@StevenAus I hear what you are saying
I played a couple games recently. Even in FE(I’m not in LH beta) mid to late game I don't have much use for new heroes anymore. Tireless march change mostly, but the trained units also seem better.
I think a global unrest reduction bonus would be better than the city specific ones. It eliminates the issue of having to move them around every now and them to cities with high unrest. If you get enough of them maybe it would allow you to absorb the huge unrest hit of raising taxes. Personally, though I despise the unrest mechanic and would like to see it go away. I’d much rather have enough cool things to do with my heores that they are never unwanted and extras- rather turn heroes into the unrest mitigation strategy requirement. In my opinion governors should do cool things for cities and encourage city specialization.
What (besides governors) could be done to make unwanted heroes useful:
(1) Improve Steal Spirit
I never use this spell. If it were changed to allow the stealing of any one trait I would. It should improve levelable traits your sovereign already has- like the magic skills. I always thought you should get more from stealing high level spirits. Maybe you get an extra trait for every 5 levels or something.
(2) great works
Similar to civ 5 great leaders these consume the hero who retires from campaigning to create a powerful building on the map. Done right this could completely replace the governor track, and eliminates the issue of xp. And remembering to move your governors around to quell the unrests at the various cities/grow new cities through their pop-growth abilities (not fun).
Some options:
* magic node. Type chosen from the schools of magic the hero knows. (if over lvl 10 creates a super node e.g. +2)
* Scrying pool (doesn’t stack with itself, but does stack with Procipinee’s pools)
* Training Camp --> gives units produced at attached city a bonus trait of your choice (could be a slightly different set of traits than the standard unit traits). City’s militias also gain trait. (stackable)
* Arms dealer--> All researched weapons and armor of any faction that you aren’t at war with are available for purchase in the city’s influence. City’s militias gain armor and use the best weapons.
* Alchemist tower --> produces gold and research. Scales with unit’s level lvl * (+2gp/+1r ) kinda boring, but useful for specializing gold or research cities.
* Horse trainer --> Only works if you have a source of horse income. War horses available for purchase in cit's influence. Mounted units produced at city use war horse instead of regular horses. City's militia ride war horses.
This certainly helps with the research and unit producing city specializations, more super cities. It also adds a little bit of a secondary defense city specialization (previously only kindof an option through outposts). Most cities serve little unique purpose though- only contributing to research- conclaves, or city growth/unit hit points- towns.