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[0.915] Champion Traits Assessment: The Governor

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[0.915] Champion Traits Assessment: The Governor

from Elemental Forums

This post is a continuation of the Assessment found here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/425698

 

The current Champion setup is a great on in concept. We have five strong archetypes that we get to use to craft our heroes as we see fit; the strong Warrior, the skilled Assassin, the noble Defender, the wise Governor, and the powerful Mage. The issue I see is not with the framing of the system, but the implementation of the skills. Too many of them are in strange places or across specializations, which cause the identities of the archetypes to be watered down, and actually serves to make most of them less appealing in general. I feel it is a problem of cleaning up identities more than anything, and my overall assessment is being done with that in mind.

I begin with my assessment of:

The Governor.

This class of Champion really has the capacity to change the way that FE gets played. Able to hire great units which improve the city they are stationed in locally, but are mobile. There are phenomenal gameplay possibilities with the Governor, but ultimately unrealized as currently they are simply mobile production bonuses. I see the Governor as potentially one of two types of Champions, the “Master Builder” as currently supported, and the “Master Planner”.

 

Trait MinLevel Trait Bonus Gross Bonus
Path of the Governor 4 +1 Faction Prestige  
  Admin 1 5 -10% Improvement Cost -10% Improve Cost
  Admin 2 6 -10% Imp. Cost, -10% Train Time -20% Improve Cost, -10% Train
  Admin 3 7 -10% Imp. Cost, -10% Train Time, +10% Gold -30% Imp. Cost, -20% Train, +10% Gold
  Loremaster 1 5 +1 Research per Season +1 Research
  Loremaster 2 6 +2 Research per Season +3 Research
  Loremaster 3 7 +4 Research per Season +7 Research
  Merchant 1 5 +2 Gold per Season +2 Gold
  Merchant 2 6 +3 Gold per Season +5 Gold
  Merchant 3 7 +4 Gold per Season +9 Gold


Before discussing traits as they exist in game, it is pertinent to discuss what the Governor Champion is. They are a non-adventuring champion whose purpose is to improve the function and infrastructure of the Sovereign’s cities. Because of how, exactly, Champions are currently implemented, Governors are necessarily disadvantaged. Most of the reasons I am about to list have been discussed at some point, but for the sake of completeness, I am including here.

  • Champions must be out in the wild to gain experience, so when doing their job as Governors, they are not improving, and while improving they are not doing their job as governors.
  • Traits gained leading up to the Governor Path do not support the path, conceptually or actually. You could make an argument for Healer, but I would argue that is somewhat useful for just about any Champion.
  • Facilities which allow the player to circumvent the non-adventuring doldrums are underpowered and overpriced.
  • Champions left in cities are NOT out supporting armies, gathering treasure, recruiting other Champions, or securing territory, which is a VERY hefty opportunity cost even with single-city bonuses to production.
  • There is very little in game discussion of how exactly Faction Prestige works which makes the Path of the Governor's ability seem pretty meager and lackluster. We need to either see more how it works, or give these guys something more interesting as well.
  • Based upon observation in 0.914 and 0.915, a champion sitting in a city gaining a flat 1 xp per turn would level at about 50% to 60% the rate of an adventuring champion, reducing the overall return on their upkeep

 

The Good Stuff, which is also not-so-good:

  • All the abilities in the Governor tree are significant and useful. They are also very boring.
  • Loremaster and Merchant are abilities which are useful while adventuring, but the Governor Champion has no other abilities which support their adventuring, which dramatically limits their usefulness in combat settings.
  • Admin is great numerically, but could easily be split up into several more intriguing trees to grant better specialization and theme.

Recommendations:

Governors need a significant amount of help. With not knowing exactly what types of changes are coming with Beta 4 and the re-imagining of Cities, it will be hard to elucidate specifics, but below are a list of general suggestions which would help

  • Loremaster and Merchant: Governors have no useful lead-up abilities in the General Traits tree, and these would fit right at home. There are enough useful things for other trees to focus on that these are in no way no-brainers unless you are expecting to use the character as a Governor.
  • Abilities which reduce the maintenance cost of a city by a set amount. Abilities like these would help struggling cities become more self-sufficient by offsetting losses until better gold producing buildings could be built.
  • Reduce the Cost of garrisoned troops. Allow for particularly vulnerable cities to be fortified when and where they need to.
  • Adds or Improves City Defenders
  • Dispels negative enchantments on a city 10% chance each turn.

