AI did get nerfed probably unintentionally with AI Hero Recruitment Cooldown change, players have no such restriction.
Not at all, there is a lot of questions that can be raised now.
For example how Wonders should be balanced (especially gold ones) for multiple heroes or not; what is an average desirable hero number per standard game; should there be hero maintenance costs; what about previous balance vision when heroes were restricted by city cap shouldn't city creation imperium costs be lowered now; etc.
All of this is as important for SP as it is for MP.
Balance the wonders as normal - for a stack of 6 units. I don't see how bringing two or more heroes is supposed to turn the balance upside down, especially early on, when the heroes aren't all that strong. What's the difference between bringing a level 3 hero or a tier III unit? At that point, a T3 unit will be even stronger than a hero. What's the difference between bringing a level 7 hero or a Tier IV such as phoenix? I read a reply saying that people are hero stacking. With the current system, to recruit 6 heroes, you need to wait 100 turns (excluding hurrying up with Imperium). By that time, you can mass spam any T5 unit of your choice and do any wonder with 1 hero + 5 golden golems.
If you believe heroes are OP I would rather work on the actual cause such as restoration giving free resurrection or summon abilities giving free Tier 3 animal/elemental as early on as on level 4 (imo they should be only accessible on level 12 and higher).
But the elephant in the room is that heroes are supposedly disturbing the balance whereas that's only valid for maybe 5% of the playerbase playing hardcore PvP multiplayer, because they can farm exp so proficiently that they end up with several leaders on level 15 or so by turn 50. I fail to believe that's the case for 95% of the playerbase and they are more likely to have level 5 - 8 heroes by that time. And I fail to see how a low level hero is significantly stronger than a Glade Runner, Awakener, Bronze Golem or any other strong Tier III unit - especially when 33% of hero skill tree focuses on buffing units in stack, which already excludes other heroes.
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