Heroes

Heroes are characters you can recruit in game to help you with battles and quests. The hero that leads your army for battles and quests is called a General. Please note: Heroes are not army members or soldiers (units).

Recruiting Heroes
All heroes need to be "recruited", i.e., acquired. There are five ways to do this, which varies based on the specific hero:
 * Some heroes are purchased with gold on the Heroes tab.
 * For these heroes, you use the "Heroes" tab below the Castle Age banner.
 * They cost gold to recruit, and may or may not require an upkeep (hourly fee).
 * As you unlock new Quest lands, you will find more heroes to recruit listed on the Heroes tab.
 * All generals needed to gain influence on quests can be bought here.
 * Some heroes are available as rewards from the Oracle treasure chests.
 * You spend Favor Points to pull a random reward from an Oracle treasure chest. Each chest includes some heroes among the possible rewards.
 * You cannot specify a general to acquire. Chest rewards are random.
 * Heroes acquired in this way are never required for quests, although they can be used when the quest states "any general".
 * These heroes are useful for the PvP and Monster Hunting aspects to the game.
 * Some heroes are purchased as Favor Generals from the Oracle.
 * Favor Generals cost 30 Favor Points.
 * Each Favor General has a required level to purchase. You must be at that level or higher to buy the hero.
 * Heroes acquired in this way are never required for quests, although they can be used when the quest states "any general".
 * These heroes are useful for the PvP and Monster Hunting aspects to the game.
 * Some heroes are created through Alchemy.
 * For heroes created through Alchemy, the ingredients required to make them are obtained from various places, including monster loot, gifts, treasure chests, Kobo, or some other parts of the game.
 * Some can be obtained by simply gathering enough army members.

An A-Z photo gallery of all heroes is at Heroes Gallery.

Active General
While you may recruit many heroes, only one may be your "Active General" at a time. Your Active General contributes their Attack, Defense, and any special abilities when attacking (also dispelling and fortifying) a monster, invading another players army, or questing.

There are several ways to switch Active Generals:
 * Go to the Generals tab from the main navigation and then click on the hero that you want to be your new Active General.
 * Choose the general you want to use from the quick select changer where your active general is displayed.
 * Click the picture of a general by a quest and click the Select Hero button to select that one as your Active General. (If you do not own the general yet, you will have the option to purchase it, which automatically selects it as your Active General after the purchase).

Each general has different Attack and Defense stats which helps determine your battle power in duels. And they each add their own special ability, which has one of a variety of effects on gameplay.

Your Active General had formerly determined whether or not you will gain influence while doing quests, but this was changed in September 2014 so that any general can give influence on any quest.

General Levels
As time goes on, each general can become stronger. If you have them selected as your Active General, they will gain experience whenever you do quests, participate in PvP, and when you fight monsters (Note: you will earn experience as well from these activities, but the amount you earn will be different than the amount your active general earns). Weaker generals earn experience faster than stronger generals. You can start leveling your generals once you reach level 10.

When a general gains a level, his/her/its attack and defense will increase, and their special ability improves. Every general begins at level 1, and eventually reaches level 4. Obtaining Hero Medals will allow specific generals to raise their max level cap. Heroes purchased with gold will retain their level and experience if you sell them and then hire them back at a later time to avoid upkeep costs. With the introduction of Hero Crystals, the level cap has been raised for all heroes. As a hero levels up further, they will gain more attack and defense, and selected generals will see an increase in abilities, or even secondary abilities. To level up, you must reach a certain amount of General Experience and use up a Hero Crystal. At level 20 and every 5 levels above that, you will need a certain amount of Balanced, Aggressive, or Defensive Crystals as well as documented here: http://castleage.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_Crystal#General_Leveling

Experience gained by a general is correlated to the amount of resources spent while they are active, along with the activity that the resources are spent on; not on the amount of experience the player gains while they are active. Generals can also gain experience through the use of Hero Potions, which grant a fixed amount of 85,000 Hero XP each.

This is a spreadsheet that lists all the heroes and their stats and abilites from level 4 up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoRDy0j8eSFHdGhZTmlQZjZ1VVdZa0hFdTVoQlZoVnc#gid=0

General Promotion
When a player owns multiple copies of a general, they are able to Promote the general to a higher rank, signified by an increasing number of stars. Promoting generals grants them a boost in stats, as well as a boost in ability level if their ability has power upgrades. For example, a 2* general at level 4 would have the same ability as a 1* general at level 7. The boosts are displayed in the table below.

Favor generals (bought from the Oracle general shop) are capped at 5 stars, while generals pulled from chests are capped at 8 stars. Other generals generally aren't freely available to purchase, and don't have a standard cap.

* Note: Ability ranks past 5 are projected, and need verification.

General Types
Each general is classified as one of three types: Balanced, Defensive , or Aggressive. These types affect the materials necessary to upgrade generals at certain levels past level 20, with the hero's type determining the color of evolution that is predominantly needed.

General Specifics
There are a lot of generals. Each general has its own stats. They also have an ability. They can also level up and change their stats and the strength of their abilities. Because of this, there is a bit of a disagreement on how to display this information. If you wish, you can browse our General General Tables (which carries general information on the generals). If you wish to know absolutely everything about a General, please browse that general's individual page. (Note: if you are wondering what happened to all the information that used to be on this page, it has been moved to the General General Page)

Generals
As of January 1, 2014, there are a total of 210 heroes, 8 of which can no longer be obtained (Nax the Blighted, Odin, Eternal Alystra, Kilgore, Dexter the Drunk, Memnon, Angelica, Elin, Noktar, Persephone and Gabrielle).

Alchemy Heroes
Though neither of them are available through the store, Keira may be considered the general of the Demon Realm and Cartigan may be considered the general of the Underworld.

Oracle Favor Generals

 * Most of these can be purchased using Favor Points. Each Hero's viability is dependent on your current level.