heroic heroes
 

I'm still thinking (and many others too it seems) that the order +3/luck -3 combos is still a very good option to take (that is unless you take a balancing mod, like the most excellent, yet simple, cherry mod).

So why not enhancing a bit further the interest of luck by tweaking national heroes? The idea would be to have all national heroes with a pre-drawn heroic ability, and this ability would always be considered as active (thus increasing with time). It would gives neat and pleasant surprises to the player, when he receives an hero, like a kind of super-surprise gift.

...
Let me see, I got Ekishnugal the first king, what do I got... oooh, extra reinvigoration, how convenient it is!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: heroic heroes
 

I'd like to see luck slightly tweaked as well, but don't know if national heroes are the way; they are sooooo different. Getting a national hero for Spring and Autumn is a fun and happy event, while getting one for Pythium is like winning a coupon for a year's supply of eye-makeup-remover.

Re: heroic heroes
 

well it spares you 380 gold, the price of an arch theurg. And he is an archtheurg, with even more magics. I dont recall the exact magic levels (somebody will!) but believe me, its a rather good turn when Pythium get it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: heroic heroes
 

OK.

Re: heroic heroes
 

I also would like to see heroes improved and maybe even new ones added. It would be a simple and fun way to improve luck.

Re: heroic heroes
 

I agree, Tareswerto.

In fact, I think I may have suggested something similar in the "luck/order balance" threads.

There are some other tweaks I'd like to see, too...like not losing population when you defeat an invading barbarian horde and perhaps not having barbarian hordes in civilized area.

But tweaking the national heroes so that each one of them is desirable would be a very nice start. And it would effect a penalty for misfortune 3 that would be noticable.

I'm still not over how great the Ry'leh heroes are after playing ulm for so long. I made that huge sea monster my prophet...and his hps are amazing.

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Exactly.

Re: heroic heroes
 

Pocus
Bartholomeus is Holy 5th level, not 4 ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
And I'm just trying a Soul Gate SP game, man these Shadows rock !
Took Turmoil 3/ Luck 2 and Etimmu joined on turn 7 or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif , made him my Prophet, he's now 92 hp and stats 20+ in my (strength 10) dominion...
Some nations have worse heroes - for example the Ulm heroes are just knights on Unicorn, this gives them one more attack, woohooh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif !

Re: heroic heroes
 

Would heroes be unable to get new abilities? Would their own abilities increase over time even if they weren't in HoF?

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. That's what the experience stars are for.

Here is a list of effects of increased experience ...

For each star, the units get:

Att +1
Def +1
Prec +1
Mrl +1

Additional bonuses:

1 star (15XP)

2 star (50XP)

3 star (100XP)
Str +1

4 star (200XP)
Enc -1
HP +2

5 star (400XP)
Str +1

Re: heroic heroes
 

It seems you misunderstood me... But that's no wonder, now that I read my post again. I tried to ask: Would the heroic abilities they (=national heroes) get automatically increase over time even if they weren't in HoF?

[ March 02, 2004, 15:03: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that is what Pocus had suggested be implemented.

Re: heroic heroes
 

D'oh! It seems "...this ability would always be considered as active (thus increasing with time)" is not clear enough! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Teaches me to read other people's Posts again before asking them questions...

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">are the unicorns not giving recuperation? They should perhaps!

Re: heroic heroes
 

Pocus,

The unicorns do give recuperation. But overall these heroic units are not much different from the black knights you can buy for 140 gold. No so much different that you would miss them.

Oh...one of the heroes is holy-3, wich if you get him and make him your prophet can give you access to fanaticism. But that's only if you get him...and there are other sources of holy-3 priests like some temples and those death amazons.

Overally, my impression of Ulm's heroes is that the nation isn't significantly better with them than without them. (And I haven't played much Black Forest.)

So...taking drain 3 and misfortune 3 seems like a good plan. Until the newer scales.

I liked the old scales and what you could do with point-free order-3, misfortune-3. Mind you...I'm not complaining...I can still have those scales if I choose due to the modding feature. And I still think it would have been nice to balance the scales by adding positive things to the luck side rather than making misfortune increase the percentage of unlucky events.

Of course, the SC mod I think decouples event probability from the order scale. This goes against my concept of order, but obviously my concept of order is less than universal.

Re: heroic heroes
 

It would be nice if you could get really cool heroes with Luck 2 or 3 you couldn't get otherwise, with only mediocre heroes at misfortune.

Re: heroic heroes
 

correction to my prior post...

misfortune has always increased the percentage of events which are unlucky. I meant increase the overall frequency of luck events.

Re: heroic heroes
 

it has more to do with the fact that some nations have weaker heroes than others. Why, you dont enjoy bartholomeus for pythium? It gives you a free 4th level priest, which is rather good, without mentioning the mage expertise.

