Why Do You Need Armies When Heroes are Everywhere and Can Be Hired Fast?

Then you have never played Master of Magic - but there you could have at most 6 heroes.

...OR I have played Master of Magic (from the day it came out) but I don't think it's perfect, nor that it is particularly smart to talk about it like it had the ultimate gameplay and every other game should try to be like it.

Anyway I don't recall being able to autofight anything with heroes,  in MOM, being sure of the outcome!!

He was responding to your claim that your proposition is clearly correct because no one else has ever done it differently than your suggestion (which isn't a strong argument, btw):

If you have played Master of Magic, then that statement is simply not true (even without the over-the-top all-caps modifier). That said, grouping in general and heroes relationships to normal troops really should be looked at closely.

One idea off the top of my head would be to tie the number of heroes you can have to CHR.  Heroes would have an insubordination rating.  Insubordination of all heroes cannot exceed Sovereign's Charisma.  Having heirs can decrease insubordination of heroes under them, but increases the odds of your heir revolting against you, with those heroes.

Wow, good idea!

Oh, OK, you are right... But still it becomes quite a strong argument when even after so many patches we got to a point where that is the main issue with the gameplay (my opinion on that one, but when I play games now I stop and start a new one as soon as my heroes become invincible... Which is VERY soon (cap lock just to get on your nerves :p)

You have a good point here, and a few nice suggestions. I really would like to see these kind of abilities on heroes, with some sort of class system. A ranger type hero would be more than 'pretty mobile guy who is good with a bow and decent with a sword', but he could also lead an army through a forest faster, or have them hide in it. Maybe only a small group at first, but a bigger one after he has leveled a few times.

I'm not sure if I agree with you on the 'only killing blows grant experience' part. Although the current participation reward is kind of silly, I have two objections.
First, lets say if 20 archers bring down a dragon, should the guy who does the last point of damage get all the experience? I would prefer to see experience distributed according to how much damage has been done, so the guy who did 90% of the damage gets 90% of the experience.
And second, what about supporting units? Units that may not directly involved in combat, but that help the ones that are. I´m thinking of priests who heal and buff, warlocks who summon help and cast debuffs on the enemy, or maybe a general who commands from the rear, being a brilliant tactician but a poor fighter. These guys should be able to gain experience as well, even if they´re not on the front line..

I like Black-Knights idea regarding leadership, but leadership and heroism, while not mutually exclusive, are not the same. Cyrano deBergerac defeated one hundred men in a sword duel (substantiated by several witnesses). Audie Murphy killed, wounded or captured several hundred Germans. Untersturmfuerer Micheal Witman went storming into the Viller Bocage with his squad of four tanks and fought with such skill and bravery that he forced an entire armoured division to retreat. I think a good system would be to have a small cadre of super heroes that would be rare and hard to find - maybe as a result of a successful quest perhaps.

I'm ok with super-strong heros able to take out whole stacks.  Kind of the point of a fantasy game with heroes in it at all.  But they do seem to be a bit too plentiful in late-game, and there are too many that are basically identical except for minor differences in starting equipment.

I'd favor more variety of special abilities, including maybe pathfinder, moutaineer, master archer, some abilities that increase attack / defence / health of ordinary units in the army, etc, etc, etc.

I like the current system of giving XP equally to all units in the winning stack.  In games that gave XP only to the unit that struck the killing blow, I ended up doing too much tedious fiddling to make the units I wanted to grow strike the final blow.  Boring.  And in real life, I believe participating in almost in way in a battle would give a soldier valuable experience.

Heroes in Master of Magic could take out whole armies, yes, but then you have to remember those heroes were probably equipped with maxed out artifacts.  There were still ways to take down uber-powerful heroes; anyone who has lost his maxed out undead hero to Dispel Evil or uber powerful magician hero to Cracks Call knows what I'm talking about.  And there are always going to be creatures and units that all but the strongest Heroes are going to have trouble with; ever tried fighting a ruin full of Death Knights with your lone Paladin hero?

Armor Piercing + Life Steal + Flying = Ownage.

Also why bother with armies?  Let's see, because units are a LOT cheaper than Heroes, which typically cost about 30 to 60% of your gold reserves apiece?  Because units can be put into stacks which increase their effectiveness as a whole?  Because units can be equipped with the same armor and weapons that heroes can thus making them relatively equal?  The only thing heroes have over armies is magic, and enough elite bowmen on a first strike can take them out in one go.  Also you typically only get one spell a combat turn; you try taking out a maxed out army with one AoE before they shoot you to death.

On the subject of XP...

Unit kills enemy - 150% XP

Unit participates in battle - 100% XP

Unit was in army but not in tactical battle - 50% XP

Unit was killed and resurrected in battle - 0% XP

So a unit that was in the battle but didn't kill any units would get 100% (the norm) XP for each killed enemy.  If a unit made the killing blow that specific unit gains 50% more XP for that kill.