Hero hunting is needed to allow you to have the strongest heroes you can.
There are 5 parts of the hero you need to consider.
Heroes Level
Attack attributes
Defense attributes
Loyalty
Heroes Base Numbers
The Basics
The defensive attributes of a hero assist you in reducing training time of troops and research time in your academy. I have not seen any change in the resource production so not sure if it affects that or not.
The attack attributes of a hero will increase your effectiveness in attacks. This means your will have a lower number of losses in an attack and you will have better attack power against your enemy. This will important when you start attacking rogue cities and other world players. Your heroes level and attributes will have an affect on the outcome of the battle. Whether you win or lose and how many losses you have.
The base numbers:
The heroes base number is the heroes defense and offense attributes when the hero is at level 1. Understanding this is important in choosing your heroes. A hero who is level 1 and has 35 defensive and 15 offense is a better mayor than a hero who is level 16 and has a 41 defense and 26 offense. To determine this you subtract the level from the attribute number to determine the base numbers of the attributes.
A hero with 35 defensive and 15 offensive attributes at level 1 will have 51 defensive and 15 offensive attributes at level 16. Provided all attributes earned from level advancement are assigned to defense. The same formula is used for the attack or offensive attributes of a hero.
The loyalty:
Loyalty of a hero comes into play when you lose a battle. The lower the loyalty is, the better chance of the opposing player to persuade your hero to change sides. So it is important to reward your heroes to keep the loyalty close to or at 100. Becareful on rewarding your heroes with medals. They do give the best loyalty improvement, but you need the medals for title advancement. Make sure you only use medals that are for advancement that are lower than your current rank.
Hero Hunting.
You select your heroes from your Tavern. I use only level 1 taverns as by upgrading 1 of my taverns I found that even though I did have more heroes to choose from, the heroes to select from did not have as high of a base number as the level 1 tavern. If you choose to have a higher level tavern that is good just be sure to check the heroes base number before recruiting them.
There are 2 methods of finding high ranked heroes. the first is to hire and fire, the second is to demolish and rebuild. I am not sure which is better. They both work I just think hire and fire is easier.
Hire and fire is just what it says. Hire a hero if he is not what you are looking for then dismiss him/her and hire another. repeat this till you find the hero you want. This method does cost you gold so be sure you have gold to spare before selecting heroes this way.
Build and Demolish is also just what it says. Having a level 1 tavern you can demolish it then rebuild it. Every time you rebuild it there will be a new hero to select from. This method does cost resources so be sure you have the extra resources before using thi smethod.
Either of these methods are a fast way to find good base number starting heroes
There is a slower and cheaper way and that is, I try and remember to look in my tavern everytime I log in to see if fortune has shined on my with a stronger attack hero then I have.
The other item involded with heroes is the armor. by adding arom you increase the attribute number fo rthe hero who is equiped with the armor. I haven't decided if this is better for attack heroes or defense heros. As I haven't had the chance to test this yet.
The best starting attribute that I have found was 45. So any hero with a baseline of 40 or higher is a good one to have.
