Leveling Heroes

[Wise Joe]

I searched for this answer and did not see it addressed. Can leaders level as city managers? Meaning if I leave a leader in a city to provide the bonuses from being an administrator, will the hero level just by managing the city? Some games that is a feature.

Or can they only be leveled by leading armies?

Thanks.

[tvance52]

I can't remember, you can check how much XP hero has before you end the turn and then check at the start of the next turn.

You can unlock the Adventurer's Guild under Breon's Letters, one of the research options in the Magic research tree. That gives an additional 1 XP per turn for units in a city. You can only build 1 Adventurer's Guild, so choose a city that has good logistics to move your heroes where they need to go, or one near wherever you think your mid-game or late-game front lines will be.

[Wise Joe]

Excellent! Thanks for your help once again tvance52!

[wingren013]

Yes, units in cities get XP. They get more in Fortresses.

[Le gadgeteer gnome]

And then there's mods. I think the kit Xtra deconstruct (maybe with it's 3 additionnals DLCs) has specialisation with the governor type hero that boost XPs, so you can level them up in towns. But it's complicated to install them and it's a bit ugly, but full of possibilities...

[Wise Joe]

Hmmmm... I tested this and did not see any increase in leveling. But maybe it was happening very slow as I only left in for two turns looking at XP progress after each turn.

I forgot to come back and update this post with that test. I suppose I will leave one in longer and see if it matters.

Thanks for the feedback all.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Wise Joe:

Hmmmm... I tested this and did not see any increase in leveling. But maybe it was happening very slow as I only left in for two turns looking at XP progress after each turn.

I forgot to come back and update this post with that test. I suppose I will leave one in longer and see if it matters.

Thanks for the feedback all.

Units in cities ONLY get xp when they defend in an actual battle, or if there is a building in that city that EXPLICITLY gives XP while stationed.

Or mods, lol.

[Wise Joe]

Ah, thanks.

[the_charch]

even with mods, it is only like 1-3 xp a turn, it is enough to maybe grab an early level, but you won't grow big and strong

[Wise Joe]

So, what is the opinion of choosing Commander and then the lower unrest trait? Waste of time since you cannot just sit in a city to lower the unrest and level up to do more than the first level of Commander?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Wise Joe:

So, what is the opinion of choosing Commander and then the lower unrest trait? Waste of time since you cannot just sit in a city to lower the unrest and level up to do more than the first level of Commander?

I skip that level-up unless I have a specific city with really bad unrest that I need to start producing stuff faster.

[tvance52]

Originally posted by Wise Joe:

So, what is the opinion of choosing Commander and then the lower unrest trait? Waste of time since you cannot just sit in a city to lower the unrest and level up to do more than the first level of Commander?

I would never make my sovereign a Commander, but...

If I play with henchmen or sions, they pretty much all go Commander for the economy traits (unrest, research, gold).

I always go commander with any hero that doesn't hasn't picked a class yet.

The Unrest reduction is pretty much always number 1 for me, trying to get the faction wide unrest as fast as possible. It lets me produce and research faster and faster, and spam cities very quickly.

My sovereign is going to be mage or warrior, but almost everyone else is going Commander. Since my "death stack" is going to be Sovereign with non-hero units so I'm not splitting experience, and common units can handle anything other that the real end-game terrors that the "death stack" is going after, so I don't need other combat heroes/henchmen/sions unless I'm just bored and trying something different.

At least, that's how I play unless I'm roleplaying or doing a challenge of some sort.

[Wise Joe]

Excellent! Thanks for the feedback tvance52.

[tvance52]

The spell Destiny's Insight give 25 XP to a champion, it has a casting cost of 200.

it can be difficult getting sustainable mana to cast it enough to get a lot of unit leveled up, especially if you sovereign is a mage and needs the mana to solo battles so you don't need to worry about wages.

I try and use that to help level up Commanders since they're not getting combat experience other than maybe a level or two. I try and get them to Level 8 (?) for the faction-wide unrest. Or if you're impatient, you can use the cheat code to level someone up.

If you can get Fortress cities with good growth you can just use them for the unrest reduction, but it can take a while for that and I prefer to have few Fortress with 1 for units building, rest for unrest reduction. I want some Towns for food and gold. But I mostly build Conclaves for research and mana. If I have 10 cities, my usually mix is usually something like 6 Conclaves, 2 Towns, 2 Fortress... depending on circumstances. I may go more or less on any of those depending on my needs and the map. Ultimately, I want unrest to be 0 by mid-game, so either more Commanders or more Fortresses.

Obviously the Commander strategy I mentioned above probably wouldn't work in a multi-player game where you need to clear the map super fast before other humans do. But since this is a single player game and the AI will let you clear the map, I'm fine with just my sovereign handling things and my other champions mainly there to boost my economy.

You can play it however you want, though... you can play and win with a lot of wildly different strategies.

[Wise Joe]

Interesting! Most of the guides and advice I have seen suggest that you should have more cities than other types of settlements. Also, what is one supposed to do when playing a map like I currently am where most of the settlement areas (in my area anyway) have either zero essence or only essence of one available for settling? Again, the advice is (even in the manual I think) is that Conclaves should be only settled on sites that have essence available. Is that not the case?

I did not know that forts have an unrest reduction function. Interesting tip.

Thanks again.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Wise Joe:

Interesting! Most of the guides and advice I have seen suggest that you should have more cities than other types of settlements. Also, what is one supposed to do when playing a map like I currently am where most of the settlement areas (in my area anyway) have either zero essence or only essence of one available for settling? Again, the advice is (even in the manual I think) is that Conclaves should be only settled on sites that have essence available. Is that not the case?

I did not know that forts have an unrest reduction function. Interesting tip.

Thanks again.

I LOVE high essence cities for my Fortress cities. Having 3 essence allows you to have spells that buff all trained units. (as long as you have the various spells to cast on the city)

Bascially essence is ALWAYS good. Even if for no other reason than fast growth. (sovereigns call spell, IIRC)

Early game when I have few spells, I usually start with meditation to build up mana quick, the one that gives you gold is also great early game.