdom overview).

1) Make simultanious turns optional.

2) PBEM & Hotseat multiplayer.

3) Better map making capablilities.

4) Better city building.

5) Better diplomacy, questing, and magic.

1) Challenging AI

2) A Random map generator with all kinds of variable setting (especially number of random monsters I agree it was better before)

3) An optional setting for all kinds of teleport (spells, gates etc...), which spoil the wargaming experience

4) A Play By EMail multiplayer option

5) Units in my opinion should be just a little bit faster, which would also help the multiplayer, by allowing to do more things every turn (especially in PBEM "dead" turns where nothing happens tend to kill the fun. The main problem in fact would be addressing the lack of action typical of the first 100 turns.

Having monster lairs and making it practical for soveriegns to have some gear / spells when the game starts + monster lairs would solve this.

They would have special rules to adhere to cause they start with ogre camps and such. If they played like normal, that would win them the game every time. I would like for them to slowly expand (for example attracting half the people that normal empires do). They would also start without a sovereign and that would severely hamper their growth. Give them a leader unit, but no full sovereign.

I.  Improved Tactical Battles

Current system uses the ‘combat speed’ of the unit to determine its APs allotment.  One side acts, then the other.  Repeat until only one side remains on tactical field.  Side that acts first has immense advantage.

First change:  Determine APs based on the unit’s movement. Higher movement = more APs.

Now use the units ‘combat speed’ and change it to ‘initiative.’  (Actually, can leave the ‘label’ alone if you want…just change its function to initiative in the tac screen)

Finally, change the combat acting queue to be unit specific, not ‘side’ specific.  Now assign every unit (of both sides) a place in the combat acting queue.  Ties are decided in favor of the unit currently having more APs. 

Each unit now is given commands when its ‘turn to act’ comes up in the combat acting queue.  When the last unit in the current queue ‘acts,’ the round is over.  All units (except those ‘frozen, etc.) are now assigned a fresh set of APs to use.  The number of APs is based on their respective current initiative.  The PC now assigns all units a place in the next ‘combat acting queue.  Rinse, repeat.

Initiative per unit – not side.  Action points refer to how much a unit can do (already in game).  Initiative refers to when it can expend its APs.

This, all by itself, would remove the horrible advantage given to whichever “side” ‘moves (uses all its action points) first. 

Definitions of words/concepts:

APs = action points. 

Act = unit uses its APs to move/attack/fortify/cast. (User may now give it commands)

Initiative = units current ‘combat speed’ (as in current code)

Round = completing one combat action queue.

Combat action queue = the order/ sequence in which each unit of either side is assigned to act. Each unit ‘acts when its turn comes up in the combat action queue.

Initiative = determines where in the ‘combat action queue’ each unit is placed: highest initiative first, lowest initiative last, etc. Ties in the sequence are resolved in favor of unit with more APs, and if APs are =, then a random roll.

Immediate commands: (unit expends its APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.

Next design steps:

ALL UNITS: Reduce the strength of units that have zero AP’s remaining.  (say 10%?)  Defenders should have an advantage, just not the all or nothing of the current system.

ARCHERS: Redesign archers so that as range increases, the attack strength of the volley decreases.

Create various types of bows with various strengths and ranges.  Give archers a sight range increase if on higher ground then their target.

CONDITIONAL COMMANDS:

“Round” refers to when all units, both sides have, as permitted by each unit’s initiative, either expend their APs obeying an immediate command or have been given conditional commands. 

Immediate commands: (expends units APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.  (Already in game)  

Conditional commands are assigned to units so that they don’t use their APs immediately.  The APs are stored in the unit (for the duration of current round) and used to act (implement/do) the conditional commands currently given the unit.  Unit waits and responds to actions of enemy units.  APs are not, however, accumulated from one round to the next.  Once the round is over (all units of all sides have acted), any unused APs are gone.  The unit used its time doing the conditional command.  It may have acted in response to enemy actions, or it may have waited for an opportunity that did not happen.

