yeah, it would add alot to the game if the champions had some sort of alignment that guided them.  example:

give the faction a faction alignment.  make certain decisions change that alignment.

lets say that you become(on a scale of -10 to +10) +10 which is really good.  you might attract "joe the mighty paladin" because he is so good.  he has alot of ability to hurt evil aligned creatures and enemies.

well, you do something that knocks you down 5 points to +5.  that is just under what he will accept so he tells you that you need to clean up your act or he is out of there.  after a while you loose another 2 points because you killed some baby trolls or something.  he then leaves you and seeks another good kingdom elsewhere.  if he finds one, he may offer his services, if not then he will keep wondering the lands slaying evil until someone gets a +5 or more in alignment.

I agree and I also really like the Alignment idea, especially if it's mold-able by the player through actions/quests and what not. It makes absolutely no sense that Kingdoms are all goodly and empires are all evil, right down to their terrain, it's boring and lazy and really detracts from player immersion. Having a kingdom or empire be influenced in terms of alignment by buildings and player choices would really be a plus, and having Adventurers who react to that and come with their own quests would really be a plus.

That and resurrection spells.

actually that's what I propose to a greater or lesser extent in https://forums.elementalgame.com/396352,   Of course in my suggestion they ask you to join them, but the general idea was it could go both ways.

Ideally the system wouldn't favour good or evil, since the game is not so much about Good and Evil as it is about one way of viewing the world and another way of viewing the world.

Survival of the fittest(individual), vs, survival of the individuals by the survival of the whole.  In the empires each person is their own they must defend themselves, dog eat dog.  In the kingdoms success is about banding together against common foes.

thus empire like choices should yield losses of troops but gains in experience/strength, and Kingdom like choices should should yield Diplomatic capital, heroes,  but cost money or time (wait or pay for to help your weakest).

soldiers overpowering heroes is a slightly different problem which has little to do with levels and too much to do with overly simplistic combat models.  there are any number of suggestions on how to fix that.  just limiting level's alone probably won't  be sufficient.

Hehe ... yea, Combat mechanics/ heroes vs armies is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!! ... but as to this topic ...

there *should* be AI directives for heroes/champions. They should have alignment motivations, greed motivations, and safety/security motivations.

Champions of similar or near-similar alignment should *readily* form alliances (parties) if greed or safety motivations overlap.

Also, if the greed or safety motivations are EXTREME enough, opposite alignment champions could make temporary alliances (until they find more suitable team-mates).

Also, perhaps some crowding mechanism for parties/champion alliances ... so that groups of individuals don't get too large, cause ultimately beyond a certain point headstrong personalities will cause a large group to split. (at least in fiction)

Since Champions have a high likelihood of retreating, Champions that have fought against each other would be less likely to form alliances in the future.

Also, Champions would be less likely to hire themselves out to a Faction that employed their rivals. (unless it was the Richest faction around that paid well and gave good benefits, etc)

I think there should be three levels of NPC interaction. Full Independence, Contractual Obligation, and Full Membership.

Full Membership would be "hiring them" and they become full citizens, members of the royal court, the works. You fully control them.

// Edit: Full Members with low loyalty have a chance to rebel. The thing is, if a FULL MEMBER rebels, they may end up swaying a good portion of your military and family members to their cause ... with the potential to start a civil war. Heck, its possible even an entire CITY may join their little revolution. Therefore, its important to have Full Members with high loyalty.

Contractual Obligation would mean that they are relatively automated, you can assign soldiers to them, and you can pay them bonuses for good deeds. Contract-Heroes with low Honor may rebel, flip sides, or go rogue unless you pay them well enough.

Benefits to Contractual Obligation would be that while you can "order them around" (loosely, not directly), you are not diplomatically responsible for their actions ... so they can act as independent agents without a banner. /// people can choose an alternative implementation, this is just one idea ... in the end though, its basically a Majesty scenario, where you give them incentives to do tasks for you. /// I'm all ears for suggestions on how to make the middle choice actually worth it.

/// Edit: Further Benefits to Contractual Obligation. The longer they are under contract, their loyalty to you slowly increases. It may be wise to increase a Champion's loyalty in this manner before making them a full member.

Full Independence. -> Free agents, likely to form parties/temp.alliances with other free agents. Sometimes a party of free agents may become extremely loyal to each other and never separate. If they live long enough, of course.

Yep, Empires are more about Chaos, and freedom of the strong ...

while Kingdoms are more about Law and Order, and about everyone obeying a certain code of conduct (as well as providing entertainment to the masses)

whereas, instead of a "code of conduct" for EVERYONE ... the Empires have the strong do what they will, and the weak must fulfill any service or obligation required of them by their betters.

True your kingdom should be approached by heroes from time to time and be able to get some though quests. Elemental is missing alot of soul IMO, its like Lego, you can do so much with it but at the moment its just a bunch of half constructed bricks.