Does fame actually work?

- "You are absolutely the worst pirate I ever heard of." -

- "But you have heard of me." -

Maybe after every 10 turns the fame should reduce as the forget moment. If you do dastardly acts you will get famous. If you get defeated, you don't get less famous. But the idea of fame going up and down doesn't make sense unless it is time based, but that can be set up as a random event.

Turn 100 event lose 30 fame (people are starting to forget your deeds across the world... lose 50 fame).

Champions show up at the following fame levels:

3 fame

50 fame

100 fame

200 fame

400 fame

800 fame

1600 fame

3200 fame

6400 fame

(no more champions after that point)

Thus, you can get at most 9 champions from playing the game by fame alone. Each time when I play if I focus only on my sovereign doing things I get a champion at the appropriate level (same level as my sovereign). It seems to be balanced with that in mind. But if I play with multiple heros I get heroes that are above my sovereigns level. So In a sense I would recommend if anything higher fame values, maybe along the line of

3

75

150

300

600

1200

2400

4800

9600

(no more champions after that point)

This will slow the progression of heroes, and I never run out of money when getting heroes. I don't understand this, I even support each of my heroes with at least 2-3 troops on top of the heroes and do not end up having negative economy. I just raise taxes if I need to and cast propaganda if I don't want to raise taxes. I don't understand this economic drain people have since I usual build a merchant as my first building to build a good finacial base. I also, don't build a pioneer (or que one) until my town is level 2 and that is when I build my first pioneer. A level 2 city will give enough monetary support to support 5-6 units with 2 heroes (especially if you choose to make a town). But a slower progression of heroes might be a desired fix.

Heroes can start being an economic drain when one is lacking propoganda (or has low essence so it is not so effective), and didnt start with wealthy. Especially if one starts by building the +10 fame building.

Yeah, that one can cause some problems in the beginning. I generally avoid that building as the first building. I choose this building only when I have a second city and then choose between which city should get this upgrade. I don't always cast propaganda, but I do tend to always build merchant first. Just so I don't have to raise taxes. But if you build the +10 fame building, then you can afford to up the taxes and keep unrest down.

I think the first few champions come to early, i.e. the 3, 50, 100 then 200 fame levels.  If you're active with quests, clearing goodie huts and if you build the Adventurers Guild you can hit those rather quickly.

Maybe just scrap one of these and have the first levels something like 15, 75, 200.  Just slow it down a bit early on.

I don't think we should extend the fame for the first champion too much because that champion will start at level 1 and you need to (want to) level it up along side your sovereign.

Scrap the entire system. Make fame influence number and quality of heroes available to your empire. It's up to you to decide if you want a hero now or hold out for the next tier (fame threshold) and maybe get a better one. You then purchase a hero with fame when you want one.

Yes, I think your capital should have a Tavern building which always has 4 random heroes in it.  The heroes will stay there for say 7 +/- 2 turns and you use your fame to recruit them.  Each hero will have different fame needed to recruit.  If no Sovereign recruits a hero as it makes the rounds from tavern to tavern the hero will level up and try again at your tavern.  The level of the heroes in the tavern will be -3/+0 of your Sov.

I think the fame mechanic is working out very well. However, some of the points mentioned to have battle defeats cost you fame would be nicely appriciated aswell. The loss of a city, for example, should be devastating to your empire's ego.

There could even be a spell made that 'sucks' fame away from a targeted faction.

This may be extreme, but I would even go so far as to offer up the idea that if your fame decreased below the next 'hero' tier that one of your heros gives you a cutscene and event to tell you that 'he's decided to to leave you in search of fame elsewhere'.

I definately think that this type of empire maintenance would bring ALOT of dynamic interaction into the game.

As interesting as this idea is, SD just revamped fame into what you see in LH. I highly doubt they are going to be willing to entertain a total revamp all over again.

I love the Fame mechanic and haven't noticed anything out of sorts, to be honest. I think it's very well implemented...

So you don't feel having 2 or more largely unused heroes is a problem? Fame on it's own is fine, it's how heroes are gifted to the player and available xp for leveling up that is a problem.

My first two heroes most of the time end up just sitting in towns, and with adventurer's guild limited to one per faction, you don't even get to pick which town, so I usually just stick them in a conclave and try to get the research bonus.  (maybe throwing XP books to them to get them to lvl 2 fast)

Tooo manny heroes Sucks.. Takes way to long to play and move with. and can more easylie die in auto combat. In scenario it is very frustrating....

I like.

Combine this with a wider selection of heroes (currently you only get to choose between 2..why not 3? Or 4?) and you're golden.

I simply changed how often they show up in my games, and it works very well. I changed it so that the early ones are delayed quite a lot, while the later ones aren't delayed as much, because while the gain in fame isn't linear, it isn't far from (since in the beginning there's plenty of quests and monster dens giving you fame, late game you get a flat number per turn due to buildings).

In my games, they come at:

40
100
160
240
340
460
...

I like ^these ideas.

what is this "too many heroes" garbage?

you do realize that in anything other than the very first scenario, you can disband them, right?

pick the ones you want, get rid of the rest.

what is so damn complicated about that?

fame settings are just fine.

For me, the problem is not that we get too many champions, but that champions don't have a big enough impact on the game. The obvious culprit in my eyes is the xp gimping for armies with multiple champions. I'd love to be able to have multiple champs in an army and then getting a new one would actually feel like an important reward.