Suggested conditional commands: Once unit expends its APs, it will only defend.

Close and Melee = engage if enemy approaches within x (trigger) distance.  X is assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4, as part of conditional command.  When triggered, the unit immediately moves towards E and melee attacks.  ((so, some units with an enhanced ‘counterattck’ would just defend, while units with enhanced attack strength would move towards E and attempt to attack first.))

Volley engage = archers volley at E if it gets within x distance.  X may be assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4,5.

Counter volley = archers volley against archer unit that just attacked it.

Create a true weapons distinction between unit types.  To hit and to damage as separate rolls.  Option to "approach" battle and set up forces.  LOS, fog of war, hidden units, ambushes, etc. 

MAGIC USERS: Redesign MU (magic users) so that as spell levels increase, so does the related casting times.   Also, the number of levels the caster is above the actual spell being cast reduces casting time of that spell.  The following is illustrative.  I really don’t know what percentages, etc. would be effective.  However, consider the pace of the battle given the above ‘round’ system…  Developers decide percentage, AP cost, etc… [or allow user to modify these in a game customize input page.]

Level 1 MU casts level 1 spell = uses 100% of base cast time.

Level 2 MU casts level 1 spell = uses   90% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 1 spell= use   10% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 5 spell= use   50% of base cast time.

Each 10% of MU time consumes an AP.  So, some spells take a long time to cast – perhaps the MU will stand and work on casting a powerful spell while the troops go through several rounds of movement.  Interesting?

II:  Much improved AI.

III:  Better quest, item system.

IV:  More involved tech and tile development systems.

V:  user customization interface, allowing user to adjust values of almost everything, and set order of tech tree, etc.

OK?

1) Multiple worlds, I know that they said that it would not occur, but please! We want to invade other alien worlds (Also, to be able to make map that, for example, connect on the sides (Ringworld!))

2)More modding options, we all know that mods can keep a game alive for looong.

3)The random map generator, like that of GalCiv2 but even better, with all options mentioned above (Even the monsters agressiveness, as I for one like to colonize the world, without much trouble... games focus in battles too much).

4)Random events, perhaps nothing as drastic as the Jagged Knife (Event in GalCIv 2 that took many planets at once from all players) they give the game a suspense feel, not knowing what could happen next turn, besides, the world is ravaged and in process of being restored, one would think that it an era drastic changes.

5)Finish the bug fixes (it has improved a LOT since release, but I still have a few, like the out of memory one, and the seemingly unique bug of having the map editor not function...)

I really hope that the devs take our ideas into account (I know most will not make it to game, but still, if many people ask for the same thing, it must be for something...)

Or the ability to add elemental planes to explore. Regarding the round world effect, in Age of Wonders the UPatch team has created an invisible teleporter to achieve this effect.

1. Redone stacks.

I throw a fireball at my target. It deals 20 damage, killing one soldier. There are 11 soldiers left who miraculously didn't feel the effects of my fireball. In fact, my exploding sphere of fiery death may have damaged them all, but it was only enough to TOUCH one of them. So I decide to use a lightning storm. It deals 20 damage again to all enemies it hits. In each stack, one soldier has taken it upon himself to defend the others, thus I only actually hurt one soldier out of each stack.

Yes, war of magic. It's so nice that I can use AoE spells to target and hurt only one soldier out of each army each time. -eyeroll-

2. Less Worthless Heroes

Heroes, to me, should have opinions. They are your generals and morale-raisers, after all. Yet they just...do whatever you want. I'm the kind of person who would love for heroes to have specific likes and dislikes, and react to that. Some may like having money in the treasury, others may like having potions on hand at all times, another may like keeping magic use to a minimum while another thinks that every battle should showcase magical fireworks.

