All of the AI players always receive the free hero during the event (they have him in their armies at turn 15-18), whereas the player only gets the quest once, when its completed its gone. I understand that in a subsequent play-through you will see the hero randomly available in the market maybe, but right now I have to forward the date on my pc past January 25th to enjoy a normal game. Why not just keep the quest available for all the games you play during the event period?

Also how does the game track that I've completed the quest? I'm assuming its stored along with the save files and settings in the "My Documents" folder?

After some testing seems game files have nothing to do with it, only removing the achievement causes the quest to reappear. All the more reason why the quest should always pop up during the event imo.

Nice ty