Famous Heroes...where are they in SP?

[greymeister]

Well to confirm someone else's info Guy of Gisbourne is your first recruited assassin from Knottingham Castle (Mercia I'm pretty sure) in the high ages. Have not seen Joan of Arc as the French throughout the High and Late periods. I thought maybe if I was the English and took Burgundy (Where Orleans is) I thought maybe she'd show up but not yet anyway. No luck with Vlad or anyone though. Gotta keep searching.

Greymeister

[ichi]

One of my favorite hero-types is El Cid, I think he starts the game in Valencia and can be bribed (not always tho) giving you a 5-star gen.

ichi

[British Mutt + Viking]

The heroes are very tricky, for some will only appear with rebels in certain provinces which a good ruler should never have to worry about rebelling, like Robin Hood in Mercia during the 1300s, William Wallays in Scotland, a real nasty Irishman in Ireland, & so on. Some have some useful traits, but the price of drivin a prvince into rebellion, no easy task for real old provinces, losing a province full of infrastructure, bribing the leader (IF they actually show up, for the years can be tricky) & then rebuilding the damage is just not worth it. You are more than likely to have trained up better generals by then.
Also, a lot of these heroes are not well done, having skills now representative of their historical impact. For example, El Cid was not a great attacker, he was known for the love he inspired in his troops & the people of Valencia (They wouldn't have tied him to a horse to keep the troops fighting if he wasn't loved), and his near blind obsession with loyalty, even to kings who treated him as little more than the scum on a boot, which is represented almost perfectly by the "fearsome4" trait (+3 loyalty,+6 morale,+10 happiness), but instead, he gets a wimpy "attacker" trait (+ 2 stars, only when attacking). This must be a game balancer ( thye must have meant to give him the fearsome4 at first), but it is a rather silly one. If one wants to balance the game & prevent El Cid becoming the dominant force on the map, make it a King's Ransom + interest to bribe him, or give him merely two stars, for he was not actually a great general in terms of strategy or tactics, his men fought like demons for him, overcoming the odds.
Now myself, I admit I decided to make three copies of the names file, re-wrote one to be realistic historically, then another which I personally tailored to give me an army of ready made governors (high piety, loyalty, & acumen), super generals to lead armies (high stars, +morale traits, high loyalty), & made an assassin who never fails or dies. The third file, I keep unchanged in my back-ups incase I make a change that causes trouble. I agree I "cheat" in that regard, but who cares, it is only SP. ~)