Champions with Crazy High Level Equipment

I think killing off enemy champions is a tactic everyone uses, if nothing else to prevent the AI from getting them later on.  So I'd agree that the champs need a bit of help.

Plus I occasionally see wandering monsters (not even the big baddies, but like bears or ruffians) taking out an unrecruited champion.  Which always feels sad.

The ability to cast spells on their own has helped (I'm not sure how it entirely fits the lore, but that's okay).  Some better spell use would help more, but some summons in place from the start, or some mercs or something would be nice.  I guess the only real issue would be people wondering why when they hire the champ they don't get the champ's army too.

Since killing Champs post-recruitment-> causes them to respawn ...

Maybe 'killed' Champs (that haven't been recruited yet) can respawn as well!

now, this could be in showing up during Quest events (take the reward or recruit the Champion) ... or respawning on the map again (after a few turns).

They really need to make champions on the map MUCH harder to kill...

They absolutely do NOT need to make champions on the map harder to kill. The situation described in the OP is due to current item pricing. Some of the items are so expensive currently that you can finance your entire kingdom for quite a while just by selling one of them. I'm sure they will balance items costs in upcoming patches and then this entire issue goes away.

I do think having killed "unclaimed" heroes respawn on the map at their previous location after random(x) amount of turns is a great idea.

They do need to make champions more powerful, they never increased their traits when they increased their levels.

Champion used to be levels 1/2/3/4/5 now they are 1/3/5/7/9 but have fewer traits then levels. With so few level traits available it makes all lv 3/5 champions horrible mages and uninspired warriors. I stopped playing a warrior Sov because it was so rare to find a decent mage champion to back him up and even if you find a decent 7/9 mage his lack of traits cripple him because he is so hard to level.

Your Sov starts with like 3-6 traits at lv 1, that's more than some lv 9 champions

even though they are overpriced they are still  ridiculously powerful for the effort it takes to get them. so just lowering the price won't 100% fix things but it will help.

Hehehe I survived by escaping my city with my army, taking an enemy city selling off one item worth 4200 gildar and bouncing from enemy city to enemy city. From there I destroyed 2 factions their entire armies over and over and over untill they started throwing junk at me then took over 3 more cities. Only problem is I'm unable to defend those cities lol plus they now start throwing knights at me who are causing me losses (my dear and poor level 8 and 9 armies).

lol i think i totally prefer warrior sovereign tbh

there are only 2 or 3 good high lvl champions able to tank well, dmg doesnt matter since it all depends on drop weapons so the strongest combo imo is sov warrior and a set of support mages/whatever champions

its true a sov mage is much more powerful than the average champion but high lvl mages dont scale so well  its all about luck of getting the good traits soon and the good mage gear thats pretty rare

One thing that would help is making each champion into a lair with an encounter. For those who don't know, and encounter is the game definition of when you enter a battle during a quest. That way, the hero you are attacking can have minions to defend him and some better equipment and health. Make each hero attack more like a boss fight with high risk/rewards. It should no be so easy to wipe them off the map. 

Agreed.

At the very least it should be interesting, not just:

Hey, look a random kingdom/empire champion standing around in enemy territory all alone just watching an entire enemy army approach, lets gank him for his sweet loot. 

Not really a fan of the current champion hiring system, its random an unbalanced in like every way.

This is such a great idea. I like the way you think. It solves a ton of problems in one go. They could scale it so the champions under level 5 would either have a few very weak minions or none at all. The higher level ones with the uber gear could have progressivly tougher protecter minions as well.

I wonder how hard it would be for them to implement? If the tools to do this are already in the game I think this would also add a lot of flavor/interest/epicness with little development investment on their part. If not, they could probably still get the same effect by grouping champions with a few units rather than having them always solo on the map.

I can make a mod that does this, so they should be able to do it too. 

Cool.  After hiring a champion we can get to fight their scorned armies. 

I would like to see champs having bodyguards too (how have they survived out in the wilds all by themselves anyway?) I think it would be cool if you could hire their bodyguards with them too - they could be special units e.g. Janusk's tankard guards etc. Some colourful bodyguards could add to the identity of the heroes and would also allow you to get stuck in with them straight away rather than having to train a bodyguard for them. A few extra perks for the high level champs (to equate with their levels) would be welcome too. If they raise the hiring fees to include the bodyguards that's fine with me

There's definitely a lot that could be done.

I'd imagine some champions would have tried to create their own cities.  Maybe defeating that city will yield a city plus a champion.  Maybe defeating them will only kill them.  Maybe they would want diplomatic capital to join your cause.

Other champions would be real mercenaries, out in the wilds killing monsters with a band of other units.  They'd want gold or other resources, and would be gildar and item poor but great fighters, unlocking large parts of the map that they've seen in their travels.

Others might be reclusive mages, locked away in a tower, and want crystal or mana to join your cause.  They might bring lost technologies if you hire them on.

I'd imagine some of them hold a grudge, and would join your cause if you declared war on their hated enemies.

Real assassin heroes should be nearly stealthed, and you'd only stumble onto them by accident, or they approach you.

The champions with the godly artifacts should be acting godly.  They should be destroying kingdoms, defeating the very elemental lords of land, building many cities, claiming and razing resources, and otherwise act as a force of nature that should be avoided, negotiated with, or killed.

There's so many more options than just sticking champions by themselves with legendary artifacts, asking for a few hundred gildar.  If they do stick with nothing fancy like the situations everyone has described above, then just go simple and let champions be recruited through an inn.  Makes it much less random, and less easy to exploit, and you can add in different factors like kingdoms with much diplomatic capital tend to attract better heroes.  Master of Orion 2 had a good system like that.

It would solve one other problem too.  Right now I completely skip doing any quests in favor of rapidly exploring the map to find and recruit champions.  Having to quest to get them would give a reason to do quests again.  In fact, I'd prefer a champion as a reward to another item.

I like the idea champions having a party. I would also like it when some mighty campions creating their own neutral cities and attacking the player. Like in Civ5 champions could be handled like the city states Empire Heroes attacking Kingdom factions et vice versa.

And there needs to be some wizards that are living in a wizard's tower. 

I still say the champions need small bands of troops to equal out their importance. a level 9 hero should at least require a bit of effort to kill before the enemy can recruit them. But the fact is I can kill one with a lvl 3 hasted procipenee and her hasted dogs.

I'd suggest lowering the prices on all shop/found loot. Its out of proportion to the taxes that come in from your cities.

To make champions more than targets sitting on the map. How about instead have them wander around the map with small armies.

Or have high level ones offer themselves up for competitive bidding to all the factions. In this way they wouldn't have to be on the map. Not sure this helps though, I always seem to have more money than most of the AIs.