Legendary beast -- special unit other than Hero

 Like a Shadowfax (for horses) or a Shelob (for spiders)? That seems okay but i don't think summoning an uber-dragon would be cool, considering how they've been desribed by SD so far (ie already uber). So yes, special animals seems like a good idea but not special special creatures (ie dragons or demons). i'm wondering how it would be implemented seeing as there are two animal factions (sentient and non-sentient) already in the game. 

It actually depends on how rare the special special creatures are. In most strategy games, no matter how powerful a creature is, you will see plenty of them in mid to late game, and far too often an uber hero can slaughter a dozen of them.  If that's also the case in this coming game, I'd like to see some real monster that can compete the power of a high level hero, a real lengendary fight!

Yes, shelob is cool!!

They said that the fantastic creatures are going to be a big deal.  So I suspect they already have something like this planed.   The end-game super creature, weather it be archdevil, archangel, dragon, storm giant, archon, behemoth, super-hero, or whatever else might be good for a crazy powerful beast.

I personally wouldn't want to see tiamat just because I feel she's so over-used.  I know you were just giving the example since she's a well known (because she's over-used) legendary dragon.   But I had to comment because I feel so strongly about it.

I have to agree with Landisaurus. I'm under the impression this is their intention already. Regarding the idea in general I fully support it for what that is worth.

I'd rather disagree. In the upcoming game, assuming it's a mix between MoM (Master of Magic) and what they said in their journel, will probablly have 2 ways of getting a unit:

Recruiting one(some?), when trained you give it gear and train it as much as you like.

Summoning, meaning using your spellpower to summon a predefined (I hope it will be better than this) unit.

In my experience, the summoned units are always broken- either one(some?) of them is overpowered, or the lots of them are underpowered (I'd like to base it on MoM again, since they said it's supposed to be partly based on it, + it's a great game). A big part of the reason for this is, while usually some of the greater summoned units are better than the trained units, they usually cost a whole lot more, not to mention the magic power you have to invest in keeping them in order (usually endgame you have lack of power compared to money, since you got a lot of over-built cities that pays lots of taxes). A tactic to use the said units to become overpowered is summoning specific ones early on, when other player/cities do not have the time to build propper defenses against them.

Assuming you will be able to summon a spaciel ultra-strong monster, how do you balance it? Great cost, while it can be slaughtered by a bunch of hired units? Lower cost and make it less strong?

The reason heroes are favorable to my mind is because getting them to the "Demigod" state is very hard, and many times even if you manage to do that since usually "any" other player would've finished the game.

Assuming you balance it, I think the idea is quite nice.

I get the impression that SD intends to implement powerful magical/fantastic creatures that will pose a significant challenge to strong heroes and even channelers, even without implementing special named beast 'heroes'. Dragons are the obvious example because they've been specifically mentioned to rival (or even overpower) late-game channelers. I'm hoping that dragons will just be the strongest of a diverse echelon of extremely powerful beast units. 

I'm not necessarily opposed to special named beasts, but I'd argue that they should be extremely difficult, or even impossible, for players to recruit. Instead, they could act as local leaders of the beast faction.

Where did you read that sentient and non-sentient beasts will be separate factions? I got the impression that it will be one big beast faction, with individual groups split up geographically; and that the sentient beasts will essentially be the leaders - the ones you'd engage diplomatically, while the non-sentient ones would just be 'followers.'

I more or less agree, except I think some Legendary entities like Shelob would be really swell, not merely tolerable. Some, like Shelob, might be solitary, but I really like the idea of others being famed (perhaps ageless) 'leaders' of their species.

Rather than being able to recruit units like those, I'd prefer to see them connected to the diplo system. For example, good relations with the Great Bull could improve your food production from cattle resources while offending the Queen of the Lions could mean regular losses to caravans moving through appropriate wilderness areas.

@GW - I like that line of thinking a lot. It adds a nice dimension to the diplomatic element a lot beyond the in game factions.

I was under the impression that all the Dragons and super powered magical beasts were going to be named. Granted I have no evidence to make such an assumption but considering Dragons and other magical beasts are suppose to be very rare to begin with I just kind of assumed the fire dragon would have a name like Furious Blaze rather than Fire Dragon being his name. Now if the point of this was to suggest a special type of magical creature above what we currently know I wouldn’t like that at all.  

@ GW Swicord: I like that idea as well. I wouldn't have a problem with a special type of named magical creature if it was only for diplomacy purposes.  

That would be awesome. It's sort of like a surrogate worship system in a world where actual god worship might not be very relevant.

 actually I can't remember where i read there would be 2 animal factions and i could very easily be mistaken. However what i understood was that there would be 2 types of animals in the game, sentient and non-sentient (roughly grouped into factions iirc)

that sounds like a great idea

I always did like the idea that top level summons were named individuals and there was a finite number of them, Dragons, demon lords, elemental kings/queens, all good. Its even better when there is a little history behind them rather than just some stats and "standard fantasy dragon name no3".

One thing I would really like to see is summons you can't control yourself but you know how they act, for example: The Grim Reaper believes it's his duty to escort the dead back to the underworld, your enimies are useing a lot of undead  you summon him and until someone sends him back to inbetween life and death he wonders the world tearing through undead but never touching a single living person until their apointed time. 

Sounds good to me, but I don't see it as exclusive with recruiting named creatures, some might be recrutible through diplomacy / a blend of diplomacy and summoning. Summoning one of the Demon Lords for example might open of the diplomacy screen: you can bargen for wealth, power, and if you can afford it his loyal service.

I think it might be interesting if a channeler could spend some of their essence creating a sort of customizable magical beast. Which might become some sort of towering giant or hideous frankenstein's monster type thing.

Or, if we are able to pick non-human channelers, then I hope there will be some really strange and magical customization going on there for people who want to take the unstoppable silly unit strategy.

Edit: to put that in context of the thread, I am sort of supportive. I want to be able to level up my dragons.