When creating a new sovereign, it feels like some starting professions are just always the obvious choices. Would it be possible to tweak the professions a bit to make all of the choices interesting and viable?
Adventurer: (double fame for quests)
The bonus is weak because it is difficult to find a use for so many heroes. I suggest that Adventurer could also affect the XP slip as well and allow for the grouping of two heroes in the same army without XP loss. The effects of fame could also be buffed. For example, every 50-100 fame could grant +1 growth in your capital.
Bandit Lord: (two bandit units and ability to convert more)
With the new starting units, the two extra units given by Bandit Lord do not contribute much. Furthermore, the bandit units on the map are rather weak, which makes the skill pale in comparison with other options. The problem could be solved by creating some more powerful bandit units for us to convert.
Diplomat: (+30% value in trades and silver tongue)
This ability feels slightly weak. In practice additional military strength seems to be much more important for diplomacy with the AI than this ability. However, I can't think of a suitable buff.
Hunter: (+50% attack vs beasts)
This is rather weak in comparison with Beast Lord. I would much rather capture beasts than get a +50% attack bonus against them.
Summoner: (+2 levels to summons and Shadow warg summon ability)
The summoning spells in the mage tree feel pretty good to me, but the Summoner special doesn't contribute much with only 2 bonus levels and the weak Shadow Warg summon. The problem could be solved by buffing the Shadow Warg or giving Summoner a further bonus like +1 movement speed for all summoned units.
Warlord: (-50% to unit wages)
This is a weak bonus because typically unit wages are not the limiting factor in how many units I can get. Rather, the limiting factor is training time and resource cost. If this bonus is meant to make it possible for us to field large armies, make it provide a -25% discount to unit training costs instead.
Armorer: (+25% to defense)
This ability is OK.
Beastlord: (Ability to tame beasts)
Awesome ability, probably the best choice. The free beasts really help in leveling up heroes fast and tackling otherwise impossible mobs. Coupled with spell mastery perks like Brilliance means that beasts will rarely resist taming. My favourite combo is to combine Beast Master with the summoning spells from the Mage tree and the free elementals from the Resoln special. This means that I won't have to train any units until late game.
My hope is that all of the abilities could be made as awesome as Beast Lord, rather than nerfing Beast Lord.
General: (+25% to unit experience)
This ability is OK, a balanced bonus.
Noble: (-5% to unrest)
A really weak ability. A -5 to unrest is a weak bonus and also rather boring as it doesn't allow one to do much anything. A -30 to unrest would be more in line with the power of the other abilities and would allow for some different strategies.
Warlock: (+50% spell damage)
A 50% bonus to spell damage is too much and imbalances the whole spell system. With Warlock, damaging spells do OK damage, but coupled with all the spell damage buffs it becomes too much. A +25% bonus to spell damage together with some cool new spell would be far better. For example, how about a spell to buff your spell mastery by 25% for the duration of one combat.
What do you all think?
