What Makes a Good Hero?
 

I've been working on developing a mod, and am finally ready to make some heroes. The plan is to try to make some heroes which are not overpowered, but not boring or worthless either. Basically, I'm trying to determine what the upper and lower limits are on what people would consider to be worthwhile heroes - ones that would cause them to seriously consider taking luck scales to increase their chances of getting. (My understanding is that Luck +3 gives a 6% chance per turn for hero events.)

I've been through all the Dom 3 forum threads that have "heroes" in their titles and have looked a bit at the Worthy Heroes mod, as incorporated in CB Nations 1.5. I found some partially relevant discussions here and here, but they are not quite what I am looking for. What I'm looking for are some guidelines or rules of thumb for designing good national heroes, or some metrics for determining hero quality. I understand that every nation is different and that there is not likely to be a catch-all formula for determining this. But, that said, I'm guessing that some good guidelines can be developed.

Some of the thoughts running through my mind have been:
(1) What are good classification systems for heroes? Some heroes seem to be excellent fighters. Others are good mages. Some are mixed mages and fighters. What makes a hero stand out in its category?
(2) Suppose the best recruitable mages of a nation have a maximum level of 3 in a path (or maybe 4 with a random pick) - what would be a good minimum path level for a mage hero if it is specializing in a particular path? Something like 4 or 5 maybe?
(3) For fighter heroes, having stats higher than the best fighter recruits of a nation seems to be a typical approach. What about taking the best recruitable fighter unit types and adding new abilities to them to create new hero unit types? Does starting with magical equipment (Enchanted Sword, etc...) count towards being a hero?
(4) How close are awesome heroes such as Lugh the Long Handed to the upper limit of what is considered an acceptable hero? Should some heroes be good SC chasses? Should all fighter heroes be good thug chasses?
(5) Should a hero be roughly equivalent to a mid-game summon? A late-game summon?

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

I think that on mage heroes, some magic that the nation does not have access to would be nice.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

There is really very little in terms of upper and lower limit on how good/bad a hero can be. In my opinions, the most important thing is simply for them to thematically make sense. That said, there are some guidelines might make them fit better current heroes:

*I wouldn't in general put more than 2-3 points of magic more on a hero than can be reached with nationals, or more than 4 in any particular path.

*Fighter heroes stats should mostly be the max you can reasonably get away with thematically. Usually around +5-10 hp, +5 att/df over species norms. Magic weapons that fit thematically are probably just fine.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

QM's pretty much right: mostly they need to make sense thematically.

I can't fault his mage suggestions. Bear in mind some heroes can supply enormous advantanges - for instance Tjatse in Utgard/Jotunheim, who is not only a genuine SC but even can have A4, when without him the nations have no natural Air magic at all. But heroes that powerful should be rare, and his suggestion of just a modest boost over natural national capabilities is a good idea.

I would flag up just one issue on fighter heroes, though. 15 Att/Def is supposed to be utterly exceptional, the absolute limit of human capability. Even fighter-build pretender gods tend to be in the range of 12-14Att/Def. So if you take a base human unit or commander and make a hero version, you should consider 14-15 exceptional, and more than 15 a no-go. Consequently a bonus of 2-3 Att/Def might be more realistic: a hero based on a knight might have 14-15Att/Def, a hero based on an ordinary heavy infantryman maybe only 12-14. If you're modding units already superhuman like Van, maybe there consider going over 15, and even then maybe consider giving them extra special abilities instead. Special abilities are often a good way to go - reinvigoration, stealth, recuperation, resistances, sacred and so on.

I have quite a low opinion of many fighter heroes - many of them won't even make adequate thugs, at best they're units to chuck a cheap magic weapon or (say) fear item onto, so you mix them in with normal troops to add a bit more oomph. Whether you want to make some of them thugs, even SCs, or leave them sub-thug is up to you.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Lugh The Long Handed Destroys Everyone!!one1!

