I suppose its worth a shot, we can at least test with it!  Just please dont tell me when a i kill sovereign, all his/her cities will magically belong to me... Or even worse, magically disappear...

Edit: Digicons arent working

Perhap before a battle starts involving your sovereign there should be a flee button where sovvy does a runner and the rest of your stack fight it out on their own.

There is no problem with sovereign dying. The problem is that the game will end. It's not acceptable imho. If that is the core concept, it's real bad. I don't understand why you devs don't "exploit" the dynasty system in this case. What's the problem with successors for example? Also, what about the AI? Don't you think that it will be easy to lure out & hunt down the AI Sovereigns? Basically all you gotta do is that, and voila: -1 AI player on the pitch.

Ah well, maybe I am overreacting the situation, and nothing is sure atm. All I am saying is that I dislike the Sovereign dies = game ends idea.

It's a skill you can decide to purchase or not. If you don't, he doesn't scape, he dies, game over. If you buy it, there are certains conditions that will allow him to survive instead of insta game over. Seems extra option to survive and avoid losing the game, not an extra option to lose the game. If you want that extra chance to survive, then buy Evade. If don't care, then other skills. It's not like they are proposing "If you are about to win, we roll a dice to see if you lose" but "If you are about to lose, or could be risking such defeat, we roll a dice to see if your sovereign can save his ass.". I don't dislike the idea

Maybe if the Sovereign could somehow delegate some duties in his servants (being heroes and/or units) so players can keep him totally protected in a city giving bonuses and casting global spells, some people may feel better with him. So like giving a scout 5 Essence points with the specific task of city founding or something like that., being able to imprint heroes for a time with Essence and all that. But would be some micro that some may hate.

In any case, I don't see a single solution to be enough for some people (except removing the idea completely). Some different mechanics put together would seem the best option if sovereign death = game over isn't going to be optional (I mean in sandbox, in campaign it should be a must because surely it fits the story perfectly). But those mechanics can also turn into a burden considering that they would be extra effort for the Sovereign (included all those efforts to make sure that the AI makes would prudent use of him and all that).

In any case, it feels awesome to see how things develop and how Stardock (much like when the economy model thing) takes seriously their players/customers and try to offer them systems that may please them (without saying no to their own iniciative).

I like Astrath's idea better personally. Though it also needs balancing against abuse.

As the previous posters have already said, this makes the game way too dependant on the RNG. As long as the odds are not either 0 or 100, people will complain (95% chance of survival is not invulnerability after all).

So you got the powerful empire soverein in the rope, cut from the rest of his army? Well he had 5% chance of fleeing home, and he just did.

Your soverein was strolling in the field when some enemy cast earthquake? You have 95% chance of surviving, but you didn't.

I would prefer a more deterministic system. An example : the sovereins and heroes have a "cheating death" stat, which they can increase. When they would otherwise be killed, the "cheating death" stat is permanently reduced by a certain number. If their stat was not high enough (and would go negative), they die. Then modifiers could be applied to the amount lost : killed but your army won (-1), killed by your loneself (-2), defeated in your capital (-5), etc.

There would still be risk involved, as you don't know how baddly (or even if you are going to) you will be defeated, and having to increase back the "cheating death" stat should prove to be quite costly (opportunity costs). Also it will also provide different play styles depending on how much

I think this for battles at least;

At the beginning of every battle, give the player the choice to have the sovereign lead the army from the front or direct from the rear. If they choose to lead from the front, they are susceptible to death. If they lead from the rear, they will automatically escape whatever it was would be lost.

Benefits to either could be created, though obviously the sovereign leading from the front should be much more useful (perhaps to the point that leading from the rear has no palpable bonus).

Sovereigns should always escape a city unless the enemy very carefully surrounds the entire city before taking it. I don't know how armies work in the game, but assuming they occupy space on the map, by very deliberately surrounding every single square of a city (which I imagine would take a sizeable army), one could definitively cut off a sovereign's route of escape. Otherwise, they should always escape lost cities.

Similarly, sovereigns shouldn't die from purely random events. Call it the protagonist bonus.

Why not have a Lord of the Rings style option. Early on in the game you have the option of investing your power into an object, and as long as that object (Say a Ring or jewel) remains intact the channeler cannot be destroyed, (Eye of Sauron) However if that object is destroyed or captured your channeler dies and you lose.

