[New Idea] How to make champions more important?

The main problem with these guys is that unless you imbue them, they're just powerful singletons that cost a small fortune to equip.  They need unique abilities, both as "governors" that boost the city and as "commanders" in the battlefield.  Right now they have very little role in this game, though I do like farmers and administrators.

They need more variety, purpose, and flavour.

The OP seems to be a new suggestion for the list of 'civilian' roles for Champions. I suspect it would not past muster with the Simplicity Police, but I'd love to be surprised. It'd be even more fun to see a complementary, much-rarer skill that would enable a champion stationed in a 'magical capital' (big, with a node & maybe unique arcane research building) to train fellow imbued champions to increase their essence without needing to run around hunting for things to kill.

Like I mentioned several times, I think the goal is not necessarily to make them stronger, but to make them unique.

The best implementation I can think of is the one done in other games: When a champion levels up, he has a choice between three random talents, possibly in addition to a minor stat change.

Each type of champions will have a different set of possible abilities (some, but not all unique just for this type), but since this is partially random, there will be a difference between them.

In addition to that, there should be special items found on quests that can be equipped just on champions, as well as quests that trigger a 1 on 1 battle with a chosen champion instead of an army.

Those are good ideas, Random.

It would be nice if charisma would also effect the price of equipment making it worthwhile to invest in.

I quite like the idea of the random talents. Although personally I'd ask they be grouped into two or so different areas (Governance and Warfare), with at least one option from each area guaranteed. Warfare doesn't have to actually help them fight, just things that require the champion to be 'in the field' as it were, such as an administrator talent that allowed an army to march faster, a farmer talent that lowered the army's upkeep cost while in the field. Similarly, governance is just any talent that aids the champion while in a town. Such as adventurers passing on their experience to troops so they can be trained faster, warriors giving all troops a +1 to attack when defending the town, thieves improving the town's gildar income by preventing criminal acts (so the thief claims).

You could try the "Abilities and Traits Mod". Let me know what you think of it and if you have any ideas for future development.

I like the idea of dividing character histories or "classes" between three things: warfare, administration, and magic. Warfare classes are like the Warrior and the character is granted bonuses to health, attack, defense, and other fighting bonuses. Administration classes are the characters who focus on city benefits (ie. being stationed in a city) like the Administrator, Merchant, and Researchers who give cities their benefits for being stationed there. Lastly, you could have your Magic people who can cast spells and potentially be another sovereign'esq unit.

Some histories, like the General, are a bit of both schools. A General should be able to fight but they also have greater command or leadership bonuses that effect their troops which the Warrior won't have.

The problem is implementation and discovering new ways to "unlock" these abilities. Modders are somewhat limited to what they can or can't do right now.

I'd also like to note that making them more unique, versatile, useful, viable, and survivable requires us to make heroes a little stronger. I believe that the default hero bonuses and histories are somewhat lacking, weak, and doesn't make them very useful when they can be killed by a lone wolf or spider during any time in the game.

While I'd like to see charisma have an actual use, this would just lead to you buying equipment with a single guy with a high charisma value and then trading it off to your other champs.

Weird idea: allow champions to be attached to units, giving them an extra unit, and maybe a special ability to boot?

The other idea I had was giving them classes like Ranger, Thief  and Barbarian, bonus hp per level, and special abilities.