Hero recruitment: A new take

[Chazar]

So a L2 hero is 650-1100, a L3 hero is 800-1350 and so on.

When considering how much more expensive you have to consider what you get from a regular unit. For example a Pegasi costs 1250 ...

A L2 hero for just 650 is a way better better deal than 1250 for a Pegasus. Likewise a L3 for 800. If you compare, you should not consider the maximum price, but the expected average price. At least I would assume that heroes should not just have a chance for discount, but also a chance for being too expensive, thus giving you the choice of sometimes paying more if you believe that the circumstances justify the expense (as in real life, things you need right now are more expensive as compared if you can afford to wait another turn). Thus:

L2 875 translates to Spider/Ghost
L3 1075 translates to Elemental/Worm

Furthermore, a hero's sheer battle power should be somewhat weaker as the compared unit, since a hero has a great potential (levelling up - which is way easier from L3 upwards, and carrying items):

Making the levels 300 or maybe even 350 each sounds way better to me, as this would give a real pause to consider such an offer's worth and comparing like:
L2 975 translating to Wizard/Gryphon
L3 1325 translating to Pegasus/LesserArchon

[KGB]

Making the levels 300 or maybe even 350 each sounds way better to me, as this would give a real pause to consider such an offer's worth and comparing like:
L2 975 translating to Wizard/Gryphon
L3 1325 translating to Pegasus/LesserArchon

I'd be OK with +300 or +350 per level. That's quite reasonable as I said.

Since L5 heroes are *WAY* better than every unit and L2 heroes aren't that much better than L1 heroes the cost per level could also be a sliding scale.

L2 - +150
L3 - +300
L4 - +600
L5 - +1200

A L3 hero would cost +150+300=+450. A L4 hero would cost +150+300+600=+1050. A L5 hero would cost +150+300+600+1200=+2150.

This would make L2 and L3 heroes reasonably easy to acquire but the L4+ heroes would be extremely expensive since by that time they are quite powerful.

KGB

[Chazar]

Looks like we basically agree now:

• Hero chance capped at 90% only
• Extra levels added one per turn, not all at once
• Increased cost for extra levels (as you wrote above)

So far so good, what does anybody else think?

[magian]

I don't much care for the idea of higher level heroes getting their levels over several turns. I understand the issue you are trying to address here, I just don't like that particular fix.

700 seems a bit too cheap for a level 3 hero.

I'd also like to see a bit more xp given for little tasks, and perhaps a few less xp for the epic battles.

[KGB]

Magian,

It's a minimum cost of 850 (base 400 + 450 for L3) my way or 1300 (400 + 900) Chazars way. That's only going to happen 1 in 450 times (spread between 400 and 850). The average L3 cost is going to be around 1175 gold my way or 1525 his.

Taking multiple turns to get their levels isn't going to be near as bad as you think. Anything more than than 1 turn away (city/ruin etc) means your hero will be L2 by the time he arrives. Anything more than 2 turns away means your hero is L3 by the time you get there etc. 90% of the time my hero does not arrive exactly where he can do something that turn. So this protects against the 10% of the time the hero arrives right on the front line and devastates someone due to a lucky placement.

Try it yourself. Over the next few days watch where all your hero offers in all your games appear and calculate how many would be adversely affected (ie can't use their *full* skills. Only able to use +6 instead of +14 to attack a single Lt Inf is not adversely affected) by having to wait a couple of turns to fully get all their levels.

KGB

P.S. Chazar, we are in agreement. Changes like these would be very useful balance wise.

[piranha]

I think the idea to increase cost per level is good and to increase hero chance to 90%. Will add that on our todo for next beta. The thing about getting levels later may no be a bad thing for experienced players but will confuse many players who don't know all the details of the game and also seems a bit time consuming to program for such a small change. I'd rather spend that time on other improvements.

[Chazar]

The thing about getting levels later may no be a bad thing for experienced players but will confuse many players who don't know all the details of the game and also seems a bit time consuming to program for such a small change.

That is what I feared!

The vectoring ought to be very easy to implement (just put the hero into the existing vector queuing mechanism), so how about the following to address KGB's issue with vectoring:

You can freely choose the city, and the hero pops instantly

• if you have less than 5 cities
• if the hero is level 1
• always instant if you choose your capitial city as destination

Otherwise, the vectoring is level dependent:
1 turn for level 2, 2 turns for level 3 & 4, 3 turns for level 5&6.

Note that It is also easy to communicate: the dialog where you choose the hero's city is identical to the vectoring dialog, and shows the time it takes to arrive similarly - in the special cases, the time is just shown 0, no big deal.

KGB, I think this addresses you issues with vectoring, and otherwise, as you note yourself, 1 or 2 turns delay is not a big deal:

Taking multiple turns to get their levels isn't going to be near as bad as you think. Anything more than than 1 turn away (city/ruin etc) means your hero will be L2 by the time he arrives. Anything more than 2 turns away means your hero is L3 by the time you get there etc. 90% of the time my hero does not arrive exactly where he can do something that turn. So this protects against the 10% of the time the hero arrives right on the front line and devastates someone due to a lucky placement.

The vectoring dialog should display the capital as the origin, making it immediately clear that the hero pops there instantly. You can do this even if the capital is occupied or razed:
If you pick your occupied capital, the hero will instantly fight the foreign oppressor (think along a brave hero uprising, and makes it a bit trickier to keep foreign capitals, i.e. makes them a bit more special).