Should Famous retort be removed or replaced?

[GMBarak]

Heroism is borderline required for any serious hero strategy, so yes, people don't play a hero centric strategy without some Life books.

But you don't need Heroism with Famous, that's one of the main reasons for picking the retort?

Maybe the heroes should have some guaranteed extra levels in addition to the randomly gained ones?
What if Famous gave every hero the player can hire +1 level at the start of the game in addition to the levels randomly gained over time?

IMO this could be one of the ways to raise this retort value from 0.6/0.7 as was said in this thread to closer to 1 pick value. I also think it's not so hard to level up heroes in this game, so I don't know if that is the correct fix, if you ask me what would be the best fix, I would say combine it with Charismatic to a 2 pick retort, but this will hurt the backward compatibility so maybe for COM 3? if that ever comes out...

[Seravy]

Heroism is borderline required for any serious hero strategy, so yes, people don't play a hero centric strategy without some Life books.

But you don't need Heroism with Famous, that's one of the main reasons for picking the retort?

Maybe the heroes should have some guaranteed extra levels in addition to the randomly gained ones?
What if Famous gave every hero the player can hire +1 level at the start of the game in addition to the levels randomly gained over time?

Warlord retort already does that.

True but this would only be for heroes and you have to pay for the extra levels when hiring the hero. The retort already grants extra levels anyway but a random amount, and "random amount+1" makes it more reliable?
It also different from Warlord in that Warlord adds 1 level at the end of the level calculation so it makes you pay the exp cost of level 8 for level 9, effectively each level costs lower exp to reach after you hired your hero.
Famous on the other hand merely gives the heroes 30 base exp to be level 2 (or whatever amount after additional random level up rolls), but once the hero is hired you need the full exp to raise the hero to the next level.

So in long term gameplay, Famous is 30 exp (plus the random amount) while Warlord like 500 or something assuming the hero reaches near max level. Warlord also stacks with heroism, Famous does not. But Famous does stack with Warlord.

[Desertfox]

Maybe give the Famous retort additional bonuses? Faster pop growth or fewer rebels would be thematic.

[Seravy]

Maybe give the Famous retort additional bonuses? Faster pop growth or fewer rebels would be thematic.

It already does way too many things for a single retort so adding a fifth or sixth effect would be too excessive I think.
(Fame, hero levels, hero tiers, more artifacts and mercenaries)

For the time being I've added the 1 level to the update, let me know how that works within the next week or so and I'll make adjustments if it became too powerful or is still too weak.

[jhsidi]

I just spent some time playing until 1507 with Famous in the latest update. My short opinion is that this retort is a very bad one without Life, for the following reasons:

- Yes, there's a constant barrage of mercenary and item offers. However...
- It might be an endless barrage of Lizardman Spearmen and similar (RNG) or bows when you don't have a bow hero.
- If the merc is something better, it's REALLY expensive, so it only makes a lot of sense for gold strategies... which is Life! You'll also want to buff your fancy, extremely expensive mercs, which again is Life.
- "But Charismatic!" Well, I did get Charismatic because it seems indispensable for Famous, but now Famous has essentially become a 2 pick "retort". Anyway, I played Nature / Sorcery and sorry to say, but it's still costs such a large amount of my income to buy up the useful mercs / items that it's a very poor tradeoff as compared to investing in my cities.
- Item offers are essentially worthless, they are wildly expensive and it's very easy to pick up a bunch of items from treasure hunting or enemy heroes.
- OK, what about the heroes? Well, this is where Famous is really at its... worst. It's extremely bad, for multiple reasons.
- Reason 1: no increased RNG for hero hiring. So I'm not going to have more heroes than any other game.
- Reason 2: which hero approaches me is also entirely RNG. Sure, I've got 10 Fame, but I'm still just getting offers from the Dwarf or the Rogue. I tried save-scumming and it took several dozen reloads to get a single offer from a 10 Fame hero, and even then it wasn't a transformative one.
- Reason 3: that extra 30-180 exp on those base level heroes is just flat out not interesting. As someone else noted, it's easy to get exp with heroes.
- Reason 4: even if I did want a hero strategy, by far my best bet would be a treasure strategy. Treasure can produce any non-champion hero, so I frequently have heroes like the Witch or Magician by 1505 or so... at least when I'm not semi-crippled by wasting two picks on trying to make Famous work.
- Overall, RNG feels incredibly bad in MoM because if you're unlucky, you can quite literally spend the first 1/3 of the game getting nothing out of the retort, and the first few years are the only time that it would be really useful. At a later point, I don't need mercs because I have cities of multiple races, don't need hero offers because I have enough + Summon Hero (and later Champion), and especially don't need item offers because I've got a bunch and they're so expensive.