Furthermore, something I'd love to see: let a hero 'join' a stack of units. That is, if I have a legion of Drath soldiers, I can assign my hero to them, and thus getting a Drath soldiers + hero combo. The hero adds to their power, and maybe gives a morale boost to affect the whole army, as well as enhancing the Drath morale. It would be a fine way to keep them alive (until SOMEONE fixes #1, which is keeping me from enjoying the game) and it'd make heroes more interactive. Heroes might even be able to gain some nifty preferences for their armies (preferring soldiers, warriors, spiders, drath, archers, a dragon, etc.)

3. Moar magic

Baldur's Gate 2 had marvelous magic. I loved the fact that if an enemy caster decided to engage us, s/he'd be surrounded instantly by a wall of magic so powerful that it'd make the mage virtually untouchable until we managed to bring those shields down. In a world where magic is something of vast power, it makes sense, to me, that mages be capable of shielding themselves effectively. Naturally, there should be counters to this as well, so that a mage is a superior being (which they are supposed to be) without being so powerful they are game breaking.

Would also add a fun nature to battles, that if magical fencing. Instead of buffing/healing/blasting spells, two casters could be locked in a battle of shielding and breaking shields to try and keep the other out of commision. Clever use of spells would be required to make sure that your opponent's magic couldn't touch your army (again, #1 makes this a stupid thing to worry about, since magic is virtually worthless for anything other than buffing and summoning).

Could add to this by making spells more powerful, something that would not hurt the game in the least. Death stacks are not fun.

4. A world that isn't dull and worthless

After X turns, the game turns into players duking it out. The world around them is subject to that war, and basically is a static, dull, boring thing. My citizens sit in their homes and don't do anything fun, my soldiers are all subject to whatever command I make...no political upheavels, no guilds warring for control, no smugglers or black market racketeering, nothing other than players playing the game. It's boring, repetitive, and extremely unrealistic.

Why are there no migrating trolls? Bandits that form legions and chokeholds on trade routes? Lowly thieves acquiring an artifact of immense power and becoming a danger to the world at large? Necromancers who found a Titan graveyard and are working on raising the dead to serve them? Demon-lords whose worshippers are striving to return their masters to Elemental, and must have their plots discovered via clues and hints rather than blunt "GO HERE!" random dungeons that pop up? Naga and/or Sirens who rise up from the oceans, establishing a beachhead on their conquest of the land as well as the sea? A great, ancient dragon who believes your city has encroached upon his territory, and tries to destroy it - can you talk him down before he acts, and thus gain a potential ally (or later enemy) or will you simply kill him and take his hoard and power for yourself? Perhaps trolls have joined up with local goblin tribes in a small alliance and are claiming your distant, unprotected resources as their own?

Maybe you are sieging Kraxis, and claim one of their cities, only to find that they have actively been fighting a losing war with any of the above enemies. You vanquish Kraxis, but now have to deal with some vast and powerful force that turns its eyes upon you. No longer is it a game of players, but a game of actors on a living, breathing world that doesn't simply wait for them to do what they please, sit back, and take it. The world itself is out to get you.

5. Adventurers.

Once upon a time, we were told that we'd see adventurers wandering the map. These adventurers would get into various conflicts in the world, exploring dungeons and the like. Some may even explore a dungeon and come out with fantastic magical items and marvelous treasures, which they'd sell in your cities (or other cities).  Others would find a dungeon with an imprisoned magic, and release that magic, changing the world. Some would be good, helping your people and economy, and others evil, who did what they please and to hell with you and your magic.

Now, adventurers have little blurbs about releasing new creatures to the world. They don't exist, and you may all be like me - you see this blurb, and instead of thinking, "...I hate adventurers..." you think "World's tougher because something in the coding clicked. Woo.". The adventurers have no presence in the world. They don't exist. You have heroes, and that's it.

I find it boring to think that heroes would just live and act as we feel they should. There would HAVE to be thousands upon thousands of individuals who are striving to accoplish whatever they can, not wanting to place faith in the power that destroyed their world once.

