While I'm in favor of reducing/eliminating the XP split with armies of more than one champion, one major issue is that the UI REALLY needs to convey this to the user. In the current state, it's not obvious how XP is divided (or that it is happening at all). Grouping the champions together and showing the XP coming out of one pool for the two (or more) of them seems like a good way to convey this.

I'd like to point out another weird aspect of XP splitting. The XP your troops get is dependent on the XP your heroes get, so having 2 heroes in a stack actually halves the XP each of your troops get as well. Troops don't split XP, but they are affected by XP split. It's completely unintuitive and nonsensical.

The thing is, this weird mechanic can't simply be removed. If troops got the same XP regardless of the number of heroes, then with 3 or more heroes, your troops now are getting more XP than your heroes.

This is exactly the kind of unintuitive, nonsensical mechanic that is the result of having another inconsistent, unintuitive mechanic. XP splitting should be applied to all units, or none.

Yeah, so what level is the dragon? Besides, the point is mute. I don't need any heroes to kill any kind of mob. You can do it with just troops. In your case you tanked a dragon with a defender and used distance weapons. The point remains though that you could have done it much simpler by replacing that with a higher level summoning mage or a higher level Defender and you wouldn't have had anywhere near the trouble. I'm not providing feedback because the game is too hard and I'm losing. I'm providing feedback because the rules in place means that all my heroes are staying at home drinking. That is the way that the math works.

that dragon was level 16 i think (12 base, +2 from world difficulty, +2 from the bad moon event thing that makes all monsters higher).

i couldn't have done it much simpler, since that dragon was on my doorstep and would have destroyed at least one of my cities if i hadn't stopped it at that point. it's perfectly doable with mid level heroes. the point is that heroes aren't underpowered. there's absolutely no gameplay reason why heroes need to be more powerful. they get the job done just fine. 

if you don't want to use heroes, that's your choice. 

And I played it with the XP split. A full huge map campaign. Challenging. Many monsters. 6 separate armies at the end. It was not fun. I found that an army of  three units is all that is needed for most encounters. Including the last one.

Just upgrade when you feel it necessary (upgraded 2 times I think). Stash heroes in cities for fear of losing them in a combat ; they are so pathetically weak! Not using many spells (since so few heroes were around). Well, for fun, some strategic spells on enemy cities, for what it mattered... Not that it made a difference. And of course those usefull spells on your cities ; these make a difference. Just smashing with bands of trained troops, always with the same tactics because troops have so few abilities...

I finished the game by quest, with three trained units. Oh yeah! Grandiose! Feels heroic. For the troops that is. Not the heroes watching from the nearest tavern. Well, I lie; they were four. The sovereign was there. Mostly watching: ranged troops would do about 100 damage every shot. The dragon died real fast. No way heroes would have done that. I remember another game when so called stack of doom did work. Did the same combat with only heroes.It was long and involved some adrenaline when the tank got too low or when the dragon did blow fire. Of course, in both instances I did win. But then stack of doom felt much much better!

So yes, given the choice, I prefer the so called stack of doom game! Just keeping all heroes alive in a combat is a challenge. By contrast, losing a trained troop is only slightly annoying. Using heroes in a complementary way is interesting ; do I cast that fireball now with this hero, for whom it is not very efficient and expensie, or do I wait the next one for some other spell ? Do I attack with that hero in bad shape, risking losing him if he cannot kill the target, or do I take the risk of another attack by the monster, which might be fatal to another hero ? How much mana can I afford to burn with that combat if I am to continue progressing at a serious rate ? With the so called stack of doom, I at least have choices and fun even if I know I'll win.

And anyway, unless you're playing over challenging (well, I suppose at least), you know you're going to win. So the point is how fun is the journey there...

Yves

PS: I actually led each army with a hero of course. Who remained inactive during all encounters, excpet the rare one specialized in fire who would occasionaly cast damaging spells, or the ones with slow/haste, who would occasionally cast these spells. The hero was usually irrelevant to the combat (in the sense that his participation was not significant to achieve victory) and would avoid getting in melee range. An assassin could and would go attacking, but he barely scratched enemy units. A commander quicky abonned all troops after getting killed four times because he was so weak he could not carry a decent armor... No ; that's not Legendery Heroes. That's Leeching Heroes, just standing there to get XP.

