Political Intrigue Among Heroes In Universe

I like this idea a lot. One of the games that got me into 4X as a genre was a "between-y" game called Brigandine on the original Playstation.  It was basically what happens if you mash up a JRPG with a baby's first 4X, though really in practice it's more of a 1.5x  (barely any exploration, next to zero meaningful exploitation, but definitely some expansion and lots of extermination).  Don't terribly recommend it except as a novelty, but one of the most interesting parts is that the various characters you'd have lead your armies -- that very much work like they do in EL and ES2 -- do have this interesting backstories and motives. And they would indeed sometimes talk to each other if they met in battle.  Especially if they had personal histories with each other.

This wasn't a throwaway feature, either. While often it was for laughs, sometimes this happening could unlock specific hero-unique quests or even later events if their empire falls.

I think Amplitude might be a little shy about dropping something like this into what is partially a tactile, simulation-y series but I can say it wouldn't hurt my immersion that much. Dungeon of the Endless had something very similar to the above, even. A bit of comedy or levity -- like say when two of the same hero meet each other in battle and get into an argument about who the real one is -- would actually, if anything, make the setting more real and endearing to me.