Posts from Minis and Runes to all!

Hello. Question! Has anyone tried working with Dwarf Runes and Mage Minis? The task is as follows: I need to find a way to make Runes and Minis available to all Creatures, and not just the "native" faction. --- The idea has been around for a long time and is mainly for a specific Map/Mode. But I decided to ask. Has anyone worked on this? And how far has the Heroes community progressed in this matter? -- *taking the opportunity, I want to ask. Has anyone worked on Modifying/Changing/Adding to the Runes and Minis themselves?

You can apply mini-art to any creatures and use runes as well. It doesn't depend on the creatures, only on the hero's faction.

The fact that any Hero can use Runes is understandable, but they should be usable on all units (and in our case, we'd like them to be).
As for Minions, a Mage can only equip them on creatures from the Academy (although he can then easily pass them on), but he can't, for example, equip them on Skeleton Warriors or Archers and give them to an ally.
In both cases, we'd like to be able to bypass this restriction. A Rune Priest could use Runes on, for example, Elven Archers serving in his army. A Mage, like a Smith of Artifacts, could supply not only his own army but also the armies of allies with his Minions, giving them to, say, "Liches" and "Adept" units.

Even if not so actively, we continue these experiments. 🤔
For now, we can say the following:
1) Minis are tied specifically to the affiliation (city) of the creature, i.e., by giving any creature the "Academy City" ability, you can equip it with a Mini.
2) This is not transferred to Upgrades, because of point 1. And even if you have an "Academy" unit that is not upgraded, but the upgrade is no longer "Academy," you cannot put a Mini on the Upgraded unit.
3) Minis are preserved and do not disappear if you "alt-upgrade" or upgrade a creature into a "Non-Academy" one.
- - - -
What is the conclusion so far? Based on what is available at the moment, it may be possible to implement Minis for any Faction through an "Alt-racial" unit. But it is difficult to imagine how this can be reasonably integrated into the game.
The experiment also revealed the following amusing fact:

In a city of one Faction, there is nothing preventing you from recruiting units that "by passport" belong to other Factions. (The Neutral icon, in this case, changed automatically because, in this case, the Megeras are "Academy" by origin).

Technically, all this suggests the possibility of creating "domesticated" creature Upgrades, i.e., additional Alt-Upgrades adapted for a Foreign race, capable of using their advantages and not having morale penalties. This may offer some room for experimentation, but it will also require a lot of "dummies" (6 per creature). I am working on the base of "standard" Heroes, without additional Mods, so I cannot get "dummies" for creatures yet. 🙄

Yes, with minis everything is simple - it depends on the castle. I remember how I struggled with swapping Academy and Inferno in the old RTF; Inferno units with Academy affiliation were perfectly decked out with minis, but for the Academy units from Inferno I had to specify Inferno units in <PairCreature>, otherwise the demon gates wouldn't open

Regarding runes: Runes are spells. If you list all the runes in a single line of spells for a creature, they will have them (but with only one use each, after which they will break). I organized the black market for runes in this way, and as a result, I gave one rune to one creature from each faction. For example, human archers can break one stone and gain x2 speed for 1 turn to escape further away (energy rune). I translated the perk "rune refresh" into leadership, and now heroes of other factions can refresh a rune if they have learned the skill.

Regarding runes.

Runes are spells.
If you add all the runes to a creature's spell list, they will have them (but only one use each, and then they will break).
I organized the black market for runes this way, and as a result, I gave one rune to one creature from each faction. For example, human archers can break one stone and get x2 speed for 1 turn to run away (energy rune).

I translated the "rune upgrade" perk into leadership, and now heroes of other factions can upgrade a rune if they have learned the skill.

Useful information and an interesting application.
It turns out that mechanically, the original runes are learned by the hero but passed on to the creatures (only to the dwarves, in the original). And similarly for the Artifact Rune of Flame.
You can come up with hidden mechanics, for example, for my "Factory," but of course, I would like more.
*I hope to return to the forum and my Heroes projects in the coming days. I haven't been around for a long time...