I suppose given that the unit creation system is a lot like lego, making a hero would only be a matter of adding some channeler power to that hero unit. It would otherwise be relatively the same as the other units.

The only real difference between mundane and hero units is an experience bar and it depends on how experience is handled.

Tamren

That's what i would have to presume, given the info we've been given so far. You seem to presume that army creation is similar to HoMM (ie can consist of as few or as many as you can produce). However, I was thinking that troop production would be more along the lines of Total War (ie each group consists of a set amount of soldiers). I'd like to know which it is because I was thinking of how you would include officers in the army system. With the HoMM method, i'm not sure how you would go about it (maybe placing a more experienced soldier with better arms in but i still don't see how that would work). With the TW method, you can simply pay/train/level-up the group and they get an officer with slight group buffs.

The officer and the group can then also gain further experience. The computer can auto-generate names for your officers, who go up in rank (according to exp). Place a soft cap on officers. The soft cap adjusts to how many officers are in each rank (eg low soft cap for sergeants, but once you reach xxxx amount of sergeants, the soft cap increaces. same for other ranks) Once an officer reaches a certain level, you can choose whether he becomes a hero, a general or elite officer.

Once you decide the route your exp officer takes, he also takes with him his specialities. So, for example, you have a swordsman who has fought predominantly orcs in a frozen climate. So he gets the orcbane trait, along with increased movement/survival in colder climates and receives an attack bonus when using a sword. Heroes and elite officers are self-explanatory. Generals operate similar to officers but instead of commanding single groups, a general can be placed over x-amount of groups (with prescripted commands).

I wouldn't want this officer advancement option to replace the wandering heroes who call to your fortress. They're the badasses who can be imbued with essence.

I find that interesting despite the lack of information we are privy to I personally imagined Elemental would have a unit creator and squad creator. So lets say you designed three units a Swordsman, Spearman, and Axeman. I would have guessed from there you could set some reasonable squad size or the size would be locked but lets say its 15, from here the player would choose any combination of units to fill the squad. An option to designate one of the soldiers a captain or squad leader could even be included. Squads I would suspect could also be "merged" in someway to form large armies or garrisons. The ability to designate squad leaders would lend its self well to the suggested minor heroes from your regular army. 

now that's just downright sexy. So if SD were to put a relative value on each item, you can create squads according to value. That could open up further options regarding how to construct squads.

As for lack of information, what i mean to say is that from what i've gleaned from Frogboy et al they seem to putting a unit creator in place. I presume that's what Tamren was also referring to (although presumption is only a couple of letters away from ASS U ME(ption))

Well, an army has a chain of command and there can only be so many leaders. If you're going to run a small army, it's reasonable to have a cap on the number of leaders that army can have. Given there's 1 leader for generally a bunch of regular troops, it doesn't make sense to have hundreds of leaders unless you have thousands and thousands of troops.

To me, that's not a hard cap you're describing, it's a ratio. In other words, when I say "hard cap" I mean "no more than X" but "1 leader for generally a bunch" is what I thought I was advocating. The idea is that any major game variable should be able to adapt to the full range of scales possible for map settings. Tiny maps mean small forces with few heroes and/or officers. Insanely large maps mean possibly vast armies with whole squads of heroes and numerous officers. Or so I hope.

From this thread where Brad first gave details of this game, he says:

I don't want to hijack the thread here with an tangential discussion on what should be in a fantasy strategy game. But here's my 2 cents on that:

1) Character building. The player is a character in the game. Nearly all magic in the world actually flows from the player. If you've ever read The Silmarillion (Tolkien) all the magic in Arda basically comes from the spirit of the things created by Eru. So in this sense, the player is a kind of Valar of sorts who can choose to invest their growing power into their creations/minions or into themselves (or a bit of both). That's an over simplification but the point is, part of the game mechanics is having to choose between making your forces more powerful or actual character.

2) The game is very spell-centric. The 3D engine is being designed so you can do Populous style spells to the world. Since it's turn-based (as opposed to real-time) that also means you can have some ridiculously fancy spell effects.

3) Very distinct magic schools.

