I think the 1 point system works fine. Dont want to overdue superiority

But i like the hero leading the army system. Leadership bonuses to the soldiers attached to the hero.

Seems a few hours in, i had more heroes than military members. I think it should be the other way around. 6+ units being lead by a hero or 2.

But for RPG sakes i like the idea of a group of heroes. Maybe if they had traits that helped out their soldiers or other heroes.

It's not necessarily a matter of "superiority" as it is a matter of distinctiveness, or in this case, the lack there of.

The farmer and miner NPCs are worthwhile as the give a percentage bonus. I think the researcher and merchant should be a percentage boost as well in the city they are in.

Adventurers could give a boost to army morale instead of just being some guy with a sword.

As to the leveling, I have to agree. It isn't very exciting. No new skills, just a point on an attribute. ZZZZZZ

Also, I would like some XP for quests instead of getting books for increases in strength, dexterity, etc. What, they get the "Buns of Steel" book? Rather cheesy IMHO.

It all needs work.

There should be lots of champions, I think the problem with the current system is that right now they 1. don't do much, and 2.  don't have enough out there to kill.  Couple of ways to solve this problem.

First, have champions do more.  That merchant out there, who nets you two gildars a turn if you hire him, should be trading between cities, carrying stocks of food, ore, weapons, ect in between cities and selling them for a profit.  He should have his own money, and have the amount of goods and money he makes increase based on the number of trips that he makes.  Everytime he comes into a city, the owner of that city gets a small sum (dependent upon the size of the city and the level of the trader) in tax revenue from what he sells.  Initially he'll be alone and small time, but as the amount of money he has and makes increases, he should eventually hire guards to protect him and his merchandise.  This is not a hired hero. This is him, acting on his own, out in the wild.

If you hire him, you should be able to do the same thing, the only difference is now you choose.  Govern a city?  That city gets a bonus to its income (which increases the more turns he spends as governor).  Put him on a caravan route?  He acts as a better caravan, and gradually improves at that.  Or just have him in his nice safe market in your city?  He nets you the two gildars (or however many he does based on his level) per turn that he does now.  But that should be the least profitable of the options, since it is the safest.  He should charge you a salary though, which increases the better he becomes at a given task.

That thinker, who nets you two research points if you hire him, should be able to increase research by a net percentage if he is governor.  Or he should be able to manufacture special equipment, giving you better and unique items in your shops.  Or you can put him in one of your libraries, and he churns out two research points.  But once again, that should be the least profitable of the options.  On his own he should be a freelance artificer, making items (better than what you can produce generically) and selling them to anyone with money.  If he gets rich enough, he can create a little inventors cottage, which can be the source of quests and new equipment.

There needs to be lots of champions to see development like this, because for each freelance wealthy merchant, knowledgable sage, wealthy mercenary (at the head of a large army) or successful adventurer there are 10 more lying in a ditch somewhere.

Which leads me to point number 2.  There needs to be more lairs and creatures, especially within your territory.  These NPC's that are out doing their class job need something to do (in the case of adventurers), or some risk to them (in the case of traders and thinkers).  There needs to be a dynamic here.  If you are really good at keeping your nation and the area around your nation swept clean of threats, you should have a lot of traders and thinkers and administrators rolling around, because there are a minimum of creatures out there killing them.  That being said, you will have fewer adventurers, simply because there isn't a lot of lairs to explore or creatures to kill.  Mercenaries will go where the money is, so if you are at war or have a lot of problems with monsters, then you will probably see more mercenaries wandering around looking for employment.

Right now the problem with champions is that we don't have a "living world."  They just kind of wander around not doing a whole lot until they get hired.  Really, we shouldn't be able to hire most of the NPC's (wage costs are probably a good limitation here).  Most of them should be going around doing their own thing, but continually influencing the world around them and your nation.  Once they actually do that (if they do), then the problem should go away.

They are a good option in a map that totally lacks Iron mines, as you can buy them weapons in the shop.

Level ups are dry and costs are a mystery. Need more varied skills.

I agree there should be rewards for quests (XP and items!), I really feel that the world is static(another topic for another time) one part that would make it feel more organic is the champions..

I agree that quests should give xp and items, I also like the other ideas, in particular "lwarmonger", this would make the world quite a bit more organic. I also think champions (and sovereign need feats! increase in guildar generation for merchant or more/others which would be cool!) 

I don't like the current system either. Just ask yourself the following question, what would miss if those champions were not in the game?

At least for my play style that wouldn't change much and I wouldn't miss them. I usually just place them in cities anyway or don't hire at all.

My alternative would be the following get completely rid of champions wandering around. Then get an "adventure" research that enables a quest which you can use to find a bride. Alternatively add other ways like rescue a virgin offered to a dragon to start a dynasty.

