Seems to already be a pretty high chance of heroes dying on the War Islands, not sure if it's intended or no.
It is intended, and I'm rather certain its easier to die as a hero on War Island. And again, even non-heroes can die on War Island (though I think that needs increased for next round).
Although it seems very hard to die from being seriously wounded in battle on other continents, even as a 50+ year old hero. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, i just want my heroes to die in battle already :p
The wounding system (years ago) used to work that a seriously wounded hero was a dead hero. But some years back, we changed how the wounding system operates behind-the-scenes. This means heroes don't die when seriously wounded, but need to get *more* wounded than seriously wounded, to die. The most effective means I've seen of heroes dying in battle is recruiting the largest infantry unit you can and charging the enemy in front of the rest of your army. The large unit soaks up lots of hits, giving your character opportunity to get more wounded as you stick in battle longer with the larger unit than you would with a smaller unit, retreating or withdrawing sooner with a less-wounded character.
It is a long-time joke on BM that if you want your hero to die, he never will; the moment your hero is doing something worth living for, he'll die. There's a fair few quotes on the wiki of heroes that threatened an enemy, and then died next battle, before they could fulfill their threat.
PS: age doesn't affect hero death.