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

1) Mage heroes - tend to either be "best in class", i.e. similar to the nations normal mages, but better in some way, or else "breakthrough material", such as providing key access to a new magic path, or a cross path combo, etc.

2) Thug heroes - make a good thug. Most likely to go down in flames, but hopefully providing a nice benefit while they last.

3) Supercombatant heroes - Generally only if the nation has SC or near SC recruitables already.

4) Priestly heroes - Especially nice for nations with normally weak priests; an extra H3/H4 can go a long way, especially if you've got a large sacred component to the nation's troops.

5) Domsummoning heroes - is there an underutilized summon or troop type in the nation's roster? A domsummoning hero can get them into play. These tend to have lots of flavor text associated, and frequently a drawback quirk.


5 is really really unusual. If it gets 5, it should have very limited cross paths (maybe none.) Of course, if the nation's normal recruitable mages get 4 in a path, it may not be out of the question....

Heroes are quite likely to have picked up a few magical tidbits in the process of becoming heroic. A thug/SC hero should have something that stands out a bit from the normal recruitables for the nation.

Some possibilities:
1) Starts with one or a few magic items
2) Starts with useful self-buff (or paths to enable casting)
3) Starts with resistance to a normal vulnerability (e.g. an undead hero with cold-resistance for a cold-blooded nation)
4) Starts with a key unique advantage, such as glamour, immortality, or awe

SC heroes are OK if the nation has easy access to SCs or near SCs, c.f Niefel, Hinnom, Ashdod...of course, they won't stand out as much there unless they're pretty over the top.

I'd say make them balanced and flavorful for the nation, and not compare them vs. summons.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Definitely agreed.

Agreed - I've been following the modding manual's advice on that.

I think that this does raise a point though: how do you make acceptable fighter heroes for a human nation which are better than the nation's elite troops, assuming some of the elites are already in the 13-15 att/def range? Maybe adding special abilities is one way to go. Using demigods might be another way. (EA Arco has the Son of Titans, which is more in that vein.)

OK, this is an useful evaluation. Do you hold this opinion only for many of the vanilla fighter heroes or for many of the CB/WH fighter heroes as well?
My feeling is that I want fighter heroes to be thuggable, and so I need to find some good role models for them.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

The Epic Heroes mod might provide some good material. The heroes in it might be a little more powerful than you want, but they're all interesting.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

My idea of what makes a bad hero are the likes of Farbaute the Einhere (Vanheim), or Bernlad the Green Knight (Man). They essentially present you with a slightly boosted basic trooptype. Sure, you can theoretically equip them to usefulness, but you'd be far better off spending a few more gems summoning a decent thug chassis (arguably you could be spending less on a summon, as with a sturdier unit like a Banelord you wouldn't need to use as many gems to compensate for so many weaknesses.)

There are some non-magical heroes that are useful outside the frontline. A hero with, say, the Standard ability is useful to keep your units' morale up, not necessarily fighting themselves. Some, like for instance Sporsnjall (Jotunheim), summon units, and in his case both he and his somewhat feeble summons are also stealthy. In some extremely niche uses, there's some Man heroine (Rhiannon?) with a Patrol bonus. None of these guys will put a smile on your face if they turn up, but at least they have some reasonable functionality.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

another awesome hero attribute (the one i like about Lugh the most) is a forge bonus.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Hmm, I disagree about limiting human heroes more than supernatural beings.

There are mythological human heroes that won against SC gods or would qualify as thugs. For example Siegfried or Perseus.
Besides combat heroes make little sense if they are only a beefed up normal unit.

You could make these extremely rare though.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Can you really make a hero more or less "rare"? Obviously you can decide not to make them multiheroes, but that doesn't effect the likelihood of their showing up, right?

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

AFAIK, you can't control the rarity of particular hero events. In one of the "heroes" threads that I read, someone suggested that there seemed to be a preference for certain kinds of heroes given certain scales. But, I never saw any statistically-significant evidence or anyone's analysis of Dominions code to support this or any other kind of preference or weighting.

