With the Chinese expansion right around the corner, I think it might be fun to think about other changes that the original “tale of the dragon” expansion brought. One of these changes is giving Greeks a healing hero, Hippocrates, for all three Greek major gods. While the new hero was cool, I feel like it falls a bit short given how all the other heroes for the Greek gods are more unique.
I thought it would be fun to theory craft on what if each major Greek god had a unique healer. Do they need one? Probably not, but thinking about it is fun.
Zeus - Medea
The wife of Jason and a powerful magic user, Medea splashes allied units with her “charm of Prometheus” potion. When an ally is doused with the potion, they gain 0.5 HP regen per second along with +10% armor against hack and pierce attacks. The potion lasts 30 seconds and Medea can throw one every 5 seconds.
I chose Medea for Zeus so that she can follow Jason onto the battlefield and do all the hard work for him, just like in the Argonautica. Hera was also very important to the story of Jason and Medeas marriage, and zeus is the only god that has Hera as a minor god. The charm of Prometheus is straight from the story of Jason plowing the field of fire breathing Ox, where Medea gave him an invincibility potion so he wouldn’t be burnt to a crisp, represented in game with it boosting the defense of units under its effect.
The potion heals allies, at best, at about 3 hp/second. Giving her a slower heal than Hippocrates ( 7.5 hp/second). However she also provides that defense buff to compensate.
Hades - Asclepius
Asclepius was a Greek hero later granted godhood, most well known for curing that minor ailment known as “being dead”. On the battlefield, Asclepius can resurrect any fallen unit for the price of (2 * unit supply cost) favor. This ability is actually 3 abilities, one for human units, one for myth units, and one for heros. Each taking 15, 30, and 60 seconds to recharge respectively. The split was to allow the player to take some off of auto cast in case they want to save favor.
I chose Asclepius for Hades because god of the underworld, reviving the dead, you get it. In the myth of Asclepius curing the dead, Hades was the one to get angry at Asclepius for breaking the rules, so I figured spending favor to ask for His forgiveness would work well for both explaining why Hades allows this ability as well as being a decent balancing mechanic (that definitely needs some fine tuning, but hear me out).
Poseidon - Hippocrates.
Hippocrates was a real guy, so there isn’t much of a myth about him (except maybe being an inspiration for the aforementioned Asclepius), however he was from the island of Kos which is the setting for the tale of Polybotes. The tale of Polybotes is likely also the inspiration for Poseidon’s “lure” power, so it all connects.
The player starts the campaign as Poseidon and Hippocrates is the simplest healer, making it the best for new players. From what I understand about the original “tale of the dragon” expansion, Greeks were given healers specifically because Poseidon lacked healing capabilities compared to the other Greek gods. So it would seem kinda fitting for Poseidon to keep Hippocrates.