Lol, well the people have spoken!  The idea is not necessarily an idea i advocate per se; just bouncing some possibilities off you guys. Although i don't think it would require a MAJOR rewrite of the game; but its true it would require bit of work.

No, definitely no.

That was HoMM in the early stages. That's not what we expect here.

Ideally, heroes must indeed be able to single handedly fight armies ; that's what made them so special in MoM. However, there are significant differences:

• In MoM, the opposite wizard can always cast spells in a battle ; that would keep you on your toes, especially when said wizard could cast mind blast (bypass armor)
• It should not be that easy  to wipe out the entire battlefield with but one spell ; it's not that I'm opposed to the concept ; but there should be ways for sovereigns (as opposed to wild monsters) to protect their armies and mitigate the huge spell damage currently seen.
• The highest level armies/monsters should still be a danger for level 15/20 heroes, unless specially outfitted ; in MoM, a hero would usually not engage a Sky Drake (even a powerfull -demi-god status- hero), unless you had found (or enchanted) specific equipment.

As a matter of fact, I believe that the FE combat system doesn't scale well. Heroes that can take out the fury of dragons for the last battle in the victory by quest cannot currently be worried of any battle with human troops... As a matter of fact I think that this is a good test for the system : could that last battle be won without any hero, using only the highest level troops (possibly fully enchanted) : as long as this is not possible, this means that heroes dominate to much, which is not a good thing.

I think that heroes rise too fast (I had a level 35 sovereign while still not having any decent weapons for standard troops) ; the dynamic of the whole thing is difficult to manage. Currently, cities and armies are limited by research ; whereas heroes are inherently not limited. One possible solution would be to have them progress much slower, trouble is, how then have them still accrue experience so that when the countryside is cleaned up, heroes can still progress... Or else, the pace of the game should be much faster to get a chance to keep up with heroes (say thrice as fast), so that when your heroes get maxed out (around turn 250), your research and cities also get maxed out...

Yves

I wouldn't mind the change of heroes into a captain-like role. Would fix a lot of current issues in one sweep.

Powerful, in-combat champions fit this world.

Don't take champions out of combat.  They are a big part of what gives the game its flavor - for me personally, I devote most of my game time to dealing with my sovereign and champions - they're how I engage the world of Elemental.   While I'm in favour of making regular units more meaningful, it shouldn't be by eviscerating the role of the champions - rather, it's just an issue of balance.    The developers are working on balance, and we can help them achieve it.

I like the champions as powerful agents of change.  I think, end-game, they should become unbalancing - organically evolved Giant Death Robots. Super Hero champions are fun. They just have to come into play at the right time - not so early as to make the rest of the game irrelevant.  There could be a great game underneath the super hero combat game, but you don't need to know much about it now.  I do like the idea of champions making regular troops stronger, and depending on the implementation that could work well.

Currently champions just become super heroes too fast - at least with dense monsters, which I find most fun.  Ideally, and I know this would be hard to achieve, the tipping point for this wrecking ball status should be around the time, in game turns, that all techs but the top tier or two should be known.  Hopefully the AI's would have similar champions with world-boss killing power at this time (note: world bosses need to do a bit more than melee passively - they are too easy to 'cheat').  There would have to be multiple changes to make this occur - I don't know what they are, would probably include things like looking at game settings, tech times, loot drops, xp gains, champion talents, and how it all intersects with player behaviour.

I believe the developers are working on the pacing of the game, and I think we can give some good information to them to help figure out all the variables.  We can provide them with a lot of info on player behaviour.  So this thread is about champions - what turn do you find your sovereign/champions reach that tipping point state of being god-like, and on what game settings?  i.e. At what point do you feel you've got the game 'won', and the rest is just mop-up?  What is your empire and tech status at this time? I guess any question about champions ties into most other aspects of the game, they are a pretty integral part.

The developers are going to make the call on the vision of the game.  If we want the developers to get the pacing right, with whatever vision they choose, we should contribute what hard data we can. 

(So, simple question so I can find out for my own gameplay - where do you find the turn counter?)

Not true.

if i wanted to play heroes id go play there joke of a new one that just came out, man what happend to them they went down the shitter after 3or4

It's clear this is not the direction the game is going in. Although, it would be interesting to have a unit in a stack that granted bonuses, while not taking part in combat.

Regardless of the quality of the suggestion itself, I think this is an example of a bad idea for an fallen enchantresssuggestion because it proposes making a major chance to a core mechanic, essentially ditching it altogether and replacing it with something else.

I think the beta is more about finding ways to make the bath water smell nice, not throwing the baby out with it.