Should Famous retort be removed or replaced?

[WingsofMemory]

Charismatic I don't think need any real change as it's a good one on it's own and the benefits from it are definitly good enough for one pick. Better relations to other wizard are a great trait and specially on higher difficulties it can be saving you in many games.  Even without the bonus of cheaper mercenaries/heroes/items it's very good. If any, when I look at Charismatic and Famous together, I would say that Charismatic is worth 1.3-1.4 picks while famous is worth 0.6-0,7 picks. But ya, mixing them together would make for a balanced and good 2 pick retort. 

I can definitly play with charismatic without taking famous, but I don't play famous without taking charismatic as well.

Yeah, that all sounds really reasonable to me.

Although, I guess I'm not one to judge since it's been 2 years or so since playing CoM/MoM4W, and I've barely played that. My main memories are of playing base MoM, and it's been even longer since playing that.

Thanks for the reply!

[GMBarak]

Ok, Assuming we combined this retort with charismatic, this opens a room for another retort, I remember someone once wanted a treasure hunter retort - cost 4 picks and adds 10% chance to find a book in every node, and there are also nice retorts from the last mods.

What do you guys suggest?

[Zypher]

Maybe some kind of retord that makes the Wizard able to gain more advantages of terrain and minerals and such. Not really any of them that adresses that.

Earthbinder (2 picks) - gain additional 2% production bonus and 0,25 max pop from forrest/hill/mountain/natural volcano along with 25-50% mineral bonus as well as pathfinding for all units in a city with wild life.

[WingsofMemory]

I'm not sure about new retorts, although I think those are both good ideas.

Another function of charismatic could be the ability to obtain neutral cities without force, kind of like the diplomatic marriage event?

Actually speaking of the diplomatic marriage event, does it ever state who is getting married? Is it the Wizard themselves? One of your governors/lords/mayors/whatever? One of your generals? Heroes? One of those ku-klux bodyguard guys that follow the wizard into battle?

[Seravy]

I suspect Famous might feel underwhelming because it's the only luck based retort in the game and also one of the most specialized ones and it is specialized at something two other retorts also do (Heroes : Famous, Tactician and Artificier).

Looking at the 3, Tactician is the weakest for heroes (+2 is decent but is pretty much equal to 2 levels or a common item or common buff) but the strongest for general purpose use and diversifying a strategy is often the safest choice. Artificier is the most powerful for heroes but offers almost nothing else and is generally more late game focused.
Meanwhile Famous offers the largest benefit for heroes overall (hiring a higher class hero is way better than +2 stats and you're almost guaranteed one as the otherwise even odds are shifted to 1 in 3 towards the 10 fame cost hero), has a failsafe in case your luck isn't great (low tier heroes get the level buffs first so if you end up getting one, at least they'll be that much stronger) and indirectly strengthens your early game in a different way than tactician (you're getting 10 free gold on the maintenance costs and extra units you can buy for money).

Looked at the hero list just in case and 10 fame heroes are quite good. Not all of them but many are game changers if you can get one earlier.

I feel one of the biggest weaknesses of Famous is its redundancy with Life magic. If you have Heroism, you don't need extra levels, and if you have Just Cause, you don't need the extra 10 fame to get the better heroes. But for hero strategies in the other 4 realms, this retort is worth a lot more. Stacking Just Cause and Famous to get early 20 fame heroes is quite powerful in theory but the actual combat power of 10 fame heroes tend to be better, the 20 fame heroes are more of a support with high MP pools, many random abilities, or higher tier magic like Wind Walking, Flight or Black Prayer. The 20 fame heroes are definitely worth more but are less consistently powerful compared to rolling a hero with Agility that's almost impossible to damage for early game threats.

[GMBarak]

I suspect Famous might feel underwhelming because it's the only luck based retort in the game and also one of the most specialized ones and it is specialized at something two other retorts also do (Heroes : Famous, Tactician and Artificier).

Looking at the 3, Tactician is the weakest for heroes (+2 is decent but is pretty much equal to 2 levels or a common item or common buff) but the strongest for general purpose use and diversifying a strategy is often the safest choice. Artificier is the most powerful for heroes but offers almost nothing else and is generally more late game focused.
Meanwhile Famous offers the largest benefit for heroes overall (hiring a higher class hero is way better than +2 stats and you're almost guaranteed one as the otherwise even odds are shifted to 1 in 3 towards the 10 fame cost hero), has a failsafe in case your luck isn't great (low tier heroes get the level buffs first so if you end up getting one, at least they'll be that much stronger) and indirectly strengthens your early game in a different way than tactician (you're getting 10 free gold on the maintenance costs and extra units you can buy for money).

Looked at the hero list just in case and 10 fame heroes are quite good. Not all of them but many are game changers if you can get one earlier.

I feel one of the biggest weaknesses of Famous is its redundancy with Life magic. If you have Heroism, you don't need extra levels, and if you have Just Cause, you don't need the extra 10 fame to get the better heroes. But for hero strategies in the other 4 realms, this retort is worth a lot more. Stacking Just Cause and Famous to get early 20 fame heroes is quite powerful in theory but the actual combat power of 10 fame heroes tend to be better, the 20 fame heroes are more of a support with high MP pools, many random abilities, or higher tier magic like Wind Walking, Flight or Black Prayer. The 20 fame heroes are definitely worth more but are less consistently powerful compared to rolling a hero with Agility that's almost impossible to damage for early game threats.

Well it's either the player picks a hero based strategy and then this retort is redundant, because he pays more for heroes he doesn't want, and he would have the heroism spell or the player doesn't play a heroes based strategy and then will not be able to use the high level heroes efficiently anyway. which makes this retort useless (relatively to other retorts) anyway.

[Seravy]

Maybe the problem is people don't play non-Life hero strategies much because Life is just so much better?

[Anskiy]

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

[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?

[Slingers]

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.