Re: heroic heroes
 

I may very well never have gotten that one, just the master of the games and the drunken guy on the old lizard, forget his name, neither of whom I truly dig. In any case, a free 4th level priest is almost but not quite the Last thing I need when playing Pythium.

Re: heroic heroes
 

Hero inbalance has always bugged me in Dominions. Many are basically standard mundane commanders, and then some are more powerfull than wizards you can recruit, or even nearly Pretenders themselves.

I'd like to see the mundane heroes made more powerfull, akin to the heroes of greek myth. Where are the dragon slaying, hydra slaying, medusa slaying, minotaur slaying, etc. HEROES of myth? What you get instead are realistic commanders, somewhat better than average. Bleh.

Hmmm, perhaps this would make for a good mod...

Re: heroic heroes
 

C'tis heroes suck

The only one worth getting is Murmur the assassin.


But did anyone notice there are some non-national heroes, heroes anyone could get?

Re: heroic heroes
 

Aren't those "just" commanders that gotten from lucky events?

Re: heroic heroes
 

Good idea, Jaspar!

I'd love to see a heroic heroes mod. Then perhaps I would make a SM's scales mod to return luck/order balance to what it was pre-2.06 due to the enhancement of luck which would be brought about by heroic heroes.

C'tis was what I played around with a bit after Ulm. And yeah...those heroes suck rocks, too. With the possible exception of the shaman if you didn't put astral on your pretender and maybe the assassin. I still didn't find any of them so grand that I was particularly excited when I found them.

Contrast that with R'lyeh heroes.

I know that different nations have different strengths and weaknesses. And that is to be expected. I'm just not convinced that how good the heroes are overall needs to be one of the differences. And that's why I like your proposed heroic heroes mod so much.

Re: heroic heroes
 

I have been working on one, including flavor text. If anyone wants to toss me some ideas for their favorite nation/theme, go ahead (Note: I would just be adjusting the base hero unit, not changing anything else)

Re: heroic heroes
 

Man's heroes (at least the ones I've seen for Last of the Tuatha) are all just slightly improved commanders as well. They're also apparantly identical to the default theme heroes, which sucks because they don't really fit.

Re: heroic heroes
 

Sounds good for a mod, which I would play with sometimes.

I do like the existing system, though. Some of the heroes are very good already (some of the Mictlani ones, for example). One of the things I like about Dominions is that characters are at appropriate power levels (compared to HOMM or other D&D-based RPG's where any hero is a super-hero able to bounce swords with his experience points, etc). Another thing I like is that even regular commanders or even inappropriate character types can become heroes through game events (like my cursed indie priest who won the deathmatch and became a supercombattant) - if the heroes generated by luck were much better, this would reduce the hero potential of everyone else by comparison. I like that some characters become heroic but only rarely through the HoF, experience, empowerment, magic items, etc. I also like that there is imbalance between the nations in parallel areas, heroes being one of them. Personally, I really like my Ulm heroes, partly because of the healing ability.

I'd still have fun trying a superhero mod.

It'd be nice if we could mod in new heroes rather than replacing the old ones, and if the themes could have different heroes.

PvK

Re: heroic heroes
 

I like the idea. Here are some Mythoses/heroes that come to mind:

Greeks
--achilles--prot 30 without armor, att/def 20/20
--hercules--st30, has the lion skin armor that gives him invulnerability (robe of invulnerability), att/def 13/13, uses no weapons except his fist?
--charon the centaur (?)--precision of 20
--Perseus maybe
--Theseus maybe--has the aegis shield, ultra-sharp sword, can fly (shoes of hermes)

Romans:
Romulus--some type of werewolf? animal awe?
Remus--some type of werewolf? animal awe?
Caesar--huge standard, awe, amazing leadership, poisoned dagger (irony)
Nero--demonic, seduce,

Mid East/Far East (kind've)
Gilgamesh--immortal, st 20, att/def 15/15
Enkidu--same as above (twins)
Alexander the Great--phalanx, cataphracti, leadership, awe, knot-cutting, elite knitting
Genghis Khan--give him elite light cavalry, elite mounted archers, etc.
Kublai Khan--a special castle that has uniquely powerful resource and taxation powers, lots of extra income from "trade" somehow

Celtic/Irish/British
Kukullain Himself--boulder throwing like Jotun
Cuiccal--spear man
Taliesin the bard
Taran Pigkeeper
Dalben the sorceror
Beowulf
Arthur Pendragon
Merlin

Lots more out there. Hindu; Mesopotamian; Early Babylonian; the old Hebrew Heroes; the Roman generals; Carthage (Hannibal and his elephants); Sumerian monsters and heroes were endless....

Re: heroic heroes
 

Oh man, showing my total geekiness. Think of all the comic-book heroes you could implement? Now THAT would be a challenge. The Fantastic Four--how would you do Reed Richards? The Human Torch would be easy--flying, fire of 3, high fire aura.... Anyways.

