Suggestion: One Hero Maximum per army

[アンジェル]

Heroes are, when played right and with high level, so strong that each one of them can obliterate a whole army stack on their own with hard chances to beat them without a hero.

Being able to have more than one hero per army is currently one of the strongest "I enforce this Playstyle upon you" elements the game has. Whole army stacks of heroes only can only be countered with good chances by other army stacks made of only heroes.

Which is in my opinion too strong off balance and no fun to play.

[Cellar_Cat]

Is asymmetrical warfare viable in this game? I have not and probably will never play pvp but my understanding is that to fill armies with heroes is going to be very expensive unless you are in a long, long game with many cities. Assuming a comparable economy I wonder if you could have so many more regular armies that by preferring to attack their assets and avoid combat you might tank their income hard.

[aclyte]

Well, so-so
lv 10+ heroes are very strong indeed
But tier 3+ units does very good damage to them and easily can one-turn shot even the strongest hero using flanking and debuffs.
AoW4 system of armor/resistance + huge amount of debuffs can render any unit almost useless.

In reality you just can't field 18 heroes in battle
and even 6 heroes will lose to balanced 18-unit army

[glythe]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Whole army stacks of heroes only can only be countered with good chances by other army stacks made of only heroes.

Assuming you are talking about 6 heroes very late game you can also have a race with 1 major and like 6 minor transformations and tons of enchantments. Even limiting yourself to Tier III units you can wipe them out pretty easily with the right "doom stacks" of racial units.

[DDkiki]

Agree, such doomstacks of heroes are just terrible design. 1 hero per army would be a healthy change.

[badger vortex]

Yeah let's not take fun away from the player, seems like a terrible idea all around

[Hank]

This has been a thing since I started playing the series where a pretty optimal clear strat is to cram every hero in one squadron to max out EXP gain and create a hero doomstack heck the AI does it all the time. I would love a one hero per army rule, but they didn't do it in AOWP so eh, and plus some people LOVE this strategy and it's fun.

Originally posted by aclyte:

Well, so-so
lv 10+ heroes are very strong indeed
But tier 3+ units does very good damage to them and easily can one-turn shot even the strongest hero using flanking and debuffs.
AoW4 system of armor/resistance + huge amount of debuffs can render any unit almost useless.

In reality you just can't field 18 heroes in battle
and even 6 heroes will lose to balanced 18-unit army

Yeah but what about 6 Heroes and 2 Decent Armies?
Heroes don't cost upkeep, and it is possible to get 18 Heroes I've done it.
-Imperial Eco Build
-Make a bunch of cities with one space in between each
-Instant Release City as Vassal
-Integrate City
-Release City as Vassal
Just got yourself a Hero per city
Slap on some Vassal Economy Perks like Uniter, and done 18 Stack of heroes with a working economy. I think I had 28 at the end ran out of space to build new cities should've razed enemy cities instead of vassaling them could have gotten more heroes with the space cleared away to cram 2-3 small cities instead of one.

[Central]

Originally posted by Hank:

This has been a thing since I started playing the series where a pretty optimal clear strat is to cram every hero in one squadron to max out EXP gain and create a hero doomstack heck the AI does it all the time. I would love a one hero per army rule, but they didn't do it in AOWP so eh, and plus some people LOVE this strategy and it's fun.

Originally posted by aclyte:

Well, so-so
lv 10+ heroes are very strong indeed
But tier 3+ units does very good damage to them and easily can one-turn shot even the strongest hero using flanking and debuffs.
AoW4 system of armor/resistance + huge amount of debuffs can render any unit almost useless.

In reality you just can't field 18 heroes in battle
and even 6 heroes will lose to balanced 18-unit army

Yeah but what about 6 Heroes and 2 Decent Armies?
Heroes don't cost upkeep, and it is possible to get 18 Heroes I've done it.
-Imperial Eco Build
-Make a bunch of cities with one space in between each
-Instant Release City as Vassal
-Integrate City
-Release City as Vassal
Just got yourself a Hero per city
Slap on some Vassal Economy Perks like Uniter, and done 18 Stack of heroes with a working economy. I think I had 28 at the end ran out of space to build new cities should've razed enemy cities instead of vassaling them could have gotten more heroes with the space cleared away to cram 2-3 small cities instead of one.

so basically you payed full price for a game and than ignore 99% of the unit roster? amazing investment.

also, you are spending a lot of imperium on 1 city if you first build them, than release them and than integrate them again. a human opponent would slap you around if you waste resources like that. they will use their imperium to make multiple cities, thus their economy will be much much better.