-N

I liked a lot of Nathikal's suggestions.  My list:

1. Better AI 

2. Much more sophistication in tactical combat system. Location-selection, Initiative, damage types, legitimate use of towns as cover, must break down a city gate to enter, use balanced ranged weapons, experience bonuses for units surviving battles, more advantages of terrain, more impact of morale.

3. Much more diverse magic spells and a better interface. I find myself always choosing the same ones early on, which just should not be. I should really need to choose different ones depending on a variety of unique-to-this-game factors (terrain, nearby enemy composition, resources, weaknesses my race has, etc.  Quickspell slots per hero.  Resistances to different kinds of damage (earth elementals immune to earth spells).  Shards slightly more plentiful.  Mana regenerates faster.  Include many more illusions and buffing and protection spells. Make lower cost two or three turn protection spells you might use to protect against other spellcasters, spells that go off quickly to try to protect yourself or your army.

4.Much more diversity among races, including special abilities (fly, walk on water, burrow under earth, etc.), special units, and more races. Ability to completely use all of a city's existing resources and combat units if you take the city. Yes, I want to be able to make Y's if I take my opponent's city who was using it to make Y's.

5. Uncommon/Rare/Unique items ...Ideally a large database would be created which is limited at game time and thus you might not see the same items for X number of games. You should be able to take items from dead heroes.  You should be able to take some kinds of swords/shields/cloaks from dead guys.

Sorry--two extra

6 Quests which are tough--riddles to solve, cities to capture (like in Risk), cities to build, a special item to find somewhere in the world with clues, a champion to slay.

7 Terrain impacts on building cities which are better known at time of building. Close to water = bonus to growth, close to node = more risk due to more creature attacks, close to mountains slows pop growth or food growth, etc.

I would love rally points for the cities.

Since training takes so long, I usually build units in nearly all my cities constantly when at war. Rally points for newly trained units would cut down on the boring part of unit movement.

Bonus points for a galciv type rally point system, where I can assign cities to move to a node, then move the node.

1. Sovereign / Hero skill trees - Why is my sovereign such a pathetic loser? He fights and fights and then he gets killed by a normal archer? The walking god who shapes the earth? Sovereigns should be able to take on armies by themselves, they should get more than 1 point per level. Heroes should be stronger, but not as strong as your sovereign.

2.Tactical Battles - Let's just make them like Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem and we will all be happy....I guess

3.Decisions - Choosing one technology should make another invalid, that way there would be more options to get farther, or at least each faction would research in it's unique way.

4.Veteran Units - Should learn skills, after all they didn't survive one million battles and the only thing they know how to do is swing a sword

5.Academy - I said it once, I'll say it again: A place of training where your Heroes train regular units in order to upgrade them into seargeants or whatever, that way those units lead their stacks and can learn a few basic abilities from your heroes.

6. Weapon progression - why the hell would someone need to research attaching a string to a piece of wood? If you research weapons, they should be worth it, don't get me started on the magical sword whic has the same stats as the regular sword minus the 2 battle speed.

7. Pawn shops - Someone mentioned it before, where are the adventurers? Why aren't they selling their goods in my town? I want to bid in an auction for rare items!!!!

8.Stealth units - no need for explanation

9.VERY IMPORTANT - I can raise the land and create volcanoes, but I can't make a patch of land fertile?!?!?!

And that should be the end of my ramblings.....for now

I. UI Changes/Fixes - Tons of people have already put forth my general ideas here, but I find the UI to be rather restrictive in general.  On top of everyone elses suggestions, mine are;

Make it easier to build buildings.  Yes, picking a city and pressing B and then clicking twice isn't all that hard.  But I typed that whole sentence out before I'd be able to do that.  Use QWERTY hotkeys or something even, that'd make it super-easy.  Or just make improvements more visible, make them stand out from one another more, particularly when you're choosing which ones to build.  I'm sick of accidentally picking Town Hall whenever I wanna build a House.