I think maybe Illuminated just meant that one should create "superhumans" sparingly in mods.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

With the Lizardmen mod, I intended to add some weaker heroes to balance out the really amazing ones. So for every ubermage demigod you get, there are other games where you'll get the incredibly stealthy scout guy. Of course I wouldn't go making any heroes worthless, but you can certainly make amazing ones rarer by adding more average or below average ones to the same nation, along with multiheroes that aren't anything special.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Well, there are a lot of reasons why a guy would have supernatureal abilites.

1) He's actually demi-human (Like Son of Titans), son of gods/demons/undead/angels/moose or whatever. Just give the guy demon/undead/magical tag and you could give him att & def 20 if you wanted to.

2) He's somehow blessed by supernatural forces (Green Knight)

3) He has found some sort of artifact (Frodo? King Arthur with Excalibur?), should be combined with kick-*** custom weapon or armor.

4) Magical experiment gone wary? A wizard did it?

5) A mount so awesome that the guy riding it couldn't possibly be human. Tiger? Dragon? Giant Crocodile? A chariot drawn by Wyverns?

6) He's just that badass. Jet Li reincarnate.

The basic idea is that once you manage to free the character from the weak bounds of humanity, he can have the stats you want him to have.

Hmm..

Hard one. I've made a few that I think are okay, but those probably really don't count.

Seriously, I can't think of any decent* human fighter heroes. Some help guys?

Man, I have a rant about this guy. He was actually beheaded in the legends and he gets regeneration? Understatement of the year.

I can't agree with this reasoning. Getting a hero is pretty rare (even with luck scales) and everytime you get something that you just instantly dismiss just isn't really fun. It kinda sucks all the luck out of your "lucky" event.

"Oh sweet, I got an hero! But apparently I wasn't lucky enough... *sigh*"

Not that every hero needs to have 10 picks of magic, but each and every one of them should be awesome in their own ways. I have hard time thinking of a scout hero doing something couldn't be done by regular scouts.


*decent = being actually glad about getting the hero, instead of just going "okay, he can ferry troops, I guess".

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

The Green Knight would be useful with a few more HP and regeneration (20%?) as well. Alternatively or additionally, make him immortal, so you can feel free to chuck him around in friendly Dom.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

I hated something in this mod, though: Almost every nation had wizard heroes, but if you're the one with a warrior kind (Arco's elephant), it's really bad. I wouldn't recommend these.

In my opinion you need one of these:
-a thematic special ability (immortal for Ulm vampires, stealthy or assassin, sqtandard, good researcher, even patrol bonus),
-an otherwise unobtainable magic path or H3/4,
-boosting a strong chassis (van/giant) - for fighter chassis, add an aura or magic item to make it worthwhile
-autosummons
-recycle an existing monster theme or summons to give a thug to a nation that lacks recruitables (I always thought that Asterion the minotaur was a cool idea for Arco, even though his combat stats are not that good - T'ien Ch'i could have a Celestial Servant hero too)

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Oh, I don't know. The EH fighter heroes get you expanding very rapidly: at least, Beowulf can take pretty much any non-trampler indies straight away (might need to be a little circumspect about heavy cavalry too), and would have a decent chance of defeating an early SC if you get rushed. You wouldn't want to take most of the mage heroes expanding, as they need to research necessary spells to be effective.

By and large, the EH heroes seem a bit too tough for an ordinary national hero, though.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts.

I detected some recurring themes in the responses, such as mage heroes who provide a magic path that is unnatural for a nation. I will try to follow some of these suggestions in the mod that I'm working on.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

I think if you want heroes good enough to warrant taking luck scales, they have to redefine the nation in some way. Things that do that are:

New magic path(s) or ability to forge new boosters
Forge bonus for non-earth nation
Stealthy preacher, or L3 holy for a nation with weak priests
Assassin with good default equipment
Hero that attracts chaff units each turn
etc.