[Hank]

Originally posted by Central:

so basically you payed full price for a game and than ignore 99% of the unit roster? amazing investment.

also, you are spending a lot of imperium on 1 city if you first build them, than release them and than integrate them again. a human opponent would slap you around if you waste resources like that. they will use their imperium to make multiple cities, thus their economy will be much much better.

Um what made you assume I ignored 99% of the unit roster?
Like I said I'm for a one Hero per army, and love army compositions. Heck 99% of my factions are army comp based like Ice Elementals + Ice Mages, Spider Scouts + Wild Speakers, Barbarian + Tier 1 Spam, and Watchers + Astral Keepers for Mage Buff Galore. But do I think the devs should implement this rule, no. Someone out there loves the hero spam build and power to them.

Again why would you assume I only made a pure hero comp and nothing else? I'm just showing how it's possible.

Also yeah I'm not playing this against other players I know it has flaws it's a proof of concept I have more PvP focus builds abusing min maxing to heck and back. I've played in AOW 3 tournaments and know what makes a good PvP build.

Again your post is major assuming alot of things I didn't indicate in my original quote.

Edit: I don't remember this community being so accusatory. Maybe Planetfall and AOW 3 just has a community that responds to ideas better. Not the first person to just assume things that I didn't ever state in AOW 4 discussions.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Being able to have more than one hero per army is currently one of the strongest "I enforce this Playstyle upon you" elements the game has. Whole army stacks of heroes only can only be countered with good chances by other army stacks made of only heroes.

It's not really enforced. A stack of six heroes can be strong if built well, but it lacks the utility of six separate stacks.
It's also only an issue in a long game - most of my scenarios are finished before I've even unlocked the second signature skill for a hero; at that point they're not significantly stronger than the top tier regular units/summons I could otherwise field. If you extend the scenario out to the point you're fielding multiple high level heroes then yes, you can put together a hero stack that's going to be tough to beat, and impossible for the AI. Problem is by that point the same applies to multiple different things you could be doing in a stack, particularly against the AI.

[Central]

Originally posted by Hank:

Originally posted by Central:

so basically you payed full price for a game and than ignore 99% of the unit roster? amazing investment.

also, you are spending a lot of imperium on 1 city if you first build them, than release them and than integrate them again. a human opponent would slap you around if you waste resources like that. they will use their imperium to make multiple cities, thus their economy will be much much better.

Um what made you assume I ignored 99% of the unit roster?
Like I said I'm for a one Hero per army, and love army compositions. Heck 99% of my factions are army comp based like Ice Elementals + Ice Mages, Spider Scouts + Wild Speakers, Barbarian + Tier 1 Spam, and Watchers + Astral Keepers for Mage Buff Galore. But do I think the devs should implement this rule, no. Someone out there loves the hero spam build and power to them.

Again why would you assume I only made a pure hero comp and nothing else? I'm just showing how it's possible.

Also yeah I'm not playing this against other players I know it has flaws it's a proof of concept I have more PvP focus builds abusing min maxing to heck and back. I've played in AOW 3 tournaments and know what makes a good PvP build.

Again your post is major assuming alot of things I didn't indicate in my original quote.

Edit: I don't remember this community being so accusatory. Maybe Planetfall and AOW 3 just has a community that responds to ideas better. Not the first person to just assume things that I didn't ever state in AOW 4 discussions.

you post your favorite hero spam and mention an army of 6 hero's...
if you dont want people to assume that that is how you play than dont post that...

[Hank]

Originally posted by Central:

if you dont want people to assume that that is how you play than dont post that...

It's relevant to the post. Just because I post a Hero Spam army doesn't mean I don't play other armies. If I said this is "All I play" then yeah it's safe to assume I don't play anything else because I literally stated it.

Also why assume there's no need, you can just ask "Hey, do you play normal type armies?" Would have literally answered YES SPIDER SPAM! Scout, Knight, Tyrant, Matriarchs you name it if it has 8 legs I'll spam it.

Edit: That web attack is straight busted, and I've hit 129 on a pack of enemies not total each with a Matriarch Web attack nasty little bugger.