Heroes

Known Issues

While the hero-feature is in the stage of beta testing, we will provide a list of known issues regarding the game mechanics (not bugs!):

• Right now, you need to send transport boats (when attacking other islands) and some land units in order to use a hero, even if you only want to attack using ships (i.e. in combination with Zuretha). We will, however, try to change this behaviour so you can send a hero as soon as you just provide the minimum amount of population for an attack.
• Some players think that recruiting and leveling heroes takes too long. We will closely watch this and we will most likely add a new research in the near future which will allow to provide experience points to an assigned hero over time. This will make leveling more convenient and speed up the process of gaining new levels!

An Introduction

Heroes are just like regular units in many respects, but there are a few features that set them apart:

• Heroes are not recruited in a building, I will explain more about recruiting heroes later though.
• Heroes are not paid for with resources, but with either "Coins of War" or "Coins of Wisdom " which can be obtained by completing Island Quests.
• Each hero has one special skill that can be found in his or her description, each skill will impact the game in a particular way.
• By investing "Coins of War" or "Coins of Wisdom", heroes can reach new levels (up to level 20), this will improve their base values and special skills
• Heroes are not lost if you restart on a world.
• Heroes don‘t die. Following a defeat they are merely wounded and regain their strength over time.
• Heroes are not tied to the population of cities.
• Heroes can be assigned to towns, but there can be no more than one hero in one city at the same time.
• Heroes cannot be used to support other cities or players. They can be used only for your own attacks or in your own towns. They will also not stay when conquering a town.
• After an attack commenced, the hero will immediately return to his home town without travel time.

Hero Overview

A new interface element has been added, you can find it just below the God in the top right of your screen. If you click the element, it opens up the Hero Overview.

In the Hero Overview Screen you can see some of the information about the heroes you employ:

• Level, image and name of a hero
• Status: wounded, assigned to a city (or running assignment process), in combat
• Current experience points

Please note that you cannot own all heroes right from the start. In the early stages there are only 2 hero slots available. For each additional culture level you will receive another hero slot. If you don't want to wait, you can unlock an additional slot immediately by paying 250 Gold.

Heroes that are shown as wounded will need 18 hours (divided by world's speed) until completely healed. During that time, you can still level up that hero and he/she will still provide his special ability to his town (if applicable). However, a wounded hero will not fight personally, neither in attack, nor in defense.

As you can see, there are many functions and tabs along with the the hero feature. I am now going to go through each of these.

The Coins

You will notice that the feature comes with its own new resource:

The blue ones are Coins of Wisdom, the red ones are Coins of War. You will need them to recruit new heroes and to level-up your existing ones.

To gain this precious resource, you just have to finish Island Quests. Which type of Coin you will receive depends on your decisions!

Also keep in mind that every player can gain the same amount of Coins per day when finishing all available Island Quests. If Island Quests spawn rather seldom because of the amount of your overall points, you will receive more Coins per Island Quest to make up for the lower spawn rate. In the end, everyone could earn up to 24 Coins per day.

Recruiting a Hero

Clicking on the "Recruiting" tab opens up a window that looks like this:

You will usually see one Hero of War and one Hero of Wisdom being offered to you. This offer will change at midnight though. If you choose to buy one of the heroes, the other one will fade away as well. By paying 50 Gold, you can immediately refresh the offer instead of waiting until midnight.

The choice you get is random, but only heroes that you do not already own are shown. To acquire a "Hero of War" you need to spend "Coins of War" which you earn by successfully completing Island Quests in an aggressive manner. Generally speaking, "Heroes of War" are useful for any kind of military action. Some of the heroes in this category are good defenders, while other "Heroes of War" excel in leading your armies into battle. "Heroes of Wisdom" on the other hand are paid with "Coins of Wisdom ", which you get by solving Island Quests the wise way. The "Heroes of Wisdom" usually help to improve the economy of your cities by, for example, having a positive effect on building times, production of resources and the like.

Incidentally you will come across heroes that require an award in addition to the coins. This is listed in the price for the respective heroes. If this is the case, there is a special quest line that needs to be completed to earn this award. Each hero with an award requirement has his/her very own quest line, which will appear randomly. When such a quest line has popped up it will be automatically shown in the interface with all your other Island Quests. In addition it has a marker displayed on the map and thus a fixed position, like other Island Quests.

