Regarding heroes
 

Heroes, as they are, aren't currently heroic. They are just very skilled inviduals, having attack and/or defense even as high as 15! That's better than a Bane Lord, Wight Lord or a Demon! ...but it isn't enough. They still die, what a pity. It'd have to be even higher for the heroes to be useful.

Now, there already are few existing mechanics for improving commanders. One of them is experience. All heroes are already heroes because they have done adventuring. Thus, I suggest that all heroes start with 50 points of experience, which is enough to give them 2 stars of experience IIRC. +2 att, +2 def, +2 prec? Perhaps not enough, but IMHO it's a nod to the right direction. Comments?

P.S. I still like my idea of making Devils start with 3 stars of experience, Vanir with 1, etc instead of inhuman stats. That way, they'd be just as skilled, but the humans would get stars a bit faster, and thus the gap would be a bit smaller.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I haven't been here long, obviously(and so not read all the hetup about it), but been playing dominions a good while, dom3 less so.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I though, don't get what's so bad about the Vanir? In my SP games they do pretty well in early game then invariably get stomped by allcomers, given that how can their units be overpowered?

Re: Regarding heroes
 

How about this? This would obviously be a Dominions 4 idea. You could start out with some initial hero points, then accumulate them over the course of the game.

Then when you buy stock leaders, you could use your hero points to enhance your leader at the time of purchase. You could save the hero points up to really buff up one leader, or you could spread te hero points around.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

Yea, I agree humans are underpowered in Dominions, usually because of low hps. There should be new units of humans I reckon who are exceptional from the majority of 'normal' humans. Just like in many RPG's, the hero/adventurer is exceptional. I know the designers do not want to be influenced by AD&D etc...but in AD&D 90% of humans have 2-5 hps, well the other 10% can have stats upto a god vitually. They get that way by going out in the world and exploring, adventuring, gaining magic, ruling etc...

Dom3 or 4 could do with reflecting those human heros. After all by LA humans have taken mostly everything over. How did they do this without exceptional heros/leaders?

Re: Regarding heroes
 

They are mainly overpowered when used with heavy bless strategies. However, they are a good nation even otherwise. In this case, though, Vanir are just one example of a unit that's got better stats than a human for no better reason than that it isn't human. It would've been Tuatha if they were in the game, or the various undead creatures (banes, wights and their lords) if I had thought about summons before nations.

Their sacred units can be produced in all forts except in Late Age, and are very cost-effective for their skills and special abilities, and benefit very well from Water 9 blessing (which makes their defence too high), and Fire 9 (which makes them very deadly)... And on top of that, Water 9 and Fire 9 work very well with each other (quickness -> more attacks with the flaming weapons).


I don't want human heroes like that. I think we've argued this in the past. Spesifically, I've used Ulmish heroes' (especially Hildegard's) att/def 15 as an example of the best of the best warriors of the human race, and the 18-hp Early-Ulm Conan-type hero as an example of the toughest of the toughest warriors of the human race. The first can go toe-to-toe with the strongest units in the game - but dies from a single hit. The second is twice as tough as a normal human - but dies from two hits.

It isn't about humans not being powerful. It's about dragons being able to kill humans, however special they are, except when one is spesifically equipped AND gets exceptionally lucky.
Humans get the upper hand in the Late Age not because they become more powerful (although crossbows tend to even the odds a bit), but because other beings become less powerful and/or numerous. Sometimes this is due to there being more humans to try and get a lucky shot through the dragon's eye, sometimes it's just chance, or a change.


Any way, I'd like to know what people think of my suggestion.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

* You exaggerate: heroes are useful as is. They just aren't as useful as (e.g.) the powerful summons which are cheaply available in the game.

* If you were to replace the current "hero potential" heroes with "already full-power super-heroes" then you would omit what they currently provide - which is people with unusual talent who can become powerful heroes with experience and magic.

* It's not hard to get a hero up to one or two stars of experience - it just takes patience and attention and a little luck. Heroes are more interesting if you actually see them rise to achieve their abilties during play, instead of just appearing from nowhere with bunches of abilities.

* You are of course correct that the experience system is weird in that everyone starts inexperienced when the scenario starts, even though some characters are described as having a history. Also weird is the effect this has on the Hall of Fame, with its heroic abilities coming easily at first, much harder later, and being a weird competition between nations, limited to a handful of characters, etc. I'd love to see that all make more sense and offer more varied development of experienced characters.

* I think there is room for even more talented heroes without being unrealistic or unbalanced - but I don't want to lose the middling hero-potential guys and end up with a great gulf between normal units and the heores.

* In fact, one very interesting thing about the existing values is that sometimes plain commanders can become "thug"-level champions through experience, heroic abilities, prophetizing, Arena victory, and/or magic items. Once I tried to kill off a cursed human indy priest by sending him to the Arena with a bottle of water, and he WON, giving him the Champion's trident and turning him into a semi-decent thug and a _very_ interesting character.

* SO, I think what might be a good way to address all that, would be to add more abilities that characters can attain through experience. Like minor heroic abilities, but not limited to one per character, and not limited by a hall of fame, but limited by something scaled, like overcoming great odds, so that it won't just make the super-powerful characters like Arch Demons more powerful, but will allow humans who survive against the odds to slowly become more and more capable, if they continue to survive. They could be logical consequences too, like making several hard MR rolls could add to your MR, defending against huge attack skill could eventually add to your defense, hitting against huge defense skill could eventually add to your attack skill, nearly dying of wounds could add to your HP or Prot, etc.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

Nooooooooooooooooo.