End result: on my opinion, the Famous retort is a confused mess and the worst retort among them all. As Seravy noted, it has so many effects (items, merc, heroes, Fame) that it's not a good idea to keep adding more. But the effects are honestly not that good and very heavily tilted toward Life. And Life is also best for multiple other retorts: Alchemy, Warlord and Runemaster principally, and to an extent, Spellweaver, so it's not exactly great to add one more to the list.

Anyway, if there is still appetite to work on it then I think there are a few different directions that could be taken:
- Change the hero effect to something non-RNG, like a guaranteed offer or early availability / research cost / casting cost for Summon Hero.
- Change the effect to only mercenaries, but add more for that specifically, like periodic free mercs, and guaranteed quality (the constant low tier units like spearmen / swordsmen really detracts from the overall value of the merc offers).
- Remove all current effects and just make it about Fame, for instance reducing the threshold required to gain each point of Fame in battle.
- Scrap the whole thing and replace it with one of the other retort ideas that has been kicked around. This would be my choice! As I stated, RNG just doesn't feel good in this game.

[jhsidi]

(sorry, somehow it got double posted)

[martinl_00]

I am very suspicious of gambling perks in any game, and Famous is sooooo random. Yes, there's a chance it does awesome things worth two picks, but there's a larger change is does stuff that is not close to worth it, and a significant chance all it does is spam you with offers for mercs and items you don't want.

Still, I have played famous/cha a few times, and usually a few of the benefits are noticable. Some clutch mercs, a nice item, maybe I notice a hero starts off with levels. Still doesn't feel worth it.

Here's some of the issues:

• Heroes are already very random. Adding random bonuses on top of that is hard to see. Making one of the bonus levels automatic is a start, but it is still easy to overlook, and quickly gets buried in the hero's regular xp advancement.
  
• The better merc/item offers is noticeable, but not very valuable. I pass on 9/10 of those usually. Good and fun flavor but it is not a big benefit.
  
• "Famous" as a name overlaps with the fame mechanic, but 10 fame is ... not a lot. Yes, it gatekeeps some cool heroes but see above. It also doesn't seem like 10 fame is "famous" if I can get the same from a common spell and expect 100+ fame eventually. So it starts out underwhelming early game, and ends up trivial late game.
  

Some random ideas:

• Rename it to something like "Legendary" - this just sounds cooler and makes the interaction with the fame mechanic less embarrassing.
  
• Make the hero bonus an ability that stays on the sheet and matters later on, so you remember it. Something like "Legendary Mentor: Unit starts with extra levels and unit gains +1 resistance and an extra 2 xp every turn." This seems small but it puts something on the sheet to remind the player they are getting something. If you applied this to mercs as well it would make them more worth considering (although they would probably have to start with fewer extra levels).
  
• Simple and brutal: the perk just casts "heroism" on every hero and merc when you get it. This makes it less attractive for Life and suddenly very interesting for the other realms. It does eventually go away, but you'd notice it and remember it. This would replace the extra hero levels.
  

[Slingers]

If junk spam is the problem, improving the quality of the offers could help. The “Famous” retort could guarantee that whatever appears must meet the current threshold of fame.

[Anskiy]

• Simple and brutal: the perk just casts "heroism" on every hero and merc when you get it. This makes it less attractive for Life and suddenly very interesting for the other realms. It does eventually go away, but you'd notice it and remember it. This would replace the extra hero levels.
  

This is the best suggestion so far. If the idea is to build and encourage playstyles around mercs and heroes, why not make them the best mercs and heroes possible? A more elegant version of this would be to always have them join at elite or ultra elite(and whatever the equivalent is for heroes), with magical weapons for mercs.