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm fairly certain there are theme-specific heroes; I know Black Forest Ulm has several that refer specifically to Black Forest flavor text.

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">he techno-wizard, good research, high defense (attacks oftem bounce, or miss as he stretch aside), new weapon (if you can) stretchy hand - like fist, oly reelly long

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's a mercenary company with 5 elephants lead by an elephant commander named Hannibal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Achilles should have immunity to all elements, mr of 30, air shield, etc. and 1 hitpoint! There are few spells that cause automatic damage that can't be resisted, but how many? At what levels? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I really like this idea...

Hercules, hmm... No, just give him awesome strentgh, the lion skin armor with prot. 30, 20 or so hitpoints, low encumberance, great club as a weapon, and low magic resistance. Maybe berserk and feeblemindedness ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif ) from start.

Theseus would be hard to do as all those items exist already. Maybe he should be independant defending his city? A commander equipped with Sword of Sharpness, Aegis Shield and winged boots?

Hercules/Herakles killed the guy who regenerated while his feet touched the ground; there are his boots as an artifact... Even though I don't remember anything more about him, he might be doable too.

Quote:

Romans: Romulus--some type of werewolf? animal awe? Remus--some type of werewolf? animal awe? Caesar--huge standard, awe, amazing leadership, poisoned dagger (irony) Nero--demonic, seduce,

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Brutus: Assasin, non-stealthy would be nice flavour but its better to make him stealthy anyway.

Romulus and Remus absolutely need animal awe, maybe they would have wolfherder's ability to summon them? Nah, not that good an idea. Any ideas, anyone?

I don't know about Caesar... He would be just very good commander.

Quote:

Mid East/Far East (kind've) Gilgamesh--immortal, st 20, att/def 15/15 Enkidu--same as above (twins) Alexander the Great--phalanx, cataphracti, leadership, awe, knot-cutting, elite knitting Genghis Khan--give him elite light cavalry, elite mounted archers, etc. Kublai Khan--a special castle that has uniquely powerful resource and taxation powers, lots of extra income from "trade" somehow Celtic/Irish/British Kukullain Himself--boulder throwing like Jotun Cuiccal--spear man Taliesin the bard Taran Pigkeeper Dalben the sorceror Beowulf Arthur Pendragon Merlin Lots more out there. Hindu; Mesopotamian; Early Babylonian; the old Hebrew Heroes; the Roman generals; Carthage (Hannibal and his elephants); Sumerian monsters and heroes were endless....

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't know a thing about these.

Some nice ideas here, I would love to see them implemented.

[ March 04, 2004, 08:11: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Re: heroic heroes
 

Hmm, wasn't Charon "just" the ferryman across the river Styx (or Acheron - both are among the 5 rivers seperating the world of the living from the world of the dead, it seems to be unsure where Charon actually stood) moving the dead to Hades ?

Or was there any other Charon, I seem to recall a Chiron who was a Centaur.

CharonJr http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ March 04, 2004, 09:59: Message edited by: CharonJr ]

Re: heroic heroes
 

Chiron was the centaur I referred to. I knew Charon was wrong, but couldn't think of the right name. Famous archer, famous strategist, educated many of the most famous heroes of Greece in the arts of ware. He was also a famous physician.

Give him nature 2, healing, a bow of war, accuracy of 20, st of 14, standard of 10. That's a good hero!

Re: heroic heroes
 

Plenty of sources available. Check the Iliad and the Oddyssey for the heroes of the Trojan War, for instance -- most being known for leadership, morale, archery, armor, swordsmanship or perhaps the favor of the gods (think 'sacred'). Chariot-based heroes not unheard of either, hm.
Celtic/Arthurian -- sources that come to mind include Tolstoy's (no, not THAT one... a descendant) "The Coming of the King". There's also a collection "Celtic Myths and Legends" by a Peter Ellis, has a selection from Irish, Scots, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton legends. Heroes would generally need to be toned down a bit for balance reasons -- e.g. I would not suggest including even the regular Fianna at face-value. The Ellis book has a long list of references at the back.

Re: heroic heroes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True. Note though that this hero can appear in play - you just need a strong archer in the hall of fame with Heroic Accuracy (well, and an item that gives him a standard). That is, you get real strong heroes when they actually have a heroic history from the events in the game, which is (IMO) cool. If you add heroes that are not just (good hero material), but are already strong hero/SC's, then you omit the "how they became a hero" part, and if you re-play the mod, you know in advance who the likely hero/SC's are going to be. E.g. "Let's wipe out Greece before they get that darned Chiron or Heracles!"

But again, proceed. Sounds interesting, but I think overall I like the existing system where the heroes are usually just a few notches better than a usual commander, until something improves them during play.

PvK