4) You cannot build heroes. They have to be recruited and there's no Inn. Ones ability to attract heroes is one of the game mechanics and "interesting choices" players have. Those heroes can be wimpy or powerful depending on how the player chooses to use and invest in them.

5) There is massive scaling in this. At the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings (the movie edition) you could see just how powerful Sauron is. In this, if you manage to get a dragon, that dragon can wipe out hundreds of units. And by scale, we mean there's thousands and thousands of troops. One ancient dragon is taking out hundreds of troops.

6) Cities are built and improved and local geography matters. I won't say more on this right now.

7) Multiplayer will involve all players moving at the same time.

8) Battles zoom in so that tactical combat can occur which is also turn based.

I do want to stress that the goal for this isn't to be a MoM clone. It has its own game mechanics, many of which are in common with MoM since, in a sense, both want to have a lot of Civilization-style elements.

One advantage of being designed in 2007 is the hardware requirements are probably going to be higher than our other games. I want to see large battles. I want to see creatures that can wipe out massive numbers of foot soldiers and such. I want to see magic spells that can flood terrain, raise mountains, ruin worlds. I want to see the land sicken and die when evil takes it over.

If we'd done a MOM2, we would have been faithful to the Master of Magic mechanics. But since we're doing a new game, hopefully we'll be able to make a game that combines favorite elements from many games plus adds our own on innovations to the genre. But it'll be some months before we start putting up any previews or anything (or even announce the game officially).

So it seems Brad is not in favour of building hereos. I like the idea of heroes emerging from elite units (which is not really building heroes as such). It should take some times for your units to reach elite status anyway and then it could take further experience plus some catalystic event (e.g. a particularly heroic victory) for a hero to emerge from that unit. I think this would be cool and add to the colour of the game. It would be good if elite archers could spawn a ranger type hero, elite spellcaster a mage, elite soldiers a warrior and so on.

Also, in Master of Magic you can also rescue heroes from lairs who then offer to join you. This kind of thing could tie in very nicely with quests.

Most games you can't build heroes.  They wouldn't be special if you could pump them out like you could any other trooper.  You'd have to do something special.

I think recruiting them is better than channeling essence into a regular guy personally.   The old system works and has plenty of room for change without actually changing the main idea.   (if not broke, don't fix)

I still like the idea of some 'officer-level' regular unit being a potential source of a new hero. Just because you can't deliberately place an order at the Champion Shop doesn't mean you can't be offered the chance to recruit a new hero who started as a regular joe or jane in your armed forces, court bureaucracy, clergy, etc. It's really just a matter of the back story blurb for the given hero, isn't it?

It would be cool if they had a quest or something that suddenly made that 'officer-level' unit special.   Like a random event that would upgrade, or something.   Otherwise they wouldn't be a cool hero, they'd just be some bum you plucked out of your army.

That's what I was going to say. And if you send an extremely experienced squad into battle, there can even be a chance for one of the squad members to perform a heroic feat and give you the opportunity to recruit him as a hero.

"During the recent dire struggle against the Empire of Uthugul, one of your elite swordsmen, Bob fought with such valour and ability that his deeds have become legendary across the Kingdom. Your advisors have suggested that Bob would make an inspiring and capable leader for your people to rally around. Do you agree to this?"

I think it is an excellent idea. Hiring heroes in the pubs is usual way how to get them. However to be able to "raise own hero" would be a great addition. It may be nice if the name generator adds some addition of the name ("Hrax the dragonslayer" (hero was created after killing a dragon), "Grun from Arwana" (hero was created after capturing the city of Arwana) and such. The hero should carry the weapon and armor of the unit he was created from and of course he shall have the same race.

I love this idea!

It might take certain scenarios (the only guy left from a fight or something)...

but its so ORGANIC!!!

I think that when games feel like they grow organically.. naturally... it really helps with the immersion factor.

Something like having an experience scale... because yes EVERY guy should have his own XP!! (we have plenty of memory these days) 

Then when some kind of special event happens a guy 'becomes' a hero... maybe how much xp he has determines how powerful of a hero.

Maybe you can even choose to promote groups into 'hero' groups manualy.  (aka you make a normal soldier a 'knight')