For a slightly boosted human hero, most of the time I'd rather have someone with high leadership/high movement and possibly a standard to boost morale. Human units are just going to die, it's not very useful to have a hero who is basically an inefficient thug. Hope this helps.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

How about a "support" hero? He's not going to do a lot of fighting on his own, but he's great to bring with your troops.

Combine any (or all) of the following:

• Supply bonus
• Standard
• Healer
• #onebattlespell a cool troop buff
• Summon Allies
• #domsummon

Many of these ideas have already been suggested, but not all of them. My point is to tie them together into a hero who should be out-and-about with your armies even though he isn't a Thug or SC in his own right.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Also if you need any inspiration you can check out these heroes I did over a year back as an unofficial add-on to Worthy Heroes. It's amazing how the screenshots are still alive (xs.to is pretty good hosting site, it seems).

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=36670&page=3&highlight=Worthy+Her oes

But to give this post more purpose, here are some more ideas on how to make melee heroes worthwhile.

1) They come pre-equipped. Giving hero a simple "Enchanted Sword" & "Enchanted Shield" has a nice effect on combat stats. The hero also could be a bit of a pimp and have excess slots for some extra "bling".

2) Custom weapons & armor. If you have hard justifying the hero, give him a weapon that will make him scary on the battlefield. Just give a look to the modding manual and you will see a lot of stuff that really isn't in major use (dt-large, dt-small , dt-raise). Also remember that by chainin secondareffects you can create absolutely terrifying weapons. Example: A holy paladin-type hero could a magic sword that deals extra damage against big foes, and have that weapon secondary effect into something anti-demon, which then secondaryeffects into "small area holyfire" or "Holy Scrounge". With that kind of weapon, even tartarians will piss their pants.

3) Onebattlespell help. The hero is always accompanied by an elemental (summon elemental spell)? Valkyries (summon valkyries)? Undead chaff (raise skeletons)? Sprites? Swarm? Imps?

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Oh hell yes. Just to make things totally perfect, give him the crippled affliction to represent his pimp-limp-walk. :) If I ever make another nation mod thats totally going in. ;)

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

That's a funny idea, but putting more items on a hero who's just likely to die due to lowish hp/mr isn't going to cut it. On a wizard, it could be awesome however: Imagine you get yoru typical national mage but with 4 misc slots? Room for more path boosters.

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Giant class heroes are frigging ridiculous. Balor one eyed versus scrub 22345245234 with a magic sword. Wheee...

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Ah. That brings back fond memories of MoM and Selena the Healer (+25% HP healed every turn) and Sir Harold the Knight (with that ability that gives tons of extra XP to all units in his stack), and all the other heroes whose function is less about going mano a mano with the bad guys (wielding a Flaming Axe +6/+2 of Magic Immunity) and more about supporting the regular units.

If there were a hero who had a #onebattlespell of Fog Warriors or Mass Flight I would consider taking luck just to get him.

-Max

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Thank you all for the feedback. I really like some of the ideas that are being floated about.

For the initial release of the mod, my approach is going to be fairly conservative and I am avoiding domsummons and autosummons. I think they add some additional balance considerations, and want to tackle them later, if it looks like they are needed....
I will be providing a multihero with a high leadership and standard effect. So, I certainly do not oppose auxiliary roles for heroes ...especially for the 10 HP squishies known as humans.

Useful information. This is definitely one of the things I am looking for: what is someone's threshold for considering luck just to get hero events, assuming the heroes are generally somewhere between "Oh cool, this is an useful hero" and "YES!!! This hero is wicked good!"[1] on the awesomeness scale?

[1] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...58&postcount=5

Re: What Makes a Good Hero?
 

Some characters do seem to have a battlefield autosummon, sort of like carrying a bag of winds and getting an air elemental. There's a titan god chassis that every time it enters battles get about half a dozen free shades/shadows/whatevers that last only for that battle, not sure whether that's in CBM or vanilla, though.

A hero that does something similar could be useful. It means they can't build up chaff, but they get a decent advantage on the battlefield.