Keep in mind that such a storyline quest will not appear if you happen to have less than 6000 points overall. Also, these storyline quests are quite difficult, so don't always expect them to be done within a few hours.

Coin Exchange

Should you ever lack a few Coins of one type for your endeavors, don't hesitate to use the coin exchange. It will allow you trade Coins of War for Coins of Wisdom at rate of 2:1 and vice versa. Although you will have a loss, this feature can be helpful if your desired hero is being offered and just a few Coins are missing.

Leveling heroes

If you click the little button behind the experience bars, a new window will appear which is solely used for leveling up the chosen hero. This window will display all the changes which will be applied after a successful level-up, as well as the needed amount of Coins (of War or Wisdom) to reach that level. The base stats (attack, defense) will increase, as well as the power of that hero's special ability!

Assigning a Hero

In the overview, you can assign up to one hero to each town. Heroes that are assigned to a town will give you two benefits:

• If the city is attacked the hero will defend the city just like common land units
• The special abilities of some heroes can only unfold while being in a town (like, for example, in the case of Andromeda)

The process of assigning a hero takes up to 6 hours (divided by the world's speed), it is the time the hero needs to "move into the city". During this time the hero will not yet bring any benefits. You can manually withdraw a hero from a town at any time.

If your town is conquered, the assigned hero will be automatically detached and released.

For your convinience, you can also see if a hero is currently assigned to the active town in the interface element at the top right (below the Gods). The interface element will also indicate whether a hero is currently being assigned, wounded or moving to attack.

Council of Heroes

And finally, if you click on the "Council" tab, you will be able to see all of the Heroes that there are in the game, along with all of their stats.

List of Heroes

Heroes of War
Hero	Description	Stats
		Costs	Level 1	Level 20
Atalanta	At level 1, an army led by Atalanta moves 11% faster. This applies to all units in the army. At level 20, this value increases to 30%.	350	220	600
		14	66	180
		15	55	150
		0	99	270
Hercules	At level 1, whenever Hercules wins an honorable fight you will instantly receive 22 favor for the god worshipped in your city. At level 20, this increases to 60 favour. You will only receive favor if you got at least 50 combat points.	380	209	570
		18	99	270
		200	99	270
		0	143	390
Leonidas	At level 1, when Leonidas is defending a city, all defending units will have their combat values increased by 5.5%. At level 20, this increases to 15%.	380	44	120
		12	143	390
		30	143	390
		0	110	300
Urephon	At level 1, mythical units have their combat values increased by 11% when fighting together with Urephon.. At level 20, this increases to 30%.	210	66	180
		12	77	210
		15	88	240
		0	99	270
Zuretha	At level 1, ships have their combat values increased by 5.5% when fighting together with Zuretha. At level 20, this increases to 15%.	240	110	300
		13	77	210
		20	66	180
		0	77	210

Heroes of Wisdom
Hero	Description	Stats
		Costs	Level 1	Level 20
Andromeda	At level 1, as long as Andromeda is assigned to a city, the base production of wood, rock, and silver coins is increased by 16.5& in that city. At level 20, this value increases to 45%.	Free	33	90
		15	88	240
		10	110	300
		0	99	270
Cheiron	While Cheiron is assigned to a town, he will reduce the costs and recruitment time of hoplites by 22%. At level 20, this increases to 60%.	270	66	180
		16	121	330
		20	132	360
		0	121	330
Ferkyon	At level 1, as long as Ferkyon is assigned to a city, all land units will be recruited 11% faster in that city. At level 20, this increases to 30%.	270	55	150
		12	132	360
		20	132	360
		0	121	330
Helena	When Helen is assigned to a town, buying units from the Phoenician trader is 22% cheaper in that town. At level 20, this increases to 60%.	290	44	120
		12	88	240
		15	99	270
		0	99	270
Orpheus	At level 1, when Orpheus is assigned to a city and you generate a culture point by means of a festival, there is a 33% chance that you will generate an additional culture. At level 20, there is a 90% chance.	270	44	120
		13	99	270
		5	110	300
		0	77	210
Terylea	At level 1, as long as Terylea is assigned to a city, the base production silver coins is increased by 44% in that city. At level 20, this increases to 120%.	240	33	90
		12	88	240
		10	88	240
		0	132	360