Hero Stacks or Hero Generals?

[Aurumworks]

Which one do you use most?

At the beginning I used Hero Stacks but after a while I decided that's too much cheese, so I made every Hero a General for their own stack. Found out that when lead by a proper boosting Hero, even tier 1 units can be really effective. It also allows me to move in more than one direction for clearing and outpost building.

What are pros/cons you experienced for either?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

People use hero stacks?
Why waste perfecty good generals?

[Midas]

I used hero stacks in AoW3, but stopped using them before too long. Actually, I ended up disabling heroes entirely in AoW3 because they made the battles less about the actual armies and more about how many high-level spells they could spam. Since then I've used them as leaders for their individual stacks in planetfall and AoW4. I pretty much always have just one hero in each stack now.

The main advantage for having one per stack is that heroes are very clearly designed with this in mind, and have a lot of abilities that benefit the stack so long as the hero is the leader, so it's an efficient way to increase the overall power of a stack with a single unit, while also having that unit be able to fill whatever role you want them to fill.

I don't see much point in doomstacks of heroes beyond allowing you to double-down on certain hero-only tech like free summons to get a single stack that has higher combat potential than any other single stack.

[Janthis]

In Planetfall I used to have stacks with 2 heroes: One leader/support, the other specced for combat. Here it's much harder to get heroes so I generally give each one their own stack, to take advantage of the various bonuses they give units. I might make a hero stack to clear some gold-level wonder but it's been rare.

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

People use hero stacks?
Why waste perfecty good generals?

Compared to high tier units, extra heroes only cost 30 GPT and no Imperium, and can bring a wide variety of powerful abilities to the table.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

People use hero stacks?
Why waste perfecty good generals?

Compared to high tier units, extra heroes only cost 30 GPT and no Imperium, and can bring a wide variety of powerful abilities to the table.

Fair point.

[leonardonabreu]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

People use hero stacks?
Why waste perfecty good generals?

Compared to high tier units, extra heroes only cost 30 GPT and no Imperium, and can bring a wide variety of powerful abilities to the table.

Main issue is finding gear to all the heroes. Have been clearing wonders and infestations, but rarely find good items (above tier II) this way. Killing or capturing heroes is better, but give relationship penalties. Best way to get high level gear is trading with AI, but it is only feasible if good relations.

[StopSolo&HelpTeam]

Perfectly good generals? Imao what?
AOW3 had great generals (+40% energy resistance all stack) and great bruiser heroes (warlord).

In AOW4 no general ability is strong enough to justify having a single general.

Besides, only 3 stacks can partecipate any battle so if you go for generals at any given time you are only partecipating with 3 heroes.
And that means that only 3 heroes are exping.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by SR:

Perfectly good generals? Imao what?
AOW3 had great generals (+40% energy resistance all stack) and great bruiser heroes (warlord).

In AOW4 no general ability is strong enough to justify having a single general.

Besides, only 3 stacks can partecipate any battle so if you go for generals at any given time you are only partecipating with 3 heroes.
And that means that only 3 heroes are exping.

Thanks for pointing this out.

[Aurumworks]

But with all Heroes in a stack you have your most effective combat group only in one location at a time, not three, four, five. So when you clear with non-Heroes in other direction no Hero gets XP from that fight.

With Generals you can have a primary group of three stacks with Heroes and then secondary groups with other Generals and normal unit stacks to explore/clear in other directions. And not only clear, putting down outposts, too.

[Midas]

Originally posted by SR:

In AOW4 no general ability is strong enough to justify having a single general.

That's why there are several abilities. It also depends on what kinds of abilities you have access to from your build. Granting stuff like mass flanking to cavalry, or +15 health to everything in the stack is pretty nice, but those benefits won't stack if you have several heroes.

[DesertRose92]

The issue with support heroes is that many abilities require the hero to be in the very army stack, not just present in the battle. This prevents you from using a mounted hero's greater mobility to clear the map quicker.
As a result support heroes are less strong than you think they are, especially in the early game.

Support heroes get stronger as most of the map has been cleared and it is more important to have a big strong army in one spot to fight other empires, but that's also the time when investing in more heroes can become more cost effective than investing in Tier IV or V units. And many support abilities explicitly do not affect other heroes...

If support abilities affect all (non-hero) units on your side on the battlefield instead of just the one in their stack support heroes would become a lot more viable.

[Star Paladin]

If they just made it so only 1 hero per stack was allowed, non of this would ever be happening. Being able to stack heroes can really be cheese OP and the opposite of thematic. They are WAY more powerful than units; have no upkeep like units; can move faster than most units; and it can make units kind'a laughable to bring along.

[Seswatha]

A mix, generally. I find that you want to go up to to at least 3 full stacks ASAP and 3 hero stacks are just too expensive, especially when -50`% discounted t1 units are 4 gold or mana per turn base. But as you grow richer you want to up your army quality, and heroes are a good option for that, often better than adding a t3-t5 unit. They're more of a longer term investment though, so I generally add them when my gold economy allows it and when I see that I still have time and fights to level them, as well as some decent equipment, ideally.

I do often field a 3 hero stack to clear gold wonders.

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

Being able to stack heroes can really be cheese OP and the opposite of thematic.

How is making adventuring parties of heroes not thematic for a fantasy 4X game?

Originally posted by Seswatha:

... especially when -50`% discounted t1 units are 4 gold or mana per turn base.

3 gold or mana, actually.

[Demiurge]

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

If they just made it so only 1 hero per stack was allowed, non of this would ever be happening. Being able to stack heroes can really be cheese OP and the opposite of thematic. They are WAY more powerful than units; have no upkeep like units; can move faster than most units; and it can make units kind'a laughable to bring along.

lol I thought it was already that way. I thought they changed it for aow4 and could have only 1 hero per stack, so thats what I was playing like lol. Oh well, good to know that you can do it, but doubt i will do that much though. It just seems wrong to me and cheesy