To people who don't know, the AI has a priority value for each tech. If you set these values right, you can define the most optimum choices. There is then an AI military strategy type you can give to specific factions, which increases or decreases their value of any techs you specify. This is completely moddable. Might want to try it out.

I still think that warfare techs should contain all non-trinket items for soldiers, both magical and mundane, and that the magic tree weapons and armor should be champion-exclusive (trinkets and cloaks are fine where they are).  I'm also holding out hope that we'll get some modding tools, so that players like me can have an interface to hold our hands while we dink around with modding. 

I typically do this as well.  I take my sovereign, recruit 2-3 heroes, and go on a leveling spree.  I still get steam rolled.  

Your heroes should not run around in the same stack together, they will gain less experience.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Yup... soldiers do not take away from champion / sov xp

Um, that is not true Rogdan.  If you have two heroes in the same army, they get 1/2 experience they would otherwise have.

Thanks for the feedback, folks.  I wish a member of Stardock will post in here and either tell me what else I am doing fundamentally wrong or if this feature of the game requires a tweak.

On the other hand, one champion isn't usually going to be able to take on a dragon, much less a Wildlands ruler.  Multiple champions in a party, each with their own specialties, makes it much easier to destroy higher level enemies.  So it becomes a tradeoff of scale: small parties for small challenges, larger parties for larger challenges.  The experience won't be any greater in a really tough fight for one champion among many, but the item you find at the end of the battle should be correspondingly better.

I have tested these suggestions, and feel I am now much more competitive.  That being said, this is still on "beginner" dififculty, and if it was this difficult for me to figure out on that setting, maybe this should be addressed.

Totally agree. After some games, the research process is always the same. First and 2nd tier on civics, and after that, a mix of warfare and magic. So the game variation is very affected. Each tree should be able to develope depending on available resources, to give more variety to each game.

But, if the Tech trees have to be modified...there can be so many points of visions as people...

My sugerence is basically, to convert an horizontal orientated Tree into a more versatile Vertical Tree. Let's branch all choices from the begining, and just get improvements via later research on each branch. So each game, you will research depending on what available resources.

- Civics. As said before, focusing on money and production.There is little to say, just turn them into vertical branches

    Food improvements. Grocers, gardens, festivals, all that. Tech for apiary, farms, goes here too.

    Gildar improvements. Market, and all stuff related with $.

    Production improvements. Lodging camp, workshop, iron and gold mine, smelter,...

    Unrest improvement. City hall, cleric, ...

   Diplomatics impovements. Monuments (what if calling one of the two as Statue)

- Warfare. From the very begininn, a branch for:

         light armour. No metal requiered.

         Heavy armour. Metal required

         Pierce: Bows and spears (could even get separated, but I guess having them together is enough)

         Blunt: Maces, hammers. More metal requiered, more damage. Less initiative, maybe less dodge. It can add bash, smash and all that.

         Cut. Swords and daggers. Less metal, maybe more production cost requiered. Gives initiative, and may add countestrike (x1, x2, x3...).

         Mount branch. From here, split into horses, wargs, and any other future mount.

         Training Tree. From here, the tree dedicated to group size, reducing training time, more xp at start, better defences, better attack, etc.

With this tree more opened, it should be able to dedicate to have some troops in early game, without too much suffering in economics. And mid game, with the economy settled and some resources explored, each game will focus more variated.

- Magic. Oh oh, what shall we do to with this meesed Tree? Let's try to put some order:

       Heroes Branch. Easy, and clean.

       Crystal and mana improvements. Upgrades and all that.

       Research improvements. The same. It could include a Spells branch, with the researching for spells as many people are asking for

       Magical stuff. It could split into Magic weapons and Magic Defenses.

As the magic Tree seems the more diversed, we could add here two more branches:

  -  Darkligns, Trolls and other monster recruiting. ¿Who wants a squishy  darkling? Well, if research takes little and there is a close lair, maybe...But now, sure not.

  - Special faction unit could be researched here too. Each faction should have 1 or even 2 unique units, with further researching developement.