I like the Ideas of Academies to teach the Royalty about the affairs of the state. I like in Total War how generals/Governors have various stats (influence, popularity, management, command, Elitist vs Populist, loyalty, Piousness) and several of these stats were main stats which were displayed on the interface, while other stats (including ones I didn't mention, like security vs assasinations) were influenced by the above "main stats" and everything came together to effect how the city was run when the particular Royal family member was the governing voice (depended on which royal member present had the largest management value) ...

anyways, Acadamies would generally add certain random stats to a newly Come of Age family member, and would also slowly add new stats to a family member that remained in the Academy city.

I could see there could also be a military academy for heroes, and for the military-specific stats of the royal family as well. I've heard that having the sovereign "run" a city would greatly increase its effectiveness. Well I would also like the royal family to increase the effectiveness of the city based upon certain stats.

Its possible the Sovereign would have an authority stat (unless you just consider it to be a constant 100%, non improvable, and see no point in displaying it) and give all family members, heroes, and adventurers a loyalty stat. Then possibly depending on a follower's loyalty, and the measure of your authority, it costs a different amount of money to "bribe" a general to turn sides.

Of course, it should be far greater than a king's ransom to bribe even the most dis-loyal of generals, but It would be a neat mechanic. However say, if a king's ransom was 10-15 thousand gold, a completely dis-loyal general could perhaps be bribed (along with his army?) for about 10 thousand gold ... although if he has an army, you would basically have to bribe him for his army's weight in gold as well, which could be another 20-30 thousand gold pieces. (depending on size of army ect). If he only had 20 men with him, would only be an extra thousand or two, obviously. And you could choose between bribing just the general or bribing the general + army. If you bribe just the general, I think there should be a chance for the troops to ... go rebel, disband to the countryside, or run back to Sovereign telling what happened.

+1 nice idea.

Imo a system like this should come on top of the standard experience system and you should have to pay for the additional skills. For example for each student in your accademy you pay 10 gp/turn for education costs. Having heroes and familly members as teachers seams a good idea as it would imobilize precious troops. Like that you can choose to make a highly trained army but at a cost.

Also i like the idea put up by tasunke to have many abilities and not only war abilities but also management skills as in total war.

So heroes should be divided into two parts: administration and fighters? Administration can govern school and cities (ie. add some bonuses), while fighters can be used as generals/super powerful single units? That would mean we should have either - as I already said - two types of heroes (adm. and fight.), or 4 types: teachers, governors, fighters and generals...

"The family member with the highest command rating in an army is the general, with the highest management rating is the governor, and with the highest Teaching rating is the Teacher."

So what about the rest of the family, they would be useless?

"As I was saying, a Family member would have influence stat, Management Stat, Command Stat (general), and perhaps a Teaching stat (...)"

How would such stats be chosen? If he/she has taught for a long time, will he/she have their Teaching stat higher?

"And it goes without saying a Sovereign would start with very high command/management/influence/teaching"

I don't know if it's such a good idea to make a sovereign comparable to any member of royal family. Sovereign is a super special unit, and will mostly be used to cast spells & fight the enemies. I don't think anyone will keep their sovereign occupied with teaching students, than casting spells. What I mean is, sovereign should have different tasks than typical heroes (members of royal family). As it is now, he is merely a wondering hero, spreading his essence right and left, fighting occasional beast. I think, the devs should reconsider sovereigns role in the game, especially when the heroes will be implemented.

Lets assume that when we found the first city, we get the first hero. He is relatively weak, so we have to be careful what do we fight against. Sovereign should be allowed to fight wondering monsters (he is a super unit after all), but players should be aware that the death of sovereign = game over. In other words: better to leave sovereign at home, and make him wonder around the world when we want to: kill some strong foe (ie. we gamble the sovereign's life), raise a magic tower or found a city.

So what should such Sovereign do? I think there should be several task that he could choose from:

• Meditate
  In this state he would add some mana to our reserves (only of his color, or of all colors).
• Rest
  The regeneration rate would be increased.
• Develop
  Bonus to development.
  

What do ya think?

at red1939 ... if there are multiple family members in one army, then yes, only ONE can be the general (to give certain bonuses to the army) and the rest are merely units that will fight on the battlefield.

I envision most family members (at least while with the army/in combat) to be accompanied by an elite bodyguard de-facto, essentially becoming one of the most powerful units on the battlefield, not counting channelers or rare super monsters.

If there are multiple family members in one city, only one will be the governor. But if you actually scatter your family members into different armies, and different cities, then yes, they will all be useful. But you cannot have two governors for one city.