What?! Wow. If that's the case, that's really bad news. It is a bit strange that you can add in as many troops as you want to get a free ride toward XP, but once you add in even one more hero- look out! Massive XP reduction.

Is really not as bad as you make it sound. You wouldn't want to get high level with the early game troops or mid game since you don't have access to all the magic enhancements (mounts included), nor the bonuses from well built fortresses (including city buffs and buildings that affect units defense, accuracy, hp, initiative etc). When gaining levels they get a bit of hp, spell resist and accuracy. You can only upgrade their armor / weapons and group numbers, so you will miss on everything that makes troops really powerful. 

Sure for summons, beasts, golems and other creatures joining your army it's a bit more important, but you have a building and an event to increase their level by 4 anyway.

Actually, no, it isn't my choice. I don't play games to butt my head into a wall. The way all the math works out, you are always better running a single hero and troops. The single hero and troops will out level and significantly out perform a dual hero set with troops. You aren't even arguing that point. What you are arguing is that it is possible to do it with a dual. I'm stubborn, but doing it your way isn't smart. If it isn't smart, it isn't fun.

It depends on what you mean by 'beginning' troops. Once you get the barracks/command post, and using unit enchantments and a strike garrison, not much can survive first strike. The way that the rules currently work, the heavier the armor the fewer the strikes. There isn't actually a significant reason to upgrade armor. Now, upgrading initiative definitely works, but as long as you are going faster than the other guy and doing enough damage that his stacks are reduced in size before they hit yours... These effects are magnified due to swarm. It doesn't mean that is the only way it works, but speed is significantly more important than armor. The higher the level of the troop, the better they perform.

What you end up with is that all but two of your heroes should always stay home. Your B stack inherits the leveled A stack troops, which are replaced by a better performing but lower level troop(s) run by your sovereign, which leads your A stack. Everybody gets higher level faster that way.

Lol. I don't play games to do math. 

Single hero stacks will level faster if they kill more monsters and do more quests. 

An army of three units and three mid level  champs will outperform an army with a single champ.

It doesn't matter because the AI can't compete. As with wom and fe every strategy works. Making champs level faster won't make the AI competitive. 

Your posts are getting ridiculous. 

What you choose to do is not a result of the how the game works, it's a result of the fact that you can't deal with not being able to have your cake and eat it too. It's obvious that you're completely oblivious to a dragon's skill set if you think that throwing trained units at it in lieu of heroes is a simpler way to conquer the beast.  In fact, I'm now under the impression that you haven't actually played the game at all.

I want you to show me, in detailed mathematical terms, how it's possible that splitting XP amongst your heroes is preventing you from using them at all.

Well. You are unclear. I don't know what mid level means. If you keep your heroes together, mid-level means level 5 because they will have a hard time getting over level 10 by the end of the game.

An army of three units and three heroes is likely to perform slightly better than an army of three units and champ ?

That's true at the beginning of the game, when nobody has levels that matter
At middle game, no, the single champ army will perform better due to increased levels and access to better spells/abilities.
And much better at the end of the game.

It's a nobrainer and requires no math to see that stacking two heroes is a nochoice. Just pick a game, and play the beginning. Once with one hero per stack, the other with one stack of two heoroes. You should really notice the difference!

Yves

Yves

Well, you're just doing what you condemn.

Anyway, I've looked hard in the data file, but heroes progression is hard coded. So I don't have the numbers to do any math. The scale at which heroes get new levels woud be welcome, but I've never taken the time to note it.

What is clear from my own experience is that I have a much easier time running troops around, than taking the pain of having useless heroes participate actively in combat. I've also noticed that ranged enemy units are now most often targeting the weakest unit ; meaning the hero. To prevent multiple death, I've often had to do some combat leaving the hero behind. Troops are now very resilient, and do much more damage than heroes (with the lone exception of the late game fire mage who performs almost correctly). The net result is that not only heroes have become irrelevant in a fight (because they do not really change the outcome), but they are often a liability (because you have to take more time trying to protect them than you are trying to win the combat in a straight way.)

That's not the direct effect of XP splitting, but the result of many changes in the game. XP splitting only aggravates the problem.

Even removing XP splitting is not going to make heroes legendary. Troops are now too strong for the game to take the name of Legendary Heroes. The skill tree (even though I initialy thought it a good idea) is simply a huge failure. That's as bad as that. In FE, I could have a level 5 hero with an incredible ability (something you can only get after level 15 today) ; that made these heroes feel like heroes.

