It is part of Age of Wonders that many of your heroes are strangers. The worst ones (for your build) you can discard, and after a while another one will appear, but you will never get your perfect choice. It is one of those aspects where you have to play the cards you are dealt. It is also a charming part of the game.
Well, I don't see it as immersive "Age of Wonders" part at all.
Say, if I RP as Xenoplague Amazons. I would very much like to have my heroes Amazons, Zenoplague, period. We don't accept Promethians, since they are literally different culture and faith. We don't take random Dvar in as well. You understand my meaning?
Having random heroes from random secret techs slapped on me forcibly is completely breaking the immersion for me.
Like, "yeah we are a Cyborg Assembly, but this Syndicate fleshbag hero walking around us is just a feature" breaking.
A solution:
1, Go to empire mode,
2, recruit a number of heroes
3, Only mark those you want to appear in your game as "recuritable". In this case, it's the ones with your secret tech.
4, Now start a game.
Well thank you, I am trying to figure out how to force only certain heroes to spawn! So if I pre-create them maybe? How do I force them to spawn in my random scenario/planet?
It should only spawn Heroes of different Races when you own a colony of that race. Possibly also when every hero of a race has been recruited? I've not yet experienced it in PF (running out of heroes) but in AoW3 it was possible to use up the pool of heroes and start being offered alternate races without having a corresponding city.
As for choosing Secret Tech, this would be a fine option to have in some way. AoW3 had a "I want a different class" option, which admittedly is not terribly helpful given you only reduce your options from 1/7 to 1/6. Alternatively the ability to respec and re-tech a hero at the cost of some levels could be nice.
For me, Secret Tech plays a somewhat minor role with hero selection. Some Techs aren't great for a stack leader (Psynumbra, Heritor) because they lack army buffs and others are a bit better (imo) for Melee (Promethean, Voidtech, Xenoplague) because they have movement abilities (or skitter!). But overall I think the Tech abilities are all somewhat mediocre compared to how you equip the Hero with weapons/mods.
Well, for me Secret Tech is a major immersion part, shaping my tactics and approach. In case of some techs, e.g. Xenoplague, it is also a very defining gameplay style.
So naturally, when the game slaps random stuff like that at me, it is very not enjoyable.
i think the game will offer you a hero of your secret tech as the first hero of the campaign, but after that it's random (?)
but heroes of other secret techs aren't useless. having the same secret tech as the commander is a minor advantage at best. i think for celestians it's probably the biggest effect - celestian hero gets a perk that makes all units in the stack take reduced damage from units with soulburn.
other than that it's mostly just convenience stuff. like xenoplague heroes getting infection skill so they don't need a mod to spread the plague.
Nope, if you control only colonies of your culture, you can get any random secret tech heroes. Its completely random. If you request another hero, it might take you 10-20 turns to even see a hero with YOUR secret tech.
What's even worse, is - remember that random Dvar settlement that you infected with Xenoplague and now reforming into Amazon colony? Congratulations, while it;s being transformed, you get random choices of stupid Dvar heroes!
That's just design oversight and I hope it;s addressed at some point.