II.  Balance Changes - Give me a reason to play both Kingdoms and Empires.  As it stands, I don't genuinely have a reason to play either besides the fact that they're different playstyles.  Hand me a Kingdom, and I'll go for any victory other than Conquest.  Hand me an Empire, Conquest every time, and usually in 200 turn, on a Large map, with 6 players total.  250 if it's 8.  Still 250 if it's 10.  And don't even get me started on the tech trees...  And yes, I know most of it is planned for 1.1.  I was in Beta, I've been waiting a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time for this....  I need to vent that bit.

III.  Spells and Quests - I lump these together for no reason other than I want to.  I like the Air and Water trees.  I know that they aren't going to exist anymore after 1.1, because of how Magic Research is gonna work...  But dude...  Having 4 level 1 spells, 5 level 2 spells, 1 level 3 spell, 3 level 4 spells, and then NOTHING until level 7 playing with Water...  REALLY...  REALLY...  SUCKS...  And quests...  Yes, some of them should just immediately tell you where they are.  But as it stands, they're all...  Well, mundane.  They're all the same.  There's no real flavor to them...  Sadly, the most flavourful quest in the whole game is "Escort Noble(wo)man to Estate."  Let me explain my reasoning for this.

EVERY OTHER QUEST IN THE GAME IS A FED-EX QUEST!  By this I mean, "Pick up quest at Point A, turn in at Point B.  Turn in at point C or D, or maybe even E if you're unlucky."  Yes, the Escort Quest also qualifies as a Fed-Ex by this definition, but there's one key difference...  You can mess it up.  Why, just this last game I played, I was escorting a noblewoman back to Daddy's Vineyard when we were attacked by a wolf.  Now, since I'm not a moron, I killed the wolf, but imagine if I hadn't taken Warlord, or I had just not killed the wolf anyway, or if it somehow got by me and both my Sentinels and killed the girl?  There's an actual quest in there...  Well, half a quest at least, but you get my point.  What others have said to this end I totally agree with.  Throw in puzzles, Search and Destroy's, Mystery's...  Heck, give me a friggen 'Who-dun-it?' quest, that'd be better than what their is available right now.  And the Notable Locations?  Puh-leeeez.  Sure, finding extra Materials and Metal and Gold at the start is nice.....  But that's the kind of crap that should be random events.  You don't see a Wagon from a simulated 400 miles away and go, "Oh look, I wonder what's inside of that tiny little broken dot on the horizon that I can't possibly actually see clearly?"  You don't see a freakin' PURSE ON THE GROUND FROM THAT FAR EITHER!  *Rage-twitch*  Make it more random, please?

IV.  Animations - Now here's a pretty big gripe I have that isn't just a pet-peeve.  The Ice Bolt animation is quick, efficient, and simple.  It's also boring, but it's a level one spell, so it's fine.  And then there's Blizzard.  Oh...  My...  God...  Please, do something about the animations like this one, where the spell's cast, the damage dealt, and then you sit there for 5-10 seconds waiting on the stupid freakin' animation to S-L-O-W-L-Y fade out so you can cast again.  Yes, I know the snowflakes are pretty.  No I don't wanna watch them melt.  Yes I've seen snow before, I live in the mountains where we commonly get 4 feet of snow in a week once winter hits.  I know what Spring Thaw looks like, stop making me watch it over and over and over and over in SLOOOO MOOOOTIOOOOON.  I already do that every year.  Blizzard isn't the only one like that, but it's the only need I need to make my point.  Oh, and, fix the mounted animations while you're at it?  Pretty please with a cherry on top?

V.  Heroes, Champions, Adventurers - Much has been said on this subject already as well.  I'd like to add my little bits and pieces.  This is more suggestion mode than gripe mode, finally.  But before I get to that, I agree with what's been said already and think that at least most of those suggestions should be implemented.  Onto the real deal.