I know they must've felt that multiple champion armies were too powerful; but if that's so, why are henchmen in the game?

" why are henchmen in the game?"

good point.

I agree that fame is totally useless right now, save for henchmen, for which 20 fame is a negligible cost. The main problem is that Champions themselves are not terribly useful.

Here is how I would fix it.

 - brutally lower the Attack values of trained units and their weapons. This way, Champions keep up in damage.

 ( the idea being that, at comparable experience levels (loot included), a single Champion has roughly the same Attack as a top-of-the-line unit. More for Warriors, less for Mages, of course).

 - also slightly lower their per-level gained HP. (What, exactly, is moddable, as far as level upgrades go?).

 - mostly eliminate automatic fame-based champion acquisition. Instead, put some Champion-summoning spells in the grimoire, as in MoM. Make these spells have a Fame cost. If auto-champion is still in, make it cost much more than the spell. For example, you could summon a Lv. 3 hero for 100 fame + 50 mana, or a Lv. 9 for 500 fame + 250 Mana. You still get auto-champions at 1000 fame (and in linear progression, instead of exponential: 2000, 3000 etc.)

(Also, is it possible to give the AI a hint about these spells?)

 - ideally, get rid of Henchmen and Scions. They are a poor replacement for the fact that mundane units do not gain new capacities at level-up. (For example, any unit equipping a Fire wand could get the Fire spells at level-up).

Now, I did not yet try modding this game, but I'm half-serious about implementing the above. Are there any modding guides, besides the thread posted by Frogboy

Circonflexe: Here, if you scroll down a bit, I asked the same question, and Primal_Savage made a nice list of links to various guides and tips. Really useful.

I don't particularly agree with your design goals, as I tend to want to move away from "stacks of doom", but whatever floats your boat :3. I do think you can mod "stats at unit level", seeing as how the Patchwork mod seems to do that. If nothing else you could give everyone the Wraith racial ability that gives -1 hp/level, thus halving the hp bonus per level.

Personally, I think the biggest issues with the champions are threefold:
1. In the beginning of the game, they are gained far too quickly, so you don't really know what to do with them.
2. Except for the Warrior and Mage classes, the other options are fairly underwhelming. Assassin's decent but defender and commander feels very "meh". The patchwork mod somewhat fixes this, though I still feel the defender class is pretty meh.
3. Champions rarely have much unique going for them. I'd much prefer if they started out with some special ability not usually accessible for a certain class, such as a mage having Leadership or what have you.

If anything, I'd give all champions some army-boosting ability. Perhaps lowering the default spell resistance by 10, but having all champions grant +15 spell resistance to the army they're in (non-stacking).

Thanks for the pointer! Although for programming tutorials, using a video form is a moronic idea... (videos are more suitable for magic tricks or knitting tutorials!)

I don't want to make stacks of doom, but instead to give the Champions something else to do apart from Mage... And, with my proposal, if you don't like your proposed Champion, simply sack him and re-cast when you get enough resources.

About your points:

1. totally agree with you. This is why I want to make them come much slower.

2. we all agree that Mage currently is the best career choice. I disagree with you about Warrior: the other half of my heroes become Commanders instead (for the great army bonuses in experience and initiative). The Warriors lack in damage and initiative (my trained horsemen kill the enemy before the Warrior acts). I don't think I ever used an Assassin or Defender.

3. the best champions are the more unique ones, such as Pellion the Bright or Raza the Wild Generic champions are just glorified Henchmen and could be disposed of. Army bonuses are cool, but not a blanket +15 resistance; it should depend a lot on the hero (and be an unlockable feat as the hero gains levels). Maybe, depending on the hero, some +moves on the first turn, +initiative for the first turn, (-1 damage/+1 fire damage).

2. I guess I tend to play shorter games, in which the number of levels required to get decent amounts of army bonuses for a commander means half of the game they'll not do much at all, meanwhile an early Warrior hero can really kick-start your expansion. Furthermore there seems to be more warrior champions than commanders from the ones you get; I very often get to choose between warrior and something else, but only rarely do I get the option for a commander.

3. My thought for spell resistance was that many of the spell effects you oppose are things that to me it seems a leading hero by itself could help against; conditions like Beguiled and Afraid for example. The point would be that you can have unled armies and they tend to be far more weak-willed, but if they are led by a champion they get their sh*t together and won't run from some demon. But I agree that varying bonuses depending on what champion makes a lot of sense.

So far, I've never ever built a henchman however. Honestly I don't like them at all and just stay away from them. I like the _concept_ of a henchman/squire/whatever, but I think the implementation is at the very base flawed. Personally, if I had the coding skills for it, I think henchmen should be a generic skill that you put points into, and that a henchman should be another unit sharing your square, having it's own attack and protecting you from damage, rather than a separate creature. Granted, that would require a reprogramming of how the game works at a quite basic level (and honestly I'd like mounts to work kind of the same way) and is far outside the scope of what I'm able to do. But hey, one can always dream

I do too. Except the "dastardly acts should reduce" I think if anything those should also increase fame. You need someone playing evil to have a chance to receive such things as well. Certainly defeats/losses reducing fame is an intriguing idea though.

"The main problem is that Champions themselves are not terribly useful."

LOL

try out the Champion Bonanza mod.

some of the champs in there can easily go over 100 attack by level 15.