[PvK]

curtadams, no reason you can't mod that if that's what you want to try.

However, some reasons not to do it to the stock game include:

* The HP stats of units are carefully restrained to a scale where 10 is an average young healthy male human warrior, and 17 is so far about the maximum.

* Even giving heroes 20 HP isn't, I think, really going to double their life expectancy in practice.

* I have been enjoying playing the Dominions for several years with one of the main things I enjoy doing, being using human commanders with or without items and having them enter combat directly and watching their exploits and trying to keep them alive. I've had a great time doing this, and had some nice success, particularly in single-player mode.

Some tips for managing to keep them alive include giving them 2-6 pals who can keep up with them on Guard Commander, maybe putting some more on Guard Commander who are slower than and/or behind the commander, so they can reinforce his position on later turns, and placing them in positions where they will be amidst other friendly troops (and maybe other fighting commanders) instead of getting singled out and killed.
Also, don't be surprised or too disappointed when some of them die sometimes...
Avoiding charging into a battle line of giants with elite mortals may also be a good plan. Numerous disposable light troops work better for dealing with giants. Though, good enough mortals can also take care of them. Early Ages Vanheim can, as long as they aren't Niefel Giants (brrr...).

On the other hand, I would like to see some tweaks to make this style of play more viable and slightly less cruel. I just wouldn't do it by doubling hitpoints. Instead, I'd suggest some game system changes such as:

* Making less injuring wounds more common. Maybe if there were a 50% chance that each wound would only do a fraction of the amount after armor penetration. Of course, that would also probably tend to increase the overall power of giants rather than mortals...

* Allowing some fraction of units who are killed to instead enter limbo for some turns and find their way back to fight again after a while. They were defeated, and perhaps thought dead, but were not actually killed.

* Allowing more units to gain heroic abilities based on their exploits, rather than by being on the top ten Hall of Fame. Any leader who gets some experience stars and participates in combat could have a small chance of gaining a heroic ability. This would be fairer, make more sense, add more personality to the commanders, and encourage their use in combat.

* Add the ability to recruit non-mage/priest commanders at the same time that mage/priests are being recruited in a province, so players don't have to choose one or the other.

PvK