Agree.  I recruited a governor-type and took her around with my combat guys for a while to level her up but I chanced on combat abilities before I got the Admin abilities I wanted and suddenly she turned into an uber combat type herself and is now indespensible to my armies.

Perhaps what you could do is add a "Self Development" ability (or Self-Dev 1,2,3) on the Path of the Gov that grants them a couple of xp each turn they don't move?

Or, if you wanted a more UI-heavy solution, allow the player to assign units to the training ground so they become unavailable for a few turns but get xp on completion of their training (perhaps at a gold cost too?)

Governor heroes need to have more going for them BUT they should also be a minority. There should also be a variety of governor heroes consisting of administrators, governors, researchers, and merchants giving a variety of bonuses.

That being said, governor heroes should be optional... as in, you choose to do it and such. It should never be forced.

I don't think it's rare, its from one in the second row in the magic tree. But it's not right that governor should require this building to work.

I agree, better traits for city management would be great. Right now I have no incentive to keep champions home. This could also tie back into champion stats. It would also be great to tie quests and events into this to give champions in cities something to do.

I like it when X is dependent on Intelligence. 

X = Int/4

Good general related traits for a governor could be things like:

Over my dead body - +def when defending a city

Best defense is a good offense - +att when defending a city

cunning defender - traps and pitfalls set by the hero cause the sieging army to enter battle with x% less health

Inspiring orator - the charismatic hero can drum up extra militia to defend the city for every battle

An architect trait line might be good within the governor tree, too. Allowing a city to construct (not just start construction, but construct) certain buildings if  such a visionary leader is on-site to oversee the project. that might lead to too much micromanagement, but on the other hand it would require more attention be paid to governor heroes than if they are just immobile buffs.

Having a hero oversee the construction of labyrinthine Secret Tunnels beneath my capital that give me a one shot ability while defending that city to summon a unit of militia behind enemy lines could seem cool.

It'd also be nice if having a governor hero present in a city would occasionally generate galciv style random events for that city, decisions to be made by the governor or local issues to be resolved by a skilled leader, that could lead to small permanent buffs to the city or rarely uncover new resources within the cit's influence.

How about the obvious ability:  Govenor adds X exp to all units stationed in the city of a lower level than the Govenor.  Levels of this trait could speed exp gain or extend the level range, as in start at 3 levels below Govenor level and work up.

Other traits could add to unrest reduction, grain>food conversion, prestige, research, reduce build cost and speed, reduce maintenance, reduce troop salary .... Sounds a bit like Leaders in MoO.

I tend to agree - Path of the Governor doesn't feel fleshed out properly, in my opinion.

In War of Magic, Heroes provided bonuses to a City when stationed that were dependant on their "Type".  I liked this aspect.  I'd like to see it evolved.  Path of Governor should - in my opinon - make the Champion entirely City focused and give players another way to play them.  It's all about choice.  But, if my Champion doesn't gain enough XP, stationing them in a City is worthless because it's working against what I want them for.  So, perhaps a small amount of XP something along the lines of (5xp * (Champion Level * City Level)).  Something that takes into consideration their situation - if they're sitting over a massive city, they should be working more, so they should get more experience.

And, personally, I think their traits shouldn't be anything close to "+2 Strength", but more along the lines of "-5% Unrest" or "+10% Faster Unit Training".  They should be the little guys you can look at your Empire and say "Ok, I need this City working better - I'll shift "Sam the City Manager Guy" to this City to help get it under management quickly!".

I still feel a possible solution would be to split off hero's martial and governor roles entirely: two different experience pools per hero, generated from completely different actions, with completely different traits.

Of course then the problem would be that a hero spending all her time gaining levels in her governess role wouldn't be much help during a city siege, if she has no combat experience... unless there were governor-role talents specifically related to city sieges, or even hero's combat prowess only in city sieges...

I believe governor type heroes should gain some kind of xp, well, while governing. Monster bashing heros get xp from bashing monsters, governors should get xp by governing.

My idea.

Create a new batch of promotions for Governors:

Have them gain promotions to improve their +Research, +Gilder, -production cost, etc skills

Also, have them gain some abilities similar to the Mediator from FF Tactics as rare promotions, like being able to talk to a enemy and confuse them, drum up militia in a town, etc...

As for how they'd gain xp- Adventurer's Guilds do need to be more effective, and stationable in every city.  That's probably the best option.

Nice thread.  These ideas need to be taken seriously.