Part 2. What features/content should a Legendary Heroes expansion include?
Firstly a simple title for an expansion could be Legendary Heroes Reborn or perhaps something more mystical and darker that represents a new threat to the world; Legendary Heroes- Elemental Twilight or Legendary Heroes – the Darkening
The premise for the expansion could be this. Ok these ideas aren’t all that original but nothing in the fantasy genre is anymore……So lets go with something that works imo.
A new continent has been discovered by the 2 factions: Kingdoms & Empires that was apparently unscathed by the Cataclysm. This prompts a rush from each race to sail to & conquer the new continent by the usual 4X means. Upon the discovery of the new continent there would be a darker undertone in the scenario as a new threat is discovered that has lured the Enchanters to the new lands for an as yet unknown sinister purpose.
The new continent has a very different climate & geography to the known world of Elemental. Instead of vast open grasslands & plains we see vast jungles, volcanoes, swamps (again), tropical beaches, coral reefs and vast mountain ranges.
The Most important features to the Expansion Pack could include
1) A new scenario
2) New continent to play sandbox games that has lots of new exciting lands to explore, quests to complete, dangerous wildlands and other phenomena to experience. This includes new resources some very rare and valuable.
3) More monsters, more treasures, improvement to goodie huts. More variety in monsters is always good. Lets have more like the Banshee that are immune to physical damage, say Wraiths & Death Knights – 2 of my MoM favourites. Oh and Phantom Warriors & Phantoms Beasts please! They were some of the coolest monsters in MoM and their ability to ignore armour made them very interesting to fight.
We do also need more variety in early game treasures. Throwing daggers? Well why not enchanted throwing daggers that will always hit the enemy in the eye and blind them? Or flaming throwing daggers that deal a magic attack to help deal with the increase in physically immune monsters…
Some of the goodie huts are a bit lacklustre, the Ancient Library – surely there can be a bit more in these than some research points, how about a very rare spell or a scroll
4) Improvement to terrain
A big one, if you can’t turn the world into hexes can you at least rotate things into an isometric view and get rid of the jagged 90°angles that we see everywhere in the rivers, the coasts etc….. Can you make the terrain more gradual and meandering. Coasts need some beaches to access lagoons and shallow coastal waters which units can move across to access atolls.
5) New Battlegrounds. Now we have battles in shallow coastal tiles and shallow lagoons around coastal atolls and coral reefs that are frequently inhabited by Kraken & crocodiles. These are positioned around the edge of the continent.
For anyone who’s played Total Annihilation Kingdoms and remembered the tropical maps with the beaches and coral atolls you can fight over. That’s the inspiration here.
6) More immersive city economy & civilization management. This would include an expansion to the existing city level up tree.
Currently the economy works like this.
Towns provide gold for units & food to grow larger cities, Conclaves provide research and mana & Fortresses build armies. It’s very basic and needs a simple overhaul.
Now most buildings will require upkeep so you have to prioritize which ones you need more over others. Population will now produce gildar, possibly around 0.25 gildar for every 10 residents. This means that population growth is now very important as you will not be able to afford a lots of armies and infrastructure without the population to tax. This also makes Towns much more useful as they grow the fastest and have access to a majority of the financial buildings available.
Tax rates are changed slightly. No tax & Low tax options are removed, just normal and above. Currently you can pick the wealthy trait for 500 gold and farm monsters for cash and have no tax rate and get an unfair advantage to city building speed. Therefore there will always be some tax and therefore some unrest
Unrest is modified. Now if you have negative unrest it becomes positive and grants that city a boost to research, productivity and growth! UI will show red for negative and green for positive.
Unrest will now have local city and global empire ramifications. If a local city has very high unrest than riots may break out or the city may become neutral.
If global average is high than there is the chance for bandits & rebels to appear in your surrounding areas and attack your resources.
7) New City Option: The Capital
Right now we have 2 types of settlements: towns, conclaves & fortresses. Now we have the capital. It will have access to all of the town specific buildings and most of the buildings specific to the Fortress & Conclave. Essentially it is your mega-settlement and the one that will really drive you’re economy. It won’t have the unique level up pathway the Conclave & Fortress has so it’s not quite as good at research and military as those cities but it’s still very useful.
You may choose a Capital City only once when any settlement reaches level 2.
The Capital will have its own unique upgrade Pathway. Many of its building choices will relate to your Sovereigns Palace and various upgrades to the Palace which can help you win diplomatically, store treasures, create fame to attract merchants and mercenaries, create a Praetorian Guard that defends your cities (better than militia) & better administer your people/economy etc….
8) Improved UI, AI, diplomacy. Nuff said. A bit more individual personality between sovereigns if that is ok. Civ 5 is a good model here. Some Civ 5 AIs like Shaka/Zulu are all out warmongers but if you have the opportunity to befriend him by giving him your religion he can be very loyal.
