It’s such a downer to lose your champion in 1650. How about, once your champion is dead, the next character you name is automatically a champion? (Was this suggested and discussed a long time ago?)
Jeremy
There have already been too many changes making the game easier.
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That seems to be the way things are these days. Most changes or mods to games always seems to make things easy for people.
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I’d be interested in what you mean. What changes have made it “easier” ?
In the case of my suggestion for replacement champions, I think champions are FUN! And when you lose one, you get less FUN so I want a replacement! Nothing to do with easier.
Jeremy
One change that I didn’t support is a mage being able to research 6 artefacts a turn. It makes it too easy to do the research and has made the race to find artefacts a bigger part of the game, which I’m also not keen on. That second point isn’t to do with making the game easier.
Champions make the game easier. Having an army commander who can refuse, attack and move makes it easier to manage armies.
In Kinstrife and CME we can now recruit ready made powerful characters. That makes the game easier.
In the new CME tourney you can have more characters as Champions/updated.
Some rulings make the game harder… here’s some examples.
FAS has been reduced in power but hopefully more fun.
OBN was introduced making it harder to control the game.
SS nations when dying have been removed.
905 order fixed making agents worst.
Generally we try to balance the game so it’s better and more fun to play.
So I guess it’s perception. CME is a very hard game to play.
Champions in FAS, 1650/2950 yes it’s very much something we’re considering. An order to Promote a character to Champion status is something we’d like to do btw.
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That’s fair, although I’m struggling to work out what FAS is.
Fourth Age Scenario. 
If going to do something like promote a character to champion you could introduce and XP system that they gain points for doing things and if they get to a certain stage it should cost a lot of gold too. Its interesting having champions in FAS, I wasn’t sure if my characters would be.
Regarding he 6 ID. It makes mages more important in FAS, KS and CME. It can make it a race for artifacts but its the same in 1650 and 2950.
The game has an innate XP system, do a Skill order and gain experience which you immediately spend on increasing your stats (generally). You can upgrade your characters like this and gain items and spells, recruit armies… So I had a similar thought a while ago (and at some point we might add Skills to characters, or another Character Class but that’s for the future). I think we’d keep it simple…
- Dead Champion - Promote another spending Gold (like D&D which uses gold for xp).
- Turn based - like NPC recruitment and character recruitment in normal games, Turns 0-5 Promote One Champion, 6-11 a second champion etc. Not sure it would tie in with 1) above more likely we’d go with one option of the other. I think that could be quite fun.
Yep the artefact game in FAS, KS became stilted, Mages in particular in FAS were just Conjure Mounts monkeys… This has added another facet to the game we feel. If we randomised 1650/2950 items, which has been put forward, then it would come into it’s own right again. That would definitely slow the game down again I expect! No 428 on Ring of Wind and the mad dash to get it… It adds variability though which can lead to some unlucky item imbalance but over all it would be even.
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on the original question no i don’t think an automatic ability to replace a champion would be balanced, there’s lots of ways a character could be ended and not all champions are created equal (and probably couldn’t be).
on the idea of naming more champions, yes please - but is it balanced, ie does this move things in the favor of the richer nations who can name multi class characters easier?
promoting a character to a champion - sounds a good idea allows a nation to choose its champion(s) based on its aims and needs
on the matter of unlucky item imbalances, do starting spell lists in 1650 get compared so both sides are even in their starting access to RA,LA and LAT? - if its totally random the imbalance exists or can exist already
Well, I don’t see why the next character created after a champion dies being an automatic champion is unbalanced. It would be rare not to be able to plan for it and choose a single-class or multi-class for your new champion.
Regarding balancing artifact spells in 1650, my experience is that it is quite random and no attempt is made to balance. Sometimes the FP get several spells and the DS none, and vice versa. Very difficult to be on the downside in that situation, and I’d like to see some balancing done there as well, though I doubt it is practical – would likely have to be done by hand!
Jeremy
No spells from artifact finding list at game start for anyone is probably easier to do than checking if things are even. I’m also very much in favour of randomized artifact numbers for all standard games. (Clint has shown to be willing to arrange all kinds of requested custom games when there is demand )
i’m presuming in 1650 the champions were chosen for some sort of balance reason so allowing for example goldwine frec c10a10e10 to be replaced after challenging a DS mage providing a boost to the team would cause problems?
in 4th age where you have more choice on your champions perhaps the automatic replacement would work
I don’t think that replacing a c10-a10-e10 with a c10-a20 or a c40, is going to unbalance the game. And Goldwine is probably the weakest of all the champions. Replacing Elrond with a new character isn’t going to unbalance things either!
Jeremy
In the time it takes to kill Goldwine and name a c10/age20, GW is probably already at or close to age20 himself. 
He’s useful as a company commander, a role LR kinda likes to have.
Hi,
I say be more careful. I dont think we have had enough games with champions to realize their effect on the game.
I do not agree with naming one if its lost.
Balance starting spells…NO
Let chaos reign.
What is wrong with all of you!? Why do we want to balance a game that has given us all so much enjoyment? It is perfect.
I tried putting the randomised items out there but so far no real interest. We’ll see.no rush