[Suggestion] Champions

Can anyone share his thoughts about my idea? (It is working all the time in my mind )

I think when fighting monsters  death aught be the expectation.    But when fighting another faction most of our notable units should be taken as POW's / slaves (depending if your empire or kingdom).

Those POW's or slaves can then be used or traded.  I also think that  mundane units also should be captured and made into slaves,  Certainly their equipment aught be captured and melted down for it's metal or sold for some of it's value. 

'ell back in the bad old days cleaning up after war was a big part of the economic activity.  Even the teeth of the dead where collected and sold for dentures.   As it stands in Elemental you kiss 1000's of gilder goodbye when your troops die and there is no way to reclaim even a tiny fraction of that.

What I want to know is why you can find items and gold at ancient battle fields, but recent ones contain nothing of value??

Robbie Price.

Champions should be allowed to flee from the battle field after their army loses 75% of its strength.

Example: Army of 400 points is reduced to 100 points. At this point in time their champions can attempt to flee the battlefield by reaching the edge of the battlefield.

The idea of surrendering/retreating/etc., and not just dying, has merit.   Unit morale is already present in the game and could be used for this.

Non-fatal outcomes for champs does open up a lot of possibilities as you mention -- ransoming, quests to free (not just freeing one's own champs but freeing a third parties' champs or especially its' royals from a captor to gain a big diplomacy bonus with the third party), bargaining chips in diplomacy, etc.  This would be especially useful with enemy royal family members.

I would caution against a 'torture' option, as it could affect the game's rating and saleability.

Random was pretty common in feudal Europe, it'd make a fun game mechanic to be able to ransom champions once their armies have been defeated or to execute them.

And your writing is pretty good!  Better even than some native english speakers I know.

ya'll are aware that champions already have the option of retreat...right?

I like the idea that Champions might be hardy warriors that can be nursed back to health after a defeat, and then be sold for ransom.

@ilindil - not that your statement isn't true BUT it had nothing to do with what i was saying....

what i was saying was that the op is just flat out wrong and no one had thought to mention that fact.

I certainly like the idea of capturing an enemy hero and holding them for ransom. I always liked that in Mount and Blade and HATED how they'd always die in Total War.

On a related note:

The way I see Champions is that they are 'Battleships' while normal units are 'swarms of fighters'.

A champion should be a massive (or just really strong) unit that can take a lot of punishment without losing a lot of power/utility during the course of combat. During combat it could be weakened and captures (knocked out and taken captive) or have it's engines/weapons disabled (just knocked out). After combat you would repair it, and get it back ready for another engagement.

A swarm of fighters is far less valuable, they attack in droves (just like squadrons of units), deal damage individually, and can get taken out one by one - making the squadron weaker pretty fast. After combat the squadron can get replenished with new fighters, and different squadrons can be combined to form a new one.

The idea of your champions not always being killed, but instead taken prisoner for some sort of ransom/exchange is rather interesting. It adds yet another layer of depth to the risk of using champions, maybe they'll add something like this when they do the champion revamp. It should also certainly be an option for the royal families within the game, and perhaps if you have held onto a prisoner long enough, you can change their disposition towards your kingdom/empire and have them join you.

i do like the idea of ransoming champions (big money if you catch a princess!).

Big money, maybe, but you also have to deal with the stream of ogres, plumbers, etc. coming to save her.

  look out 6 fingered man, Nicingio Montoya is after you...

I like the basic idea- it plays well into elemental's flavor. Might be somewhat difficult to implement (don't know.) but it would make sense if battle had more of a tangible effect on the world. It would also help long term adventuring prospects if players were actively generating quests. Rescue the princess, salvage the ruins of a razed/earthquaked/etc. city, explore battlegrounds. I feel the results of a champion losing in battle against a player should be consistent, (possibly different based on empire/kingdom) but randomly getting bad rolls just feels bad. It would be nice if, after winning a hard fought war, you weren't cripplingly weaker than your peaceful rivals who spent the time powering up, while the warring factions razed eachother's cities, and getting your champions back, and being able to salvage some of the resources from lost cities and armies would go a good distance to that effect.

Worthwhile idea. Ransoms would work really well. You could even do the purchase in the diplomacy screen once you have the tech that allows you to purchase the other nations champions.

I will add this new idea to my first champions thread.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/398778

Ransom is an awesome idea, it would add so much too the game, especially if you could try to rescue them.

I'd also like their stuff. A well equipped champion is wearing like 1000 gold on him