I notice a lot of Stardock’s diplomacy just rates on military strength. AIs will be friendly if your powerful & hate you if your weak….. That does need to change. Not all AIs should immediately dislike you if you are weak….
9) 2 New races (I’m going to say Lizardmen & a race of humanoid trolls that is similar to the Warcraft DarkSpear trolls) that aren’t part of any faction.
Lizardmen will have an Aztec feel with pyramid like cities and a strong connection to shamanism and special magic arts. Their reptilian skin should make them hard to kill.
The humanoid trolls would have a Cambodian feel with lots of stone structures like Wats. They would have their own well developed magic arts in voodooism and other witch doctors etc….
10) New magic schools & new spell trees that reach beyond the Life, Death & 4 elements. These would still use the Elemental magic shards but they are not bound to 1 sphere entirely as they represent more shamanistic/voodoo magic that uses a variety of spheres and arts. These new schools can be unlocked 1 level at a time (as the current spheres do)
Shamanism is a connection to the spirits and elements of the earth. The spells will focus heavily on healing arts and calling upon the elements to unleash destruction upon their enemies. Many shaman spells are amplified by controlling elemental spheres.
Voodism has a focus on invoking the spirits of the dead to arise in anger and curse the foes of the caster. Only the Lizardmen or Trolls can use this magic. The spirits of the dead can also imbue the caster with great power. Many Voodoo spells require life and death shards to amplify power. Note that voodism is unique to Trolls & Lizardmen and these are the only races & it is the only tree that can operate both death & life shards simultaneously.
11) New Character/Hero pathways beyond the Defender, Warrior, Assassin, General & Mage - The Shaman and the Druid. Only Lizardmen & Troll humanoids can pick these 2 hero types. They can be recruited by the Kingdoms or Empires.
The Shaman is a rather jack-of-all trades hero tree that heavily utilizes the 4 elemental spheres for magical spells, healing & elemental attacks. The shaman will fight like a beserker warrior/mage hybrid with unique shaman spells. A shaman hero will have special access to the Shamanistic arts spell tree.
The Druid is a shape-shifting being who can transform into a variety of animal forms to access special attacks and abilities. The druid in humanoid form can cast spells. The druid is only available to Trolls & Lizardmen.
Also the Assassin tree needs to make archer heroes more useful
The General tree needs some attention too. It has some great benefits like reducing unrest but if a General hero sits in a city he/she won’t get any experience. These passive traits need to include free experience per turn so they can be used as a full city administrator….
12) New Wonders and a new video scene for each Wonder: Something to reward the Civilization junkies like me and offer a little more immersion
13) Improvements to the fame system and more random events. Now fame will give a chance for merchants to appear at your capital selling valuable magic items, mercenaries that wish to serve under you and even for mysterious visitors that offer rewards for special quests. Now fame is something very useful.
Some more random events wouldn’t hurt, maybe a volcano or fissure opening up from the earth that belches out elementals. A break in the space-time continuum that causes the corpses of the dead to rise unleashing hordes of undead on the world…. MoM’s Ancient God that would give you a free magic item was always a favourite of mine.
14) Balance overhaul to unit weapons & traits.
Most of the weapons feel too similar. The crystal weapons should deal more defense piercing spell damage that makes them a really viable option compared to metal weapons.
Some of the traits are too powerful. I always find myself choosing underdog (+3 attack to high level units) and constitution. On higher difficulties I can still neglect military technology and continue going into the Civic techs to get the co-operation bonus and increases in army size. With 4 individuals per squad with underdog & constitution I can usually hold my own against AIs that are a full tier ahead of me in technology.
I would be tempted to make crystal much rarer and require crystal weapons to use some metal.
Metal can be forged into Steel using a new resource coal at a slower rate than it is mined as metal. Steel would be required to make higher end weapons in the military tech tree.
Shortbows, longbows & crossbows need more variety. Each weapon should have a unique range so each weapon feels distinct from the other. The longbow and crossbow should both be comparably useful weapons with different uses…
15) New Feature: Religion
What do the humanoid races of Elemental worship; Deities, elementals, gods, titans, their ancestors or their sovereign????
Your races religion would be a new feature that would add a new interesting feature. You start a religion by building a temple in your capital to a particular diety. This would provide a variety of bonuses. Your sovereign may find a tablet in their exploring that has an inscription to a diety that unlocks a particular temple.
Building a temple may invoke a blessing from a particular god, allow for abilities or spells from that god to help you in battle and even be given magical items as a gift as could happen in MoM
Evil races like the Empires could build a temple to worship their sovereigns that reduces unrest?
Hope that creates some inspiration for a Legendary Heroes expansion!
