I think that the Summoner sovereign class would be more useful if it did at least one of the following:
- Gave summoned units extra defense per summoner's level (not necessarily +1 defense per level, but I wouldn't object to that level of defense boosting until I had a chance to test it - +1 defense for every other level is probably more balanced, though).
- Gave summoned units a summoner's level dependent level bonus (although even this is iffy, since all it really does is give the summoned units more health to play with, and even summons that have been running around with your sovereign from the start of the game start to feel squishy once midgame trained units or moderately strong monsters start showing up).
- Allowed you to have multiple summoned units using the same spell by a given caster, though possibly only on the tactical map - if I could summon even one or two extra shadow wargs during combat in addition to the one that I summoned on the strategic map, Summoners would seem much more competitive when compared against the Warlock, which is the only other magic class available to any sovereign. It's also limited in use early on in the same way that damage spellcasting is limited early in the game - the lack of any significant mana reserve to draw on for your spellcasting.
- Provided some form or another of caster level-dependent stat boost to the summoned units - for example increasing initiative, or an attack boost.
- Cause summoned creatures to gain more than just the basic bonuses from leveling up - maybe a summoner's Fire Elemental gains additional fire damage every time the Fire Elemental gains a level, while his Ice Elemental's slowing attack causes an increasing initiative penalty with higher levels.
- Reduces the mana cost of summoning creatures, either by decreasing the casting cost or decreasing the ongoing cost for having a summoned creature.
I think that if more than one or maybe two of the above were implemented, Summoner would probably outshine Warlock. Summoner isn't terrible in its present state, but on the other hand +2 levels for summoned units is nothing to be excited about.
Perhaps consider encouraging player-created sovereigns who take Summoner and Warlock to take more magic abilities than yo would normally take on a sovereign by decreasing the cost of (some) of the spellbooks, and possibly allowing the Summoner and Warlock classes to take an extra magic level on character creation, and perhaps also increasing the costs of the more direct combat related sovereign traits (such as might or hardy).
As for the other sovereign classes:
Bandit Lord and Beastmaster are fun, and can provide a reasonable early game army (and, with Beastlord, even a late-game army - Hoarder Spiders are scary things) if properly managed. Bandit Lord loses its luster fairly early on, though, as Bandits start becoming useless when you begin to be able to bring armored units into the mix. Only real problem is having to get into melee range of the opposing units in order to cast Tame and Convert Bandit.
I've never actually seen a use for the abilities of the Diplomat class, although it is probably quite useful to be able to steal parts of your enemy's army while in battle.
Armorsmith, Warlord, and General are all useful for the big armies of trained units. I think I'd usually take General for the faster leveling, and perhaps Armorsmith for the increased defense to help my trained units serve their purpose as meatshields for my champions. Warlord only seems like it would be useful for the very large armies in late game or if you happen to be stuck with a relatively small empire in the early to mid game, so I'd sooner take Armorsmith or General.
Adventurer seems too hit or miss to me - usually by the time I can recruit the high level champions, they don't seem worth the expense (what can I do with them that is so superior to armies of four or five rush-trained horsemen, before counting the cost of equipping the newly recruited hero?), and usually I'm either swimming in more heroes than I know what to do with or almost all the heroes that I've seen are opposite alignment. This one is thus not one I'm inclined to take unless I want to focus primarily on champions for the game (also, this hurts hero development since there is essentially a limited amount of experience to go around, and I'd rather have a few level 20 to level 30 champions than many level 5 to 15 champions - though going to war with a neighbor and farming their armies can solve this to some extent).
I'd agree with Gorshmak that Noble seems useless, but it does help slightly if you want to run with a relatively high tax rate. The extra prestige is negligible even in the early game - my first city already grows faster than I can usually provide food for it (at least until I found the second town) and adding one prestige doesn't help with that, while later on that one prestige is not much compared to any prestige gained from sovereign levels, research, and any other prestige boosters you come across, and moreover is split over all the cities you have. Not a very good ability, also not a terrible one, but there isn't much benefit from having a high city growth in this game, and the one prestige isn't going to significantly increase growth anyways.
Hunter is alright for a combat-oriented hero, not much good for a magic-oriented hero (unless you want the extra help in the early game). Seems like an early-game class, and nothing special for later on when most of the monsters are gone. Mid- to late-game, I don't think this really provides any bonus, since you should be focusing on fighting other players at that point rather than the local wildlife. Early- to mid-game, this could be quite nice, since you get more additional damage from this than from most other starting abilities. On the other hand, you could get much the same effect by taking the Might trait (+3 attack) and the Cruel weakness (+1 attack, +50% to hero recruitment costs) and take a better or more interesting sovereign class.
Edit: Corrected an error where I mistakenly attributed the "Broken Loyalties" ability to the Diplomat class. Thanks to Lord Xia and Kongdej for bringing this to my attention.
