Advanced Tactics - Heroes

Tips for Using Heroes

• If a hero dies trying to explore a ruin, the ruin remains unexplored.
• The speed items (Boots of Speed, Staff of Movement, etc) are probably the most valuable. Any unit grouped with the hero at the end of the turn will have double its usual movement points at the beginning of the next turn. There are too many ways this is useful to list them!
• Additional Notes by Craig Pommer: "It's important to note that the enhancement to the stack takes place for the entire turn, whether the hero remains with the group or not. That means you can stack the hero with a group of armies at the end of a turn, and move the hero to another group the next, still getting double movement for the first stack on the first turn."
• Corollary (Craig Pommer): "Units that join the stack during the turn do NOT get the movement doubling for that turn."
• A single hero holding two speed items doesn't get any additional benefit, but if two heroes EACH have a speed item, and end the turn IN THE SAME STACK, then the WHOLE stack will have TRIPLE speed the next turn.
• There is always a 1/6 chance of getting a hero each turn, IF you have enough money in the bank.
• Corollary: It pays to maintain a bank balance of at least 1500.
• Corollary: It often pays to sack cities you capture early in the game, in order to quickly build up 1500 cash to get new heroes. See thoughts on city management below.
• Tangent: (Magnus Goransson) If you are without a hero you can sometimes get one even if you have little money. The 'most cheap' offer I have got was when I had no hero and 580 gp. (Ed. Note - I can attest to this as well. Once when I was getting whipped and I'd just lost my last hero, the turn started and the announcer said "Will no hero defend thine honor?", and then I picked up a hero for about 350. I was curious about this and restarted the turn a few times to see how often it would happen, and it seemed about as likely as getting a normal hero for 1000-1500.)
• The almighty planted standard: The manual says you can have your hero plant your national standard and then vector armies to it. It doesn't point out that the standard can *move* between when you start vectoring and when the units arrive, as long as you keep it planted at the end of your turn! For more details, see the information on vectoring below. Note - the planted standard CANNOT be used for vectoring in Warlords Deluxe!)
  
  
• Heroes: To Hire Or Not to Hire? When the game is "hard" (you have already 2 or 3 heroes and the enemies are already using elephants) a new hero can be too weak to survive. In this case is better to spend the same money in upgrading a city production (unicorns or elephants). But you can hire him if one of these conditions are true for you:
  1) You hope to find powerful allies (every new hero has at least one ally);
  2) You can place the hero in a temple with a convenient location and use him for upgrading your armies' strength (so giving you an edge against your enemy). - Paolo Briccarello
  
  Au Contraire: I usually buy the hero. Generally I think it's a lot more valuable to have 2-4 powerful extra units immediately than to wait 6-16 turns for a few units to come out. Usually I can form a combat stack around a new hero in just a turn or two, which protects the hero and allows him to take over and sack a couple of cities. The hero usually pays for himself. Unless I'm in a weak position in a long game where I have enough heroes to defend my front lines and also go questing, but really need the supporting firepower, I usually build up my hero supply before spending on stronger production. On the other hand, in unbalanced army sets where one can buy powerful, fast-building units (such as griffins or pegasi in the default Deluxe army set, which build in only two turns), I'd be more
  inclined not to get the hero... - Bob Heeter

• Heroes - to Fight, or Not to Fight? The question is, when should you use a hero to help a stack fight a battle? In general it's good to use heroes to lead combat stacks, because (a) even a +2 bonus generally reduces your casualties by 50%, so you will have more units to fight another day, (b) the hero gains experience, leading to greater strength, speed, and extra bonuses, and (c) only if a hero leads a stack into battle will armies in the stack have a chance to get medals (thanks to Neil Cameron for reminding me of this last point). On the other hand, heroes that are busy fighting battles cannot be used to do important hero-type things, such as explore ruins, visit sages, complete unusual quests, and so on. So early in the game, when most cities are lightly-held neutral cities, it makes sense to let the hero wander around and visit ruins and temples and such, but later in the game, when most items have been found and battles are much larger and deadlier, it pays off to keep heroes with powerful "killer stacks" to protect your frontiers and advance upon the enemy. - Bob Heeter

• Sometimes Heroes Are Better Off Dead! In scenarios (such as 200BC) where gold is scarce, allies are scarce, and heroes are less valuable (no ruins, quests, items, etc.), then it is often good strategy to eliminate your heroes and then accept the *cheap* replacement heroes *only for the allies!* As David Theil writes:

  I used this strategy quite successfully in a recent PBEM game of 200BC:
  
  My only hero was killed and I had little money  nor any good prospects
  of geting much.  I had also lost my banner, so when I got a new hero, 
  I hired and immediately disbanded!  This gave me new allies for (almost) 
  free every several turns.  In a scenario with lots of unexplored ruins, 
  the promise of capturing good items, or cities building allies, this 
  may not be good strategy, but it worked great for me.  
  I hid all the allies under other pieces and when I was ready
  for my big move, produced some major surprises for my opponents.