Rocker45

I find that warfare weapons/techs are necessary simply due to crystal limitations. I always have 3-10x as much metal as crystal and tend to reserve my crystal for other units.

I had this problem as well in a game. It wasn't restricted to cities. My sovereign would die before the beginning of every battle.

I'm a big proponent of going mage (summon or necro) with your sovereign and getting a commander for your first hero and going down the lore master road. The game is of course exponential and supplementing your early game army with summons and improving your research rate with lore master can allow for very rapid expansion without getting bogged down. Combat oriented heroes just seem to fall off too rapidly to justify their investment.