Yves

PS: actually heroes are not useless.They are useless in combat. But they are very usefull to cast city spells and such. And to cast strategic spells such as blowing to hell, or simply weakening, enemy units with pillar of flames or such spells. But that's just not heroic!

I am more and more in love with multiple heroes / army (at least for main army, having a good combo gives you much more than a single hero). Running a level 12 Assassin with a level 10 spellcaster, Sin is melee / critical / dodge with full Air mastery, caster is full healer with buffs / debuffs and good spell mastery for landing interrupts etc. If something can't wipe me clean on first round before I can even move, there is nothing that can beat my army (not counting mana blast / mana shield as it's a very rare map quest, and have yet to meet an AI using either of those). I have shrink debuff for powerful melees (especially cleavers of any sorts) and growth for my Sin (which makes her hit insanely hard with her 66% AP sword, and crit ungodly - happens often as well). 50% dodge hit on 60 dodge still leaves me with 30% dodge which is plenty (and she has 40 armor, will push higher when I pick chain & enchanted chainmail). I can get 50% fire or ice resist with a single cast, insane aoe heals and good single target heals. If I buff initiative on wizard with my sin, he can interrupt 2 haunters easily (or have 2 chances to interrupt a spell from a boss if 1st one resists, like I had with the Gold God or whatever was he called from the event, bastard with every spell school AoE's, insane defense and Atk, shrunk him, then he was barely damaging my troops on counterattack when he was landing it).

My level 12 Assassin would like word with you about low level heroes being useless in combat. On 50 defense targets am doing 100-150 crits (not gonna mention gamble strike when the 50% odds of doing triple damage kick in, and it also crits). She has 60 dodge, 35 armor (waiting for enchanted master chainwork and to unlock chainmail armor in 3 levels), she can do double attacks at 75% accuracy (race specific), can teleport anywhere on map thanks to Air Master, as well as knock everyone down (who's not immune to prone, but they still get pushed back randomly), she tanks dragons and other epic creatures with ease. Now if I cast Growth on her, things get scary damage wise. She's insanely fast (gets +6 initiative from haste, which she can share with her fellow healer which makes him able to cast twice every turn, be it heals, debuffs or buffs). And I can't even use the epic sword on her from the last dragon as she needs level 15 to equip it, sticking to the level 4 one with the armor ignore

I can't believe you can say heroes are useless in combat. Yes if you are a spellcaster focused on summons / debuffs / damage, then that's all you will do, try chain cast because your damage is crap anyway. However you can make Porcipinee into a not too bad damage dealer once you get the lightning staff and pump her with +dmg stuff (she won't come close to troops or anything else, but you will do damage).

Interesting.

There may have been late modifications. My last game dates back more than three weeks ago (I won't play again with xp split active ; and if the game is released with it, it will go to my virtual shelf).

My level 16 assassin barely scratched a thing. Well, she was about 1/3 of a regular unit. And speced purely for combat. There I found for exemple that the "break" ability was... broken. Nice to take that path for nothing! I also had the path for for crit damage, but I never saw it shine... I'm truly surprised about your figures, more so when counting that you also had to take some mage picks to get these air spells...

Yves

I did pick air because my spellcaster has only life magic. Air provides my sovereign with great in-combat mobility (can teleport instantly out of a bad spot, or teleport into enemies dealing lightning damage - it also crits depending on my crit chance). Also gives me good anti range defense (guardian wind if am not mistaken), and HASTE. Haste is vital for assassins. You need to move fast, and often, you're not a tank rushing in to hit their frontline then get swarmed and get hit once and flop. You also get a very good AoE CC (which is pretty much as large as the battlefield) which pushes back and knocks prone those who don't resist or are not immune to magic / knock downs.

Each hero type different than a mage requires a bit more thinking and planning. With Assassin (be it melee or ranged, tho I wouldn't go ranged again at least until mid of game when I can get rain of arrows and remove the accuracy penalty and soften the initiative blow) you need to have decent survival and great mobility / initiative. Use other melee troops to take counterstrikes then go and 1 hit KO (at least until you get some gear / talents so you don't get 1 shot or badly wounded from it). I am not sure an Assassin would work solo without a caster (preferably a healer) support as you don't have access to key talents like a Defender or a Warrior. Use the horse mount not the warg, the extra movement and attack / ini bonus at start of fight are all you need

EDIT: forgot to mention, use daggers / swords with armor pen until you dab into shadow strike to try other weapons. Use a shield and upgrade it whenever possible (more defense and dodge, some have spell resist as well etc). Since DW only works for axes and they only bring the benefit of cleave (which not bad in itself, but I can have that on a trained unit).