 

As with the Defender, the Governor has a LOT of potential to be a true game-changing hero with a lot of exciting and interesting abilities. It just needs the compelling trait support and fewer disincentives to follow that path.

Finally, I think starting at level 15 each and every Path needs to start getting access to some pretty over-the-top abilities. The sky is the limit here, and I’m not going to take the time to really illustrate all of them, but if you can get a champion to Level 15, you deserve some crazy stuff for your effort.

36,176 views 32 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting visagedarkskin, reply 25
One possible gameplay mechanics I see would be that players would choose the hero that has received bad illnesses from loosing battles and is therefore not as effective to combat anymore and then decide to turn him into a governor (granted he can earn Xp w/o fighting). Being able to do something positive with the heroes that get bad afflictions could reduce the temptation to reload when loosing battles, after all you loose a hero but you get buffs to a city and further ahead to your whole empire.

 

Now, that is a compelling idea. It is a radical and fundamental change to the system, so will probably not get implemented, but having a button that "retires" a champion into a governor, and switches many of their abilities into ones that benefit cities and defenders rather than in-combat stuff.

 

That has a lot of fascinating potential.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Also think that governors need a way to learn to be better governors while being in city doing their job.

Some moreintersting governing abilities would be welcome too.

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Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Champions must be out in the wild to gain experience, so when doing their job as Governors, they are not improving, and while improving they are not doing their job as governors.

This is only true of the administrator traits. The merchants and researchers provide the bonuses no matter what they're doing.

Much of the criticism of Governors seems to revolve around having them stationed in cities because their abilities benefit cities - and this may be an interesting play style if there were more traits that benefitted cities by being stationed in them, but there are only admin I-III. I use my governors like any of my other champions: via adventuring. They work fine, especially considering that on level-up sometimes the option to take a merchant or loremaster skill simply doesn't pop up, there are still plenty of useful adventuring traits to choose from. I usually end up with governors who are decent spellcasters.

 

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Also don't forget about the prestige boost. More often than not, the whole reason I picked path of governor for any hero is to get the extra prestige. That helps the entire empire grows, no matter where you are. The criticism of PoG is more because of administration than it is due to the path itself. So maybe administration is the thing that needs a look at, and not the path?

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kalin, reply 29
Also don't forget about the prestige boost. More often than not, the whole reason I picked path of governor for any hero is to get the extra prestige. That helps the entire empire grows, no matter where you are. The criticism of PoG is more because of administration than it is due to the path itself. So maybe administration is the thing that needs a look at, and not the path?

I was thinking the same, meaby Governor heroes should be heroes that were given traits like "Merchant" and/or "Researcher", the bad thing about this is I do not like the flat bonusses alot, making them best in the start of the game, and less usefull lategame.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kalin, reply 29
Also don't forget about the prestige boost. More often than not, the whole reason I picked path of governor for any hero is to get the extra prestige. That helps the entire empire grows, no matter where you are. The criticism of PoG is more because of administration than it is due to the path itself. So maybe administration is the thing that needs a look at, and not the path?

 

I think I addressed the fact that prestige is there, and is supposed to be a significant, but it is not a particularly clear mechanic for the players.

 

If people were more aware of what prestige DOES, they might realize more how valuable it is.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Honestly the governor high end traits are pretty useless. You will not ever see them.

 

Sitting in a city at 1xp a turn, and even if you have the adventurers hall (if it is the city you built int in), 2xp a turn. You will not gain enough xp to get the high end traits. It will require too many turns and you are forgeting traits available are random. The randomness alone kills most the chance you will see them.

 

Now you could send the champion out adventuring and gain xp, however, he is not in the city and the benefits are useless. By the time you get your high end traits adventuring they are no longer needed simply because your cities has grown to a point they are not needed.