The appearance of random, non-national heroes?

[Epaminondas]

I just had a battle mage appear on my capital while playing as Arco. He was obviously not a national hero, and in fact the screen said he was gifted to me from Rhuax or something. How often does this happen, and what factors control it?

Although it's been a long time since I played Dominions II, I did play quite a lot, and I think I don't remember seeing this happen in Dominions II.

[Tyrian]

Yes some commanders can appear like the sage master or the etheral assassin. They aren't really heroes.

[Epaminondas]

Tyrian,

Is there a list of those commanders? And what factors control their appearances?

[Nick_K]

They are random events. Sometimes when you get a good random event you'll get some gold, sometimes you'll find some gems, occasionally you get a commander...

So, if you want this sort of thing more often then take luck scale. Turmoil would also help.

This sort of positive event often has minimum scales. You might never see them if you had an unluck scale. Taking the luck scale doesn't just increase the percentage of good event and the nubmer of events, it also enables the best ones.
It's certainly possible for other scale requirements or even more exotic ones like terrain type to affect which events are available, but luck is the msot important one. Actually, I'd have thought that a gift from Rhuax would require the heat scale... but I seem to be wrong there!

I believe that your national heros are dealt with by a different system (still based on luck) and aren't events per se.

The Rhuax thing sounds new to Dom3.
In Dom 2 you would sometimes get a fugitive from the hidden kingdom of Elludia (which is a rare magic site, btw). This guy is an ethereal human assassin. The event is also in Dom3 - I've had it in the demo.

You could also rescue a lore master who was trapped in a cave.

Actually, I can't think of any others. They're really cool events though. The commanders aren't a big deal really, but they add a lot of flavour to the game.

[dirtywick]

Well, there's the ethereal assassin which is mentioned. I've gotten him in a misfortune scale though.

There's the Animist, N2 mage, which comes with a couple dozen boars (doesn't seem to be able to call allies or anything like that though, but the description says they get more vinemen when they cast that spell) and a magic site, the Animist's Hut which gives 1N. That's a random event and I've gotten it with both Luck and Misfortune, and it also seems somewhat common.

I've gotten an A2 mage as a random event that's nothing special as well. Something about coming from a magical tower and would rather serve you than die in the message, not sure exactly what it said.

Like Nick K said, it's not a big deal as they're usually not greatly powerful or anything, but they can give you access to other paths you normally wouldn't have. I wouldn't plan around it happening though.

[NTJedi]

Some really great games could be made if we could customize our own events including when and where they happen... with the option of adding them to the random event list.

Maybe in Dominions_4