Ew clarity

Meaby instead of just automatically ressurecting champions, they get sent to the hospital, and cities need to spend production to heal them?
They still suffer a wound, but this would tie them more into the city mechanics, instead of being a "seperate game"

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Haha they get entered into the city's queue upon falling, perfect!

They don't need to die so much as they need to be able to be lost, unavailable, or managing affairs from home base.  Eventual death would just provoke a stronger attachment to them from the player as well.  I really like the idea of champions being able to enter a city's queue for one reason or another.

They can't die.  The system isn't made with the ability to create more, so losing them permanently is problematic.  If I have a faction that isn't skilled at getting champions, like Athica or Kraxis, than I might not have that many champions until later in the game, I often go to the midgame with only my sov and 3 other champs.  If they died, there is no way to replace them.  And they can die pretty easy.  Dark wizard doesn't seem to tough?  Well, here's a despair spell that hits everyone for 60.  Al that would do is inspire a reload.  So the penalty has to be something that we would be willing to live with, but also causing us to be cautious.  The injury system, while not perfect, does a pretty good job of this.  I'm on the other side of the fence, I think what we have now is more prohibitive than what is fun and would like more ways to cure injuries.  The big problem is that if a person is defeated in battle, but  you win, then they get the injury, but are not incapacitated.  I think they should be always transported to the capital and out of commission when defeated.  

It's been mentioned before, but each wound gained gives the affected Champion a +%5 chance of permadeath (after the first wound)

As it stands the game feels somewhat like it's on easy mode, because losing is so difficult.  It sounds as if you are shying away from a little bit more of a challenge?

How about using some troops as well?

Good ideas.  The injury system is actually quite elegant, it just needs to be expanded.

The spells killed the troops even more easily as they do x damge times the number of troops in the unit, so they are even more easily killed by spells.  Troops can't do anything to large monsters and can easily be destroyed by magic.

And as for the champions being easy mode, it has less to do with them being able to die and more to do with the crazy powerful weapons they can get, the buffs they can get, or the power of a few spells.  Going from a weapon that is a 12 to a 32 creates a real power problem.  

Guaranteed permadeath as you describe wouldn't do anything to make champions balanced.  IMHO, "balance" comes down to the fact that the AI currently doesn't use their heroes as well as good human players would (for example, I have never had an AI champion cast a direct-damage spell). 

Champions are balanced against each other, but the AI just can't keep up with a competent player.  So by the time the player is ready to go to war, his champion is 5-10 levels beyond where the AI's champs are and twinked to the sky from loot drops.  If your hero had parity with the AI's and faced off alone against the AI hero with backup, he'd be back home nursing his new wound before you knew what hit you.

Currently, players are able to plow through the game with their uber-champ without dying ever.  Really this would just handicap players who are already struggling to master the game.  Your suggestion would make no difference for good players and make the game much harder for novices.

Increasing the likelihood of permadeath (if it's still in the game, I haven't seen or heard of champs dying in any game I've played) on higher difficulties might be something worth looking into, if it did add some extra tension to the game.

And I like the idea of applying a permanent change to the spot where the champion dies.  Maybe it could have an effect depending on the type of hero? Like some make it settleable, another might spawn a monster lair nearby, or a quest, or a goodie hut.

I also like the idea of being able to hire champions away from your opponents (or have them hired away).

There could be a mechanism to would spawn new champions/quests/monsters randomly as the game progressed.  That way, if your heroes were dying or being stolen, you'd have a chance of recovering from that.  The opposite problem, however, then rears its head.  You don't want one faction with dozens of champions, either. 

So maybe you'd only spawn a new hero when an existing hero dies.  How about introducing hero aging, with the more time they spend fighting the faster they age, up to some rng generated lifespan at which point they die.  You could have potions of vitality and traits and wounds that affect the lifespan.  Fun stuff (as long as you don't have to program it or train the AI to use it).

Couldn't agree more with less overpower and more stuns.  

I am hoping for a "mob"bing counter mechanic to overkill that will give multiple units in a tile an advantage over a single one.

 

Rewards are currently much more balanced than in previous betas, and look to be getting more attention.

Regardless, imagine how much less likely you would be to risk your champion's neck for an upgrade after that first injury, knowing that they would abandon your cause after the second.  At the moment I just hope the assessment of an enemy's strength in the tool-tip is accurate, forming very little strategy around the encounter.  Unless it's an army of troops that took me a few dozen turns to research and develop, I have little to lose in just jumping in.

I would love to settle a city around one of my champion's graves.  The stories played out in each game are in desperate need of ends, transitions, and depth.