Notice the wording of this section.  Why not actually make a real difference in what's what?  Have all three, Heroes, Champions, and Adventurers?  Heroes would be your mundane-ish Special Guys.  Like Janusk, if you still have him on.  He's a Hero of Commerce!  Lol....  But seriously, Hero, by definition, is someone who's extraordinary in some way.  Heroes, in this case, would be the people who handle are your usually mundane tasks, Taxes, Research, Production, Farming, etc, in an extraordinary way.  Have them level up over time, just for doing what they do.  Have them get better at what they do, albeit very, VERY slowly.  Since they aren't putting themselves in harms way, they don't deserve to level up every 10 turns...  Or even every 50 turns...  Or maybe even every 100 turns...  I mean SLLLOOOOWWWW.  Make it slow enough to have hiring a higher level version of the same type still worth it, so that when the one you do have levels up, the bonus will compound.

Then Champions.  Champions should very obviously be your Combat Special Guys.  In this setting, that would be the most common definition of a Champion; "Someone who fights for/on behalf of someone else."  These guys are putting their lives on the line, every day, so they should level up from combat, and on top of that, they should get some handy combat-related skills along the way.  What someone said about attaching them to your troops for a morale boost would be one good way, or having them train your seargents, or both of those thing, on top of being able to actually receive things like Crushing Blow and Assassinate, depending on the type of Champion you want them to be.  This is supposed to be a TBS/RPG, I think it's only fair that you give us some control over the 'Characters' skills here.

Lastly, you have your Adventurers.  These guys should fall into the same vein as Champions, though in a different capacity.  Champions are your people-slayers.  Adventurers are your real Dragon-Slayers, and as such, they would also be the kind of Special Guy that gets XP through combat...  But they should also get XP for completing quests.  They are Adventurers after all.  By that same token, since your Sovereign is the one hiring them, something like 5% of all XP gained by Adventurers for completing quests should be given to the Sov, as a non-stackable bonus in the event you use like 4 Adventurers to complete a quest.  5% of the XP from that quest, not from each Adventurer, but the XP is only given in the event that an Adventurer actually finished the quest.  Keeping to the idea here, Adventurers should also gain combat-related skills like Champions, but they should be geared towards slaying Monsters as opposed to people, though not entirely.  Adventurers would still be useful for fighting people as well as Monsters.  They shouldn't be as skilled at slaying people, barring Bandits, as a Champion, but they should come close, everything else being equal.  Where a Sov should be able to decimate an entire enemy Platoon with Magic, a Champion should be able to decimated 1/2-3/4 of an entire Enemy Platoon just on sheer skill, and a well-trained and well-equipped band of Adventurers should be able to take a Dragon with just a few of them there.

To these ends, giving these Special Guys tendencies towards certain behaviors would actually become a very helpful mechanic.  While some thing are too complicated to do, others are not.  Giving one Adventurer a special bonus vs. Darklings for whatever reason, and another a special bonus vs. Spiders is simple and efficient.  It also gives you a reason to search far and wide for a well-rounded team of Adventurers.  In that same vein, having one Champion get a special bonus when working with Mounted Troops, and another a special bonus when working with Melee troops would repeat the above, but for Champions.  And as a nice last little bit of differentiation, having even the Heroes have certain traits would be nice.  Let's go back to the Janusk example...  Maybe not Janusk, but Merchant Heroes.  One could have a 'Trader King' bonus, giving him a small percentile bonus to gold produced via Trade-Routes.  Another could have a 'Gem Appraisal' bonus, giving him a small bonus to gold produced from Gold Mines.  Or with Researchers, 'Academecian,' receiving a small bonus for each research building in a city, vs. 'Archaeologist,' a small bonus for Lost Libraries attached to a city.  With the Heroes in particular, this would go very, VERY well with the new idea of needing to specialize your cities and be more civic-minded in 1.1.

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TL;DR - Good for you, go to the next post.

That's all folks!