I think you have to have enough money to talk to them.

BTW, don't higher them unless they are level 1 royals. All the other benefits are really bad, and champions are really really inefficient with the current build.

They do, sort of. Left-click on them, then mouse over the "hire" icon on the action tab, and it will tell you why not.

So it wouldn't hurt to check the 'hire' option on the off chance...

Me too, I thought it seemed weird that I hired someone when i was about ten squares away.

I was wondering if anyone knows about or can direct me to how the hireling bonuses work, such as a bonus to food, or movement speed?

Do they only activate with the NPC stationed in a city, or do they occur whether in a group or in a city?

Thanks

well my hero had a movement of about 9+ moves per turn, so maybe thats why i could hire guys that were outside of my influence even though i wasn't near them. maybe it was calculating that i could be near them if i chose to travel to them within that one turn. idk, just a guess why the code is off.

I got a 1.06 game (large map, 5 fallen foes, second-hardest difficulty) and had a lot of luck with a non-melee, no normal troops, spellcasting Sov,  many imbued champions (including my 4 kids), and as few cities as possible (settled only 2, the others I conquered).  I made it a point to seek out and recruit any and all champs as a main part of the strategy  for the game.  The wife had the dominate trait (don't they all?  ) which was passed down to the daughters (no comment ).  All 4 kids got channeling for free. 

At ~turn 300 I had 15 channelers (me, wife, 4 kids, in one stack with 6 summoned earth elemental things; second stack had 9 imbued champs -- 2 were daughter-in-laws -- and a few summoned fire giants).  Few foes got close enough to melee these stacks.  Most of the kids had essence in the 60-70 range, and the imbued champs in the 40-50 range.