Then your kids become your champions. Have less of them as well.

Other champions should be available after adventure research and after finding them in their habitats. They should live in (magically) protected habitats and maybe taking care of other survivors. Thus being champions. Such habitats could be:

- swamps (an old witch or her daughter),

- wizard towers (old wizards resp. their apprentices),

- caves with veteran survivors (warrior heroes),

- oases with Arabian style heroes,

- old workshops with a weird inventor (surviving by using strange devices)

- etc.

Each hero could or better should have a related quest or a certain requirement like influence of a city, certain spell or technology, army size, moral alignment, etc. Only a small part of heroes should be nomads, with the ability to survive in the desolates of the land. Therefore it is your (more difficult) task to find and convince competent leaders to work for you. Then make them more significant.

Via

p.s.: ...Yes, I promoting an idea of a previous post of mine.

I like the idea of having quests give us the option of marrying a damsel in distress. Certainly adding this type of depth to the quest system would add to the immersive factor of doing quests. As things are now I only need my sovereign and some spearmen to dominate everything on the map.

Heros are never worth the cost, and loss of the opportunity to violently murder them and gain the Xp, because they don't have anything close to the special traits of a sovereign. I don't see a problem with giving the heroes some special abilities, maybe D&D-like feats, that make want to keep their hearts in their chest instead of on a stake in my courtyard.

But then what about researchers and merchants? They are only usefull for about 50 turns or until schools are buildable. I would support a percentage bonus supplemented with a +1 to make them useful in the early game and maybe they get special abilities after the high level university and abbey are built.

Does anyone know what the changes to heroes will be when tactical battles are added?

There was a game a few years ago called Hinterlands. "Champions" would come to your city and a list would be prepared of them. You had a limited amount of time to accept them or you could send them away to free up a spot for a different champion. The more recognition (fame/honor etc.) the better and more specialized the unit would be. It was the only good thing about the game. It would be a perfect fit for Elemental. You could still have uber wandering champions, but there would always be champions available to raise leader, find a spouse or to equip into a champion army.

- Othello

I also agree that the champions system, as of this time, isn't interesting. I like Iwarmonger's idea on the way champions should be behaving on the world, merchants doing some trade on their own and inventors selling items etc. This would make every world you played feel "alive" and lots of random different things could happen every game you played.

A talent tree would be really awesome and make every game different. These trees should have options that promote the need to send a given champion into battle, for example a merchant might be able to select a talent that allows him to salvage equipment of fallen units in combat, which in turn you could sell in your town's shops. Furthermore whenever a merchant levels up he should gain a certain amount of gildar produced per turn. For example a merchant could gain 0.5 gildar extra to the base 2 every level, so a level 4 merchant would be earning a total of 2+0.5+0.5+0.5 = 3.5 gildar per turn. Same could be applied to researchers and spell points, and of course the numbers would have to be balanced accordingly.

You could even have a talent that increases the gildars per turn that merchant provides, so the higher level the merchant the bigger the impact he would be making in your economy.

this is a quote from the journal-

when magic is added-these units can become more important I believe-

"Potential Champions wander the world. What makes them special? What makes an Adventurer or Loremaster worthy to stand out from the average peasant? The difference is that they have the rare gift of being potential Sorcerers. You can imbue them with some of your essence and then they too can start to contribute to your Kingdom of Magic."

That said, there could be some improvements, as mentioned above.

One thing that kinda bothers me with the current champs is that when I see a champ I see them as a possible fighter (attack rating), or a resource (+2 spell points per turn, etc.), not as 'individuals' (ie -- a guy who is wandering the land, dedicated to bringing back life to the land -- a Johnny Appleseed or the like, etc.). 

Perhaps the skill tree idea that SavageBananaMan34 and others have mentioned, which is a good idea on its own, would also help with this. Perhaps it could go like this with Mr. Appleseed:

We see a champ but no stats (no '10% bonus to orchard production').  We see a description like "Johnny Appleseed is descended from a long line of forest nurserymen, and wanders the land trying to preserve this knowledge".

If Mr. Appleseed levels up his options include a skill tree, weighted towards his innate skills/knowledge -- 1 level-up will give him a normal skillup for non-orchard techs (say +2 to spell research per turn) but double the normal skillup for orchards (if normal is 5% then he gets double -- 10%; if he was a research mage then he'd get +4 to spell research per turn).

This variable skillup lets us direct his development towards desired areas (maybe we much prefer spell research over orchard yield), while allowing Mr. Appleseed's background to come into play.   We'd have a choice.

This would also address the problem that as time goes on, the current "+2 spell points per turn" becomes fairly insignificant.  Allowing that to increase with each levelup lets it remain more useful as the game progresses.

This tech tree wouldn't replace the current '+stats at levelup', it'd be added to that.