I think traits should be coupled. Each positive trait should have a negative one that you would have a chance of getting on death. A simpler solution that would be quickly adopted. 

Inventive ideas everyone but shouldn't the hero resurrection mechanics be reserved only for the Adventure tech path?  Couldn't the negative scar traits lead to XP farming the AI for the player?  Every time you kill him he gets weaker but you still get the same XP because the level has not changed.  So if a hero has 20 scars then he essentially becomes a level one in strength who's giving the XP reward of a level 10.

So instead I propose we could replace the dead hero with a new level 1 replacement that he had inspired with his act of heroic martyrdom.  The replacement would need to be preset to the slain hero's levelup tree to prevent any cheese.

Defeated warriors should get traits like, losing an eye, or an arm, severe wound, or even medieval PTSD and then you might have to do an expensive spell to heal them, or even send them on a quest to get the bad trait removed.   I like the idea of there being a set number of champions that are in a sense, immortal.  They don't die, they can get hurt, but not killed.  When their kingdom/empire is destroyed, they become free agents again.

What about champions that hate each other, so that if some champion is allied to you, some other champions will refuse to join you.

It would be nice to see stuff from the old Romance of the Three Kingdoms games.  Characters had personality traits, friends, rivals.  I doubt FE is going to have or need an in depth system like that, but I always loved it.  Also, rivals/friends only really work when you have TONS of characters, like Romance's 700+, if an FE game is only going to have a dozen or so champions in it, then its a hindrance gameplay wise to have rivals of the same faction.  BUT, in romance rivals were IN the same kingdom, and competed with each other, and made some fun game mechanics, like when a new ruler was to be chosen...(know that will never happen in FE).

Also, All of these rulers may seem "Immortal"  But aren' they all dead in a few hundred years time?  Are we going to find out what happened to them in campaigns?

I differ here, I do not want a 'set' number of champions, this limits the game too much without some way to make our own (I am not good at making mods but quite fair at making maps)

When they bring back dynasties it would possibly cause an overload of heros having them never die, & perhaps dynasties is where the ability to 'build' your own heros could come in.

IF they bring back the dynasty idea, a lot of things would have to change anyway.

I don't like immortality. Limited mortality for important characters is a positive thing, but if a champion can never die, that's silly and robs us of a goodly portion of the thrill of combat.

They should be free agents after the defeat of their empire, sure. Champions should also be able to defect, but that should be very rare, only a couple times in a long game. That way when it does happen it's more compelling. This could also be related to a captive system; captivated champions could be given an opportunity to defect in addition to things like interrogation, ransoming, and execution.

I like Romance of the Three Kingdoms stuff. That is probably a post-FE thing though, since relationship frameworks are essentially a more broad form of dynasties, and making dynasties interesting is a post-FE goal. But yeah, personal friendships and rivalries would be great. Personality traits could probably work passable-fine in the current framework, though of course I don't know enough about it to say definitively.

New rulers aren't chosen in FE, but there's still interesting gameplay that could exist regarding that. If Stardock does choose to go down that road (which I think they ought to, turning champions into interesting characters should be a priority in my opinion), then they could have us appointing a champion as governor of a city. Masters of Orion did this well, but in FE's case the governor would be a character who can move about on the main map and fight, and who is a part of other friend/rival and dynasty systems. Potentially there could be penalties (or lessened bonuses, rather) associated with keeping a city's governor away for too long.

I would like to see the way heroes work in the beta. The only game breaking element will be a total loss of spells if your heroes die. If I am attacking the AI, I would always target their heroes at the beginning of the war, holding mine back until they can no longer use any magic. I don't care how this problem is solved, but it could ruin the magic system if not kept in check. 

My problem is, that limited number of champions that can be killed will suck.  There isn't going to be dynasties, that has been said.  As far as I know the game isn't going to keep repopulating the world with champions. They each require a quest or some action to hire.  Limited in number.  Them dying as easily as a group of namleess grunts, would be worthless and easy for the player to exploit against the AI.

Bringing any dead champion back to life could require a sizeable offering. Enough materials / gold / population that making the sacrifice really stings. So much that if your kingdom is already on the ropes, there's no way that you could bring champions back, so they are essentially "dead for good". But if you have a strong enough kingdom, your champions are essentially immortal.

imo set amount of champions with the option to bring back champions from the dead using a spell and start them at lvl 1 again..

Brad, judging from your posts it sounds like you're having some brain busting difficultly with the game's AI.

To cut down a chunk out of your work, why not restrict tactical battle confrontations to special unit and hero lead armies only?

This opens up more time with focus on other AI pursuits and it comes out as a feature because a hero is now more *cough* heroic.

Edit: make that Rockstar Heroic.