(Love the MOO2 idea for governors.) Anyone played Distant Worlds Legends? Governors and Leaders on planets gain traits (governor traits only affect the planet but leader gets both planet wide and empire wide traits) automatically as things get built on the world they are on (be it ships or structures). So build a brewery and you might run the chance of a governor that makes the people happier (becomes a good drunk) but he also might make it take longer to build troopers or buildings. Or he develops bad traits and isn't a good drunk and hurts town morale.

When you place a champ in a city you get asked if you want to make him/her a governor. Once you pick the governor path you plant your new gov  in the city of your choice. The champ automatically gains exp every turn in cities and he gets access to a governor tree as he levels up. He also can't pick any other path tree ie warrior, mage, etc... The only exception to this rule is the Sov. Sov's can pick 1 fighter tree and gov tree (Sov's are your badass unit).

To prevent city spam you need a champ in a city. You can have 1 empty city though (champs aint always easy to find) ie at the start you can have up 3 cities (tie some tech up to add more cities and outposts) 2 of those cities in the beginning have to have a champ in it. The third one doesn't.

Maybe not, but perhaps becoming a Governor could be a way to "retire" a Champion. When one gets too many wounds or other disadvantages they can be transformed into a governor and cash in their levels and traits for neat city related advantages. They'd still be able to fight if the city got attacked.

I like this idea.

I agree more could be done with Path of the Governor.  They should earn XP as fast as fighting champions and it would be nice if we had more solid Path of Governor traits to choose from.  In addition to the +1 research, +1 gildar, there should be stuff like:

Librarian:  +1 research for each research building in stationed city

Guildsmith:  +1 materials for each materials building in stationed city

Trader:  +1 gildar for each gildar building in stationed city

Physician: +5 heal/turn for units in stationed city

Barterer:  Shop prices increased/decreased 10% for selling/buying in stationed city

Diplomat:  City produces +x diplomacy capital for stationed city

Storyteller:  City produces +x prestige for stationed city

etc, etc, etc.

me too.

I think any hero with an ability which benefits either a city or your empire (ie + research, etc) should gain half way decent amounts of experience every turn if they are in a city. After all that hero has a trait which makes them good at doing civilization type stuff, they should be able to benefit from actually doing it!

Whether or not governors gain exp by sitting around building things, I think it should also be viable to have them gain exp by fighting, cho0sing city-enhancements as their rewards, and eventually retiring to help one of your cities.

I doubt that's going to change, but it doesn't really make sense, does it? What does a champ learn about governance and administration while killing monsters in a dungeon?

How to deal with troublemakers?

Ok, fair   I've worked in a bureaucracy long enough to have occasionally wanted to break out an axe. But that's got to be the exception, not the rule.

Their presence could reduce unrest by x% per level - either out of respect or fear.

Sure, but that's not the bonus they're getting right now. It's bonuses to production.

Some sort of passive gain would be nice, probably only up to a certain level cap for units, maybe associated with a training yard or a less unique sort of building. However, I disagree with the assertion that viable means mandatory. If it is viable, it should be because there are ideas that make the game more fun or just as fun if you have a champion act as a governor due to meaningful choices, random events, novel defensive options, whatever. If it is viable, it only becomes mandatory if those benefits are overwhelming by comparison with a well-equipped equivalent level champ busting heads and throwing fireballs.

Why can't all units gain xp every turn, period, like in MoM, but have xp requirements scaled to compensate?  Perhaps 1 xp per turn, but double the xp needed per level (or something like that).  This could be buffed by a skill in the Governor tree, let's call it "Training" that could grant say, 2xp per turn to all units in that champion's stack at lvl I, 5 xp per turn at lvl II, and 10 xp per turn at lvl III.  (Kind of like the trait some heroes had in MoM - I have no originality here!)

Passive xp gain would help the AI more than the player anyway.  The AI tend to have more units, and the player can often get hundreds of xp per turn with their champion stack by monster hunting.  Passive gains would buff the AI more than the player.  It would result in more mid level units - meaning fewer one-shot cannon fodder for the heroes - and a doubled or otherwise increased xp requirement would scale back some on the ultra-high lvl stack (which would now need twice as much xp for comparable levels).