I mean: I much like those game where I play a hero or four and fight the evil empire on my own. But, I'm glad that dominions tries to be somewhat realistic, so that a human hero doesn't suddenly gain the ability to survive 43 arrows to the face just because he's been fighting a few years.

Breeding like bunnies, adaptable, low standards for where they can stand to live, and the other races' great magic not working as well as it used to for unexplained reasons (abysia).

Re: Regarding heroes
 

idem mivayan. If Dom4 includes AD&D style heroes I'll remain using Dom3.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I posted as a wish list for dom IV that for design points a nation could start with a hero. I do not think it should be free, but for 20 points you would start with a national hero.

Your national hero should not be 1 of the 4 random heroes that come at chance, but a tougher not so easy to kill hero.

Maybe not so tough as to single handily take provinces with no items, but he should have 20 hp and high mr to say the least. If he is Abysia's obviously fr 100 and radiate heat, maybe a fiery weapon and a fire shield.

In all cases he should have good leadership, and if he leads a race with undead units, undead leadership. The hero for Ulm, may be a mage, one with access to a different path of magic, and maybe an alchemy skill(not overpowered with earth gems).

He would be the focus of your early turns, a unit you build armies around.

Man's hero-Beowulf once a mortal man of great power but after slaying Grendal and eating its heart, came to gain supernatural health and might.

Hp 22
att. 15
def 15
prot 25
mr 16
precision 12

Weapon Grendal's tooth 5 dam 1 att decay
Shield was given by the King grateful for killing the monster: 30 protection, 10 parry, spiked.

3 attacks tooth, shield bash(ap), kick(chance to knock down(lose a turn in combat, defense -10)

Special abilities: berseker 5, regeneration 5 percent, battle shout( all troops plus 2 to morale)(demoralizing shout -2 to enemy morale).

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I play Dom as an RPG, in the sense that I care more about my "special" units than the armies. I think I would have liked Dom2 with its emphasis on SCs. With that being said, some of the heroes are great, add magic paths, a bit beefier, or neat abilities. Unfortunately, many of them are boring and/or useless. And the big kicker being - they're one shot deals. If my favorite bane lord gets whacked, I can summon another and start from scratch. If my harpy queen dies... oooh, I can get a mummy. I've restarted whole games when my fav SC dies idiotically.

I agree they shouldn't start as powerful as say a lvl 9 summons , a combat pretender, or a fully kitted SC - but they should have that potential with items. At least 1 of every 4 for a nation. IMHO at least 1 should be combat focused, 1 should be magic focused (preferably new paths or higher levels), 1 should have a cool thematic ability, and the 4th can either be a combo or similar to the first 3.

One of my favorite heroes is the demon whisk guy from EA T'ien chi - flying, boot slot, astral+other paths, (sacred?). But he's a low hp risk, which I'm fine with as he can be kitted out properly.

I think they should be thematically cool and moderately powerful with good variety. And other than random rambling, I agree with the OP as a first step.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

It would be cool if the person who made the worthy heroes mod, could alter it to make 1 hero start out at the beginning of the game for each nation.

I do not mod, and have no clue how much work that would entail.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

You know the Worthy Heroes mod goes a long way to improving them right? By giving them more misc slots and whatnot it allows them to become more powerful,.. gives them more potential.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

My idea for "better" heroes doesn't have anything to do with hp. Heroes should start with 1 exceptional Hall of Heroes ability that doesn't count toward your total HoH count. It should be determined during the design of that hero, and heroes should be able to have up to 2 of them (one random, counting towards your HoH). Also, heroes should have the ability to get up to 9 stars of experience, as opposed to the normal 6 for commanders.

Extra star-potential should also be a unit ability, for long-lived units. Units that live longer than others should be able to gain more stars, eventually, and units which don't live very long should have a cap on experience.

Prophets should be able to gain 2 abilities also, and they should be allowed to get experience up to 12 stars.

Pretenders should be able to gain heroic abilities too! Up to 3 of them! (none counting toward your HoH, and I'd like to see a lot more heroic abilities) If Pretenders can gain afflictions, there's not a reason in the world they should be denied Heroic Abilities. They also should be able to get up to 15 stars, after a long, long time. These things won't affect balance much, because everyone would be in the same boat, and extra star-potential would really only affect those of us who play long games.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I do think melee heroes with low hps have a much greater chance of dying to a single arrow, and if you are spending 20 design points on a melee type hero, you want some durability.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

This is a really interesting discussion. It would be fun to create a mod with a nation that only consists of commanders that would be considered heroes. Your small party of commanders would have to strike out from the capital, subduing the local independents and leading them to glorious victory against the other nations. The commanders (heroes) would represent classes from Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs, would be high cost and have superior stats.

Would be a fun idea for a change of pace every once in a while. I am sure the nation would suffer and fold early under the control of the AI, but it would provide players with a very challenging game. To round out the heroes, one would want to add new spells that would be "class specific", with access to those spells being determined by the paths of the mages, druids, rangers, whatever.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I like the idea of an item giving ~20 hitpoints. The 50+ hitpoint giants would only find it mildly useful, but it would be a life saver for <10 hitpoint humans. I would support a blood/nature/astral combination.

Re: Regarding heroes
 

The T'ien Chi heroes are also good for "squeamish" players because they're immortal...

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I CAST MAGIC MISSILE AT THE DARKNESS!

Re: Regarding heroes
 

I agree with the jist of this post and think "hall of hero" heroic abilities are the way to go with national heros. I too would like to see the experience a unit gets expanded... though I'm not sure I totally agree with the size of the expansion as described by HB...

Re: Regarding heroes
 

You're not alone, Velusion. Not many people agree with me about how *BIG* the game should be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but thanks for going along with the jist.