First Hero and City Enchantments

from Elemental Forums

After playing LH for a while I find that the spellbook that the first hero has makes an inordinate impact on the game.

I like the way heroes are recruited now, and I like the way city enchantments are powerful.  But early on (before turn 10) getting a hero with a favourable spellbook that your sovereign does not have (earth mainly, but also life for kingdom, or water for epic games especially) makes a very large difference in the difficulty/speed of a game.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


the early decisions you make impact the entire rest of the game

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Comes down to Sovereign choice, and then some luck w the heroes.  If you really want the boosts from Water or Earth then you need to incorporate them into your Sovereign choices.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


Yes, luck with first hero (it's not a decision).  Point is it has a very big impact.  I think the impact is too big given that it is out of your control.

If I play with a custom sovereign then I can incorporate it but with 80% of the base game sovereigns the die roll for the first hero is the most important (imo of course) thing that happens in the entire game.  I find this unbalancing.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I like it for the same reasons you dislike it.  A random event changes the entire game.  It improves the replay value for me.  Games have individual flavor.

I don't mind that it is out of my control.  In fact, it improves the game for me that there are factors out of my control.  Learning to adjust to or exploit those factors is part of the game and the satisfaction.  Not that I am great at that, but it is fun trying.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree.  I kinda like how the game changes direction depending on your first hero.  But for all choices that you simply "must" have, you need to incorporate them into your Sovereign.

This is my current Sov and Faction.  I play to defeat monsters and quest, and I don't attack the AI players unless they attack me first.  Difficulty for monsters and player AI is Challenging, all settings are maximised, max quests, random events, monsters, wildlands, resources and magic, normal production and tech pacing, opponent surrender often, Gigantic map from one of the mods, Tile mod for increased possible yields.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I feel those are less important, the most important is the location of your starting position, if your position is bad, you can only settle very limited "good spots". won against 4 expert AI lately just because i had a very good starting position, a few 4/3/2, or 3/3/3 not too far away from the capital city and some farms nearby. Expand early on is more important than having some nice spells in your spell book which u might not have enough mana to cast.