Perhaps you will be interested to know that you can remove the heroes split very easily. That's what I've done as I am against some units splitting XP and some units not splitting XP. I thougt about making all troops split XP but that would require a balancing work so I went the easy way.

Could you post how you did it, in this thread or another? It would be interesting to experiment and not only see how it changes the game, but also how the AI responds to that (though I've seen the AI stack multiple heroes together).

The number of the abilities is not the problem in my opinion. The problem is that you can use them in most cases only once per combat, because they have a cooldown of 5 turns.

Yep, i think it is sad that LH will be released with an AI that is not competitive (can not cast strategic spells that inflict damage, can not cast powerful tactical spells like fireball or blizzard, ...).

I think the strength of troops is now perfect, but the heroes are still too weak, because the skill trees are too long and have too many prerequisites. If you could select every skill without any prereqisites (shadow strike: + 50 % armor penetration, geomancy: + 50 % damage with earth spells, ...) the heroes would be more powerful and every level would be important.

your logic is flawed. if you want to model the game in a way that allows you to solve it by math, you have to take more then just the single XP split mecahnic into account. i doubt it's even possible to calculate which playstyle is better. if one level 11 (or whatever) hero is better than two level 7 heroes for you, that's great. go for it. claiming that the alternative isn't smart is just arrogant. you have nothing to back up that claim. 

and on a less serious note "If it isn't smart, it isn't fun" - i disagree entirely. i've done a lot of smart and a lot of dumb things in my life. in my expericen, the dumb things tend to be more fun. i suggest you stop thinking so hard about what is mathematically best. that equation is too complicated to solve. just play the game, try stuff and see if you enjoy it. that's all the game is meant for.

You have to edit the file CoreUnits.XML in the data\English folder. This file has the definition of all the units that can be recruited at the cities. The fisrt part of the file has all the champions and the sovereigns are a bit below. You have to add this tag to every champion and evry sovereign:

<DividesBattleExp>0</DividesBattleExp>

You can add the tag manually, but if you want to make it automatically, you just have to perform a search and replace. For example search <IsChampion>1</IsChampion> and replace by <IsChampion>1</IsChampion><DividesBattleExp>0</DividesBattleExp>

The problem is not there. The problem is that heroes don't have the feel of heroes nowadays.

They are more like interesting but not capital addition to an existing trained army.

It shoud be the other way around to capture the flavour of heroic fantasy settings, where heores are what matters the most, and troops are there to fill the gap. Just read Tolkien for exemple. The book speaks of the heroic feats of Gimli, Legolas Gandalf and so on. Magnified by the presence of armies behind them. The armies are not the focus!

Also note that in said book, a stack of doom was shortly formed and defeated an army of orc. Said stack was later split but heores stuck together. They did not dissolve on per army.

This game just fails to capture that flavour. It doesn't mean that the game itself is bad.But it cannot claim to be what it pretends to be.

Yves

Which is why players at my table refused anything associated with Leadership until I redesigned that element. Sharing EXP? Socialist EXP isn't a good thing. "Sharing" exp isn't a good thing. I mean just because a Champion is in the battle doesn't mean the Sovereign "worked less" or deserves less exp. This makes champions thieves, and worthless to acquire. I keep about 3 champs unless I like all 3 a lot, and a 4th I can't get rid of comes along.

The EXP Split as is, feels like a punishment for using champions. Imagine if Non-Champion Units also stole your EXP, would you use them? Of course not. So given a choice between some EXP Welfare leech, and someone who won't rob my boss, my choice is clear, and it becomes a choice without alternatives. I can only have as many champions as I have armies to feed them and NEVER more than one per stack.

I guess to me, this is like the 5/5/5 City Plot, i mean do you have a choice? It has been argued in other threads that "less good plots is better" because you have a choice instead of a forced option.

So having a "choice" between 1 exp dragons and getting a useful enough amount of exp to make fighting worth my time?

That's the best definition of the issue I've seen in all those days. Simple and short yet it manages to capture all the essence of the problem.