I just figured out why the devs aren't saying anything about the uniqueness of factions in FE... it's because there are no factions in FE.  they've all been cut.  the only AI that's needed in FE is the AI behind the roaming and boss monsters.  poor AI problem fixed.  lack of uniqueness in the factions fixed.  there's only one victory condition = conquer the untamed world.

whatever the worlds, it's still redundant unless there's no terraform

The more I think about dynasties being cut, the less I like the decision.  Dynasties were one of the more original and interesting things about EWoM...the system just needed to be fixed a bit.  Like having an heir take over as sovereign after the previous sovereign dies.

Ahh, succession.  This is a very interesting point, and one we talked about in great depth.  You are right that it does make the dynasty system a lot more interesting.

But the question is, are you playing as your sovereign, or your empire (as in Civ)?

Warning: I'm about to jump into some gaming philosophy stuff, which is a world without strict rules, please bear with me.

If you are playing as your sovereign then continuing to play after your sovereigns death is jarring.  It also breaks the emotional tie between the player and his sovereign if the sovereign is just another empire resource, especially if it may make sense to throw away the sovereign so that you can have a promising heir take over.  You don't have a hard defined reason to protect the sovereign, or to be so eager to hunt down enemy sovereigns once heirs are available.  It distances the player for the contact point that we want them to empathize with the most.

The game isn't about Resoln, or Altar, or Yithril.  It's about Ceresa, Relias and Verga.  That wasn't conveyed very well in WoM, but will be a much stronger focus in FE.  For example you can't select to play Ceresa leading Altar in FE.  You can make a new sovereign with all Ceresa's abilities and have that sovereign lead Altar, but Ceresa is a specific person, with a specific history, flavor and personality.  She doesn't lead Altar.

It doesn't sound good from a feature perspective.  From a feature perspective it sounds good to have more options.  To have every sovereign be able to lead every faction, to have the game continue if your sovereign dies by going to your heirs.  But there is a change in the way the game "feels" because of those decisions.

So that is why we don't have succession (though it does a great job of making dynasties worthwhile).

The full story is that there were some features that weren't living up to their potential in WoM (in my opinion).  It's not possible to just make everything great.  And in some cases the best reasonable implementation of something still isn't good enough.

Dynasties was one of those, and I worked on a few designs for them, nothing that was good enough.  Some that had good points and bad points, but nothing that felt really integrated into the game.  So I asked Toby to pass a pass at a magic wand design for them ("forget everything you know and design them as they should be").  He wrote a great design.  Most importantly he wrote a system that integrated in interesting ways with the stuff we are doing in FE.

The bad part is that its a significant change and there isn't a good partial solution (in some cases I leave systems in the game knowing we have post FE plans for them even if they aren't ideal, because I know the game is better with them and the current implementation is a step toward the ideal solution).   And that the solution Toby proposed is a secondary system (ie: it requires the FE systems to be finished and polished before we can do meaningful work on it).  Otherwise we end up with downstream issues where I change system A and that breaks something in system B.

So dynasties got cut.  They may come back post-FE.  The plan is to have them back, but I hate to promise anything because anything that far out is always just ideas.

Right or wrong, thats the logic.

Most definitely, for me anyway, I play as the Civilization.  But really, even in other games, like Civ or GalCiv2, you're still playing as a leader, with a name and stats or bonuses.  This gave Elemental a chance to do something very new, and very cool...ruler heirs.  The idea of marrying and having children is a fantastic one, and was one of the first things I was excited about with Elemental.  Having your leader die, either through battle or old age, and then having a child take over is really, really cool.  And a very new game mechanic as far as I know.  It gives you an incentive to not only have children, but make sure they're powerful enough to be worthy heirs.  

I guess I just feel like it's a missed opportunity to do something different, and really pretty neat.

Dynasties would have been useful to add options into the diplomatic way. For now, I shall juste take Derek's word that a good design exist and will probably be implemented later. Better to focus on a few points and make them right than make everything bad! (But I'm waiting at the diplomatic corner!)

I wanted to comment on this:

It's not to say it should be cut entirely but I hope it shall be streamlined in FE.

Now the point about "rpgish war game" and the focus on Magic/Combat/World.

Well, it seems to me that it was exactly what Age of Wonders was about: almost non-existent diplomacy, some minimal city-building (was cool to send pioneers to found new cities and see them grow) but focus on champions leading armies to discover the map, fight monsters to get items/gold/specialties, and go to war with detailed tactical combat. If FE 1.0 turns out to be an improved Age of Wonders, it would have already accomplished much.
It's not to say that I don't expect the 5 ways to win to be fully fleshed at the end but, for a beginning, better an Über-AoW than an Under-Civ.

I have always looked at it from the perspective that the rules for succession only applied to AI factions and not the player.

Although, further thought on the topic makes me lean towards having it apply to the player as well.

If you have a weak successor then be prepared for cities to defect if your Sov dies.

That also gives you the incentive to improve your offspring.

I have to disagree with Derek.  I would think that most would welcome the added layers this concept would bring to the game.

I must be in a minority cause I don't care much about succession & diplomacy. I want it arcadey like Master of Magic where you can't abuse the A.I like you can in Age of Wonders. Houserules shouldn't be needed for main features.

I feel like people get so attached to a cool gamemechanic and when it showed to be basic, unbalanced and not just developed enough people complain. Then the feature gets removed and people complain even more....

I get the feeling that if the Sovereign could have a pet dragon that was cut because of balanceissues then half the forum would complain about it....

I was specifically referring to this quote:

While I understand this point of view, it seems counter to the decision to remove dynasties. From a certain perspective, it is completely understandable to consider a dynasty system with inheritance to take away from the focus on any individual sovereign. For instance, if you are playing Altar and Relias dies, it would be against this focus on Relias to have his son or daughter assume the throne. However from another perspective, the dynasty system was one of the few WoM mechanism which outlined a persistent and meaningful depth for the sovereign. While the sovereign would go on quests and lead war efforts, these systems tend to be incredibly mechanical with limited persistent effect on the overall game. While I would agree that inheritance would take far too much from the core focus of the game, it might have been nice to see it used to fill out some kind of after game text. For instance, if you had a son, the end game text could talk about him taking over or about your family being executed when you lose all your cities.

The problem is in allocating your limited resources.

Dynasties become secondary when the game's core components like combat, performance and world design are inadequate.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying.  I liked the idea of heirs, not as a successor if my character dies, but for the depth it adds to the character.  I still think the game should end if the sovereign I am playing dies.  But getting married and having children adds a bond to the character you are playing.  Should I send my child off as the commander of an army.  What happens if he gets killed.

The only reason I like my enemies to have heirs, is so if I do kill the enemy sovereign the empire can survive.  I understand this is being address in WoM.