CampbellDH

Maybe make heroes rely on their own spell abilities early on but allow the manufacture of items that allow the sovereign to channel through them. Also maybe heroes could operate on a different spellbook than the sovereign. Unique spells based on background and specialty. For example a priest of set hero could have different spells than a pyromancer. Quests could be used to either recruit specially skilled heroes or give abilities to existing ones.

Really think this idea is interesting. Either you could have different actions going to war, building farms or ships give you a research point bonus on their particular field or have them lead to technologies that are only available through doing things. I would also like to see some techs that are special resource dependent such as ironwood longbows with better range that can only be researched and produced as long as you control the resource.

Exactly having multiple ways to deal with each situation would make things much more interesting. Having minor factions would also make diplomacy more valuable. Dealing only with the other big factions limits your options. This would also make modding easier because it is easier to design a single unique feature than a whole map and if you could download these to incorporate into the random map generator it could make really interesting maps.

A lot of random map generators make a strange and kind of bland world. I was thinking that it could incorporate some unique features with quests and inhabitants. Say a mist shrouded island full of corsairs or a mountain valley with rich resources and some caverns containing a goblin horde. The minor factions could be mostly restricted to a small area and either protect unique technologies or other rewards. Conquering the corsairs could both remove them as a threat and provide you with technol