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I've come up with a long list of ideas for heroes to make them quite interesting and unique from other games.

Hero "classes" and "ranks":
All heroes will have a class and rank associated with them.  Every faction will have three hero classes, each fulfilling a unique role.  In general, there will be a warrior, a leader, and a spellcaster, although this will not always be the case.  Nisyrra could have, for instance, a "Commander", a "Magistrate", and a "Priest", each fulfilling a different role.  Unique to Nisyrra, each is very leadership and magic oriented.  The commander brings combat and enhancing magic, the magistrate offensive and disrupting magic, and the priest defensive and restorative magic.

Beyond that, every hero will have a rank associated with him (or possibly her).  These ranks describe the hero's level of power.  There will be five ranks (with rank 1 being the most powerful, rank 5 the least).  Each rank gets considerably more powerful than the last.  It should be noted that rank is independant of level 1.  A rank 5 can be level 10, and a rank 1 level 1, but the rank 1 will still beat the living crap out of the rank 5.  I haven't named every rank yet, but this is what I'm thinking of:

Rank 1 - Legendary - maximum 1
Rank 2 - ? ? ? - maximum 3
Rank 3 - ? ? ? - maximum 9
Rank 4 - Captain - maximum 24
Rank 5 - Champion - no maximum (notice, they still count to population limit!)

One important note is that a Rank 1 hero will count towards your maximum for Rank 2, Rank 3, and Rank 4.  This also applies to the lower ranks.  Essentially, a "maximum of 9" at rank 3 means a maximum of 9 which are rank 3 or above.  This is designed because Rank 1 and 2 heroes are very difficult to get, so players who fail to get them will at least have more rank 3's to compensate.  Champions should not be regarded as heroes, but rather elite units within the army (similar to BFME's berserkers, if somewhat less fragile).  Nisyrra won't have Rank 5's (since their army is too small for "elite" units to begin with), and heroes start from rank 4.

Heroes can be created in two ways: promotion or summoning.  In summoning, a hero is literally purchased.  While champions are fairly affordable and captains within tolerance, rank 3 is pretty darn expensive.  Rank 2 and rank 1 cannot be purchased in this way.  Nisyrra will have the unique ability to ressurrect dead heroes (there will be a way to restore "fallen" heroes for the other faction, but fallen refers only to heavily wounded in this case), but until ressurrection is completed they will continue to take up space on the maximum number of heroes allowed.  They can also be dismissed (this is permeanent) so that their space is available for filling immediately.

The other way to create a hero is promotion.  At this point, I haven't fully designed this aspect, so there are still holes to fill in.  Essentially, even once max level, units and heroes will continue to earn experience and level up (mind you, their level doesn't increment, and successive ranks get exponentially harder).  When a maximum rank unit levels up, it will produce a level 3 champion rank hero.  I'm not certain how to select its class.  When a maximum level hero levels up, it will become a level 3 of the next rank.  I want another way to rank up a hero without taking him to level 10.  Basically, I want a system where a hero can distinguish himself in more ways than just surviving skirmish after skirmish and bring individuality to him as such.

Finally, there is restoring fallen heroes.  When a hero of rank 4 or higher falls on the battlefield, he will leave a body.  The length of time this body remains depends on the rank of the hero.  If you can get to the body in time, it can be transported back to base where the hero will be restored to full health relatively quickly.  However, if the enemy can get to the body it can be killed.  The body cannot be recovered or killed while enemies or your own troops (respectively to each circumstance) are nearby, although it won't survive very long on its own.

I also have some ideas for hero classes, which I may post later.

Wow... Nice job Darvin, you always have great ideas 

How come I haven't noticed this before

Something to read tonight.

Solinx

I am normally not a fan of heroes, but i like the promotion method, its unique from other Real time strats. But it would be nicer if you could use one method, not have a choice. This would:
a) confuse the crap out of a lot of people
b) mean more unnecessary work

Again, you prove to have very good ideas

The use of both rank as well as level adds a new layer to the game. It isn't hard to get to know how it works when they are slowly introduced into the campaign. Those who want to skipp the campaign will have to deal with a somewhat steeper learning curve, but with visuals, as well as description tags, it will be doable enough.

I want another way to rank up a hero without taking him to level 10.  Basically, I want a system where a hero can distinguish himself in more ways than just surviving skirmish after skirmish and bring individuality to him as such.

How about special actions and situations. Like being the first to go over the wall, or win a true duel with an enemy hero. (No outside interference, only the two heroes fighting eachother)

Solinx

That's on the lines I was thinking of... you do have to be careful it's not abuseable, though.  Winning a duel with a *higher rank* hero should definitely be a way to get a promotion, but you have to be careful of the definition of duel.  I don't want to see an annoying system where you have to time the finishing blow to get the promotion you want.

As for being too confusing, the key is to keep it all intuitive.  Even if there are lots of ways to do things, if each of those ways makes sense it will be fine.