[Seravy]

Okay so let's try to summarize the possible effects and what is wrong with them/should be improved.

1. Extra hero levels.

Problems :
-The feedback seems to imply this is useful but should be less random and more visible to the player.
-Hero offers happening are still RNG, and should have some sort of guarantee included instead
-Heroes don't show up if the player has too low gold but the levels raise the gold cost of the hero.

Potential solutions :
a.Free heroism : I don't think so, it's a spell so it has a maintenance cost, can be dispelled, etc.
b.Two bonus levels instead of one : Including the random bonus levels this almost always guarantees you get equivalent to heroism and often more, without the disadvantage of being a spell. It still retains the benefit of "balancing" low fame heroes by adding more levels than high fame heroes who get fewer. The random levels, while RNG, are not entirely RNG in the current implementation as lower
c.Three bonus levels but no random levels : This is same as free Heroism but without being a spell.
d.Added effect : extra levels cost no additional gold for the heroes
e.Added effect : extra levels cost no additional gold for the heroes and mercenaries
f.Added effect : Something that allows the player to make more gold or start with gold : probably a bad idea as it can be spent on unrelated things and snowball the early game.
g. Fix the visibility problem by adding trait "unit gains an additional 1/2 EXP each turn"

2. Extra 10 fame

Problems :
-Fame 10 heroes are not that special when you can also get them as prisoners
-10 Fame is no better than a common spell (Just Cause)

Potential solutions :
a. Make it 20 Fame instead (tier 1,2 and 3 heroes)
b. Make it 40 Fame instead (all non champion heroes)
For either case while it helps a lot on troop maintenance the free money only comes after you built an army so it doesn't have problems with snowballing the early game unlike adding gold.
c. Remove this effect (probably not ideal because then you can't hire tier 2 heroes either)

3. Heroes have a higher chance to be a higher tier

Problems :
-Too RNG or effect is too weak?
-Higher tier heroes cost more and might not appear if you don't have the gold, cancelling out the effect.

Potential solutions :
a. Increase the chance of a higher tier hero even more
b. Remove this part of the effect.
c. Fix the gold issue, see 1d, 1e and 1f
d. Guarantee the higher tier hero. (problem : what if the player does want the lower tier heroes? Some tier 1 and 2 heroes are pretty good)

4. Mercenaries and items have a higher chance to appear

Problems :
-Quality is random
-Too expensive to hire.
-Heroes not affected
-Is still too RNG

Potential solutions :
a. Fix the gold issue, see 1d, 1e and 1f. The "no extra cost for levels" does nothing for items though and mercenaries have no extra levels in the early game turns either.
b. Remove this effect. (would hurt Charismatic indirectly and it is the only thing in the game that can make mercenaries somewhat relevant)
c. Instead of increasing the chance, add a guaranteed effect based on time. For example a guaranteed mercenary every 3 months, a guaranteed item every 6 months. (In addition to the base random chance that still exists in all other months)
d. Also include heroes. Possibly combined with "c", guaranteed hero offer every 12 months (each January for example).
e. Also give extra levels to mercenaries, not just heroes. (this only really affects the early turns as later turns AFAIK always give high level mercenaries anyway)

Let me know what you think.
At first sight, doing 1b+ 1e, 2a or 2b, 3b because more fame already gives a larger pool of high tier heroes, and 4c+4d+4e might be optimal although that's a whole lot of changes.
This would give use the following retort text :
FAMOUS
Wizard begins the game with 20/40 fame. A hero is guaranteed to appear for hire in July, an item merchant appears in January and mercenaries always show up in April and October in addition to the base chance after turn 30. Heroes and mercenaries offering to join will be at a higher level than normal, but do not cost additional gold to hire based on their level.

I also think the guaranteed offer on a specific turn would help the "visibility" problem as it makes the player expect the offer and plan their strategy around it (save gold, etc). (not sure if turn 30 is the current setting for earliest hero, item or mercenary or if that's even the same number for each but we have to include it in the text otherwise "guaranteed" would imply they appear even during turns when they can't.)