Hey folks, I was responding to a post about balance when I thought of an interesting idea I think would add a lot of flavor to the game. Currently, when your sovereign or a champion levels up, you simply get to add some stat points which is nice but I think rather....bland. I'd like more interesting options. So how to do this? Well, it wouldn't be hard to through in another interface on level up that not only do you get to place a stat point, BUT! you also get to spend a talent point which has various effects on your champion/character. You can have both a general tree, a faction (kingdom/empire) tree, and a class tree (for royalty/merchant/whatever).

This would allow many more options and meaningful decisions to open up for the player. Do I specialize more on the combat end? Well, do I want to be able to lead bigger stacks, give more bonuses to the stacks I do lead, or do I want general army bonuses? Do I want to instead concentrate on my personal combat abilities? Do I want to go more defensive stuff, like perhaps innate spell resistance, or maybe even a better chance to avoid ranged attacks? Or perhaps do i want more offensive capabilities, such as to have a chance to 'daze' any enemy stack/unit I hit for a turn, lowering their combat speed? Do I want to concentrate on being able to take down larger units?

Or, you could even eschew combat altogether and go a more Empire/Kingdom Builder route, getting talents that allow you to increase production at any city your stationed at, or globally increase the benefit of caravans, etc.

To implement this properly, one minor game system change that would need to be redone is stacking and Army Leadership. You would need to have to appoint a 'leader' for the army, and have him able to lead a certain number of units based on his traits (Charisma is what I'd use). You would need to allow units to form into stacks AFTER the recruitment phase. Make sure you use the lowest combat speed for that units combat speed, so if you have a high combat speed hero that joins up to lead a group of peasants, the peasants combat speed is used instead (maybe have a talent that changes this?).

Another minor tweak would be the way units gain experience. I feel any unit stationed in a city should slowly (VERY slowly) gain experience so that your merchants/researches would be able to level up over time. The exact amount would have to be tested for balance of course.

Would this be moddable? If so, would anyone with experience in coding or whatevers needed for modding be willing to work with me on this? (unless the developers want to implement this, if so yay)

Some off the top of my head ability ideas, numbers of course would need testing and balancing:

Friend of the Forest (Kingdom Ability Tree, Cost: 2 talent points): Allows faster movement of armies led by this hero through woodland terrain, and you are 10% less likely to be attacked by wolves/spiders/other foresty creatures.

Sergeant/Lieutenant/Captain (General ability tree, 1 talent point for first rank, 2 for second, 3 for third): Allows champion to lead a stack of size 3/8/12 (however they scale, I forget) respectively.

Terrible to Behold (Empire Ability Tree, Cost: 4 talent points): Units that attempt to attack the champion or the stack he is in have a 15% chance of cringing in fear, losing their attack action

Dragonslayer (Warrior Ability Tree, Cost: 3 talent points): Do 30% more damage to any large creature (ogres, dragons, etc.)

Masterful Engineer (Merchant ability Tree, Cost: 3 talent points): Shipping and Merchant traffic are increased in your kingdoms influence, giving you a 50% bonus to all caravan traffic bonuses.

Master of the Shadows (Assassin ability tree, cost: 4 talent points): This unit and any army it leads, if in an army smaller than X units, cannot be seen by other units until X amount of squares away or within an enemy empire/kingdoms influence.

Ive many more ideas but you get the point.

Thoughts? Is this totally stupid? Be brutally honest guys.