I don't think creating an evade stat would be a good idea because there is no other reason for it. I do have thoughts on how this mechanic should work. For example, if a city where the sovereign is located is attacked, I would allow the player to flee the city(maybe one space out, based on sovereigns agility or to another city) or with a low capture chance based on size of attacking army versus sovereigns agility(if this stat already exists in the concepts of the game). However, if the player decides to stay to use him in battle or gain an extra defensive bonus and the city is taken I would make the flee chance based on how large the remaining army of attackers if left verses (maybe versus half sovereigns agility). If he is captured I would allow the AI(or opposing players army) to either execute or ransom him back for a large sum or annual tithes. The chance whether or not he is executed is based on how much the AI(or human player) hates the player versus bonus gained. It might be a good idea to not execute the sovereign if the opposing player does not think they could not survive the reminder of the game against other players without the bonus or they may not need help and would rather execute the player outright. Heck, maybe even have a forced change of allegiance if the player has nothing else to offer. I see how this would be less valid if there were only 2 sides.

I do not care for the evade option, mostly because it is chancy. Here is my two cents on what I feel is a better option.

Leave the idea of the channeler being in hiding in a city as it was - and if the city is destroyed he automatically escapes to the nearest city. But if he is in hiding he obviously cannot help defend the city either.

For those who want to have a battle mage but still have a safe option.

For heroes other than the channeler, I like the evade idea just fine.

For the channeler, there is a unique spell only learnable by sovereigns called Get My Ass Outta Here. It is only castable in combat and only castable during the first round of combat. 100% success rate, cannot be interupted etc etc. The Channeler is teleported to his capitol city.

This I think is a great balance. If you are in a battle you are able to assess the odds. The presence of the channeler alone should make otherwise even fights a pretty easy win. If the odds are bad even with the channeler there, then obviously the army is going to get creamed if he bails.

I think there are some good payoffs and penalties for this option. If a channeler ports to his capitol at the drop of a hat, then the player is going to have togo thru the hassle of getting his channeler back to the army if they survive (or building a new army if they don't. It's an escape with a pretty hefty cost.

What I really like is what happens if two armies fight and they each have their sovereign with them? Say it is fairly evenly matched...there is going to be a very strong temptation to 'play chicken' and see who blinks. Yews you are putting the entire game on the line, but if you stay and the other guy runs, then what was an even battle now becomes a slaughter. And if both channeler's take a chance - it is an Epic Battle To Stay in The Game!

It may seem similar to the evade skill, I like it better as an unfailable spell because there is no RNG, and even in a 1-on-1 (which with evade you say he probably won't get away) with the spell he could but again you have the hassle of losing position, you could even tweak it to either cost a lot of mana or possibly a dash of essence. You could also have it affect his fame, i.e. if you ran too often you would get a reputation as a coward that might affect diplomacy. (In other words you still want to give them a reason to just hide rather than make a half hearted attempt at a battle mage). Give people a sure way out but there has to be associated costs, so that if you really don;t have the nerve to put your channeler on the line, you are better of leaving him at home.

Just so people don;t complain about "forgetting" to warp their channeler home, there should be an option setting so that every battle that has your channeler involved prompts you with the "Do you wish to cast Get My Ass Outta Here, m'lord? Y/N". Also I think hiding in a city if the city falls it should be a guarantee that the channeler flees to the nearest city.

Obviously if you are down to your last city, you better have your sovereign out fighting.

I think too many people look at it from "my channeler is going to die" and not from a "Yay! I defeated the enemies sovereign! What?! He teleported out at the last second just as I defeated his massive army? WTF??"  Continuously having to track down and fight some guy who has sunk max skill into evade ability is going to be nothing but frustrating. (and honestly from the evaders perspective how much fun is it going to be always on the run just because oh noes my channeler might die!")

Well I know I'll never used evade points in multi (Or single prob) so it'll help me make am ore powerful char anyway.

Quoting auboy105,

reply 21

I think the best solution to the biggest disagreement on this game would be:

Sovereign can die: Yes

Sovereign can grow very powerful over the course of a game. Losing this powerful sovereign would be a huge risk but a risk that could be worth taking.

The risk:

If the sovereign dies an heir successor takes over. This heir is like the sovereign at the beginning of the game. Weak. Brand new. You have to start all over building this character up all over again while your opponents still have very powerful and very experienced older sovereigns running around. Here would be the risk and challenge in losing your sovereign. This would be such a cool balancing feature! But please NO GAME OVER

It balances risk (of losing sovereign) with reward (advantages of using sovereign).

It doesn't instantly put an end to hours of time invested in a game because a risk taken led to game over.

It makes good use of the succession/dynasty feature -- probably the best use (no offense to your other uses).

It increases player choice (use the sovereign or not depending on the relative risk/reward; choice of which successor to groom; etc.)