Betrayer + adventurer is fun

Betrayer + wealthy is fun, just not as dramatic

Wealth + civics (rush) is fun, but limited

Beastlord is fun - 0 upkeep umberdroths.

Some of these could be OverPowered, but really each has an opportunity cost and a risk.

While you're focusing on champion research you may not be doing other things - and the AI may outstrip you in terms of cities, armies, mana, etc.

I've had games as betrayer+adventurer (shadow in stormlands) where my entire "faction power' was comprised of the 12 champions I was able pick up - on easy (doh) that worked out well.

I'm replaying the strategy on ridiculous and while I have 8 champions and i focused on exploration - the AI is outstripping me in terms of power.  Plus its really tough to level up/gear 8+ champions.  Its easily blown me up on research, so I'm even more behind (although tireless march is a great asset by itself). 

As beastlord I've had awesome armies of umberdroths, hoarder spiders, great wolves and archers.  

I've also had entire games where there are only a few critters to pick up.  With masters affliction mod the area is so dangerous its difficult to explore and find critters to pick up.  And spiders can't be charmed.

Heroic + henchmen + questmaps is still the most OP IMO although kind of boring after the first run of it.   I don't think I would change any of the above traits. 

Some of the others are a bit lackluster (noble) but other passive skills just keep on giving - i.e. armorer which could easily be more beneficial long term..just a bit more boring.

it also denies the champs to the AI, so you can pick 3 and use the rest as governors and waypoint guards.

i prefer a different form of denial- i like killing the enemy ones to prevent them from being recruited.

Warlock with Death/Water/Fire is incredible.

wanna know whats overpowered?  Altar.  They have no racial weakness, the exp bonus works nicely with general and brilliant, henchmen come early and are still valuable late, as they get trained unit bonuses they are better than most champs on the map. 2 races have unforgivable -1hp/level weakness, and 2 have the worthless +3 attack for number of units in a stack. (3 or less, 5 or over). Then you have 4 good options.

One is to make Ironers/Gilden blood with armorer, quick, and tough empire.  then for sov pick hardy, brilliant, fire2, cruel/clumsy (cruel with melee weapon, clumsy with ranged or magic) and impulsive. 

I personally wish Adventurers made them cost 20% and wealthy is fine, it used to be 1,000 gildar! and early units used t cost less, meaning 2 turn building "militia" then rush for 30 gold, until 20 militia, then run over the whole map.

I tend to agree with NanakoAC. Once you have two or three champions to lead your main armies and one or two to serve as governors (if you bother), you really don't need any more champions. Sure, Adventurer will save you thousands of gild on a high level champion, but it takes so long to research the techs to recruit them that they're usually a bit on the weak side when you can get them, and by the time you can get them your two or three formerly low level champions will generally be at least as good, and are built to your specifications rather than whatever set of skills it was decided to give the high level heroes. You're also generally well on your way to running out of monsters and dungeons, the two best ways of training and equipping champion recruits, and only Altar has a way around that (and Henchmen are generally superior to most champions, high level or not).

High level champions are the only ones whose pricetag really matters, since they are the only ones whose recruitment cost exceeds that of an average trained unit, but I wouldn't bother with most of them anyways if I've already got two or three decent champions to lead my armies and as many as I want to stay at home. And it really isn't worth recruiting high level champions if the only use I have for them is to stay at home. If their armies came with them, then I'd start considering it. As they are currently, Adventurer 'saves' me money I wasn't going to spend in the first place, and costs me experience that could have gone to one of my two or three primary champion/army groups, assuming I do anything other than use the new champion for nonspecialist governing duties. And if I decide to equip them, they'll still cost a lot even with Adventurer, since Adventurer does nothing about the highway robbery costs in the Trader's Shop.

I agree in general. Champions have suffered so many modifications since beta to vanilla, that the profession is out-of-date.

Maybe adding it a bonus like +10% XP to champions in army, or something like that, would rescue it from forgotten times...(those times were champions ruled the world)

[quote who=Black-Knight]Hi I tried most skills in the game and I believe that the ADVENTURER one, which allows to hire heroes for free definitely gives too much of an advantage[/quote]

Did you know that you can modify the number of champions that appear on the map? I've played as an Adventurer and had the world generate with no champions in it...twice (I set Champion Frequency to Random), so Adventurer can be quite underpowered depending on world conditions.

If you want to play as an Adventurer but don't want to have too much of an advantage, or don't want an AI Lord Relias (or Skeleton King & Edror in Stormworld) to have it too easy, try decreasing the Champion Frequency setting.

When 1/3 say it's overpowered, 1/3 say it's too weak, and the other 1/3 say it's something in between, maybe it's just right!

Good point but there are other skills that I would never consider as powerful, so IMO a we could use a little balancing... Connsider that champions can be fast and they just never die!

It's a sad truth that using skills and abilities present in the game, it's possible to win the game.  Perhaps they should fix this?

(Also, if you continue the game past that point your victory can become overwhelming.)

We must be playing two different games. Champs are the best unit in the game and a bit over powered at times. If only the AI could over power it's champs to make it a challange.