I've decided to add a discussion on Sovereign Creation...
Stats
Stats can start at 10 and can be raised to 15 or lowered to 5.
Increasing a stat costs 3 points (or your remaining points if you are left with 1 or 2 points).
Decreasing a stat yields 3 points (unless you bought one with 1 or 2 points).
Strength
Effect: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your attack value by +1.
Comment: Keep this at an odd level. Your attack value determines how much damage your sov can do in physical combat.
Dexterity
Effect: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your dodge value by +1.
Comment: Keep this at an odd level. Your dodge value lets you occasionally dodge attacks, but I do not know the exact formula.
Constitution
Effect: Every point provides 0.4 HP per level, added to a base of 10.
Formula: HP = FLOOR(10 + 0.4 * <CON> * <LEVEL>)
Comment: If you start off with a low constitution and increase it at a later point, your HP will adjust accordingly.
Intelligence
Effect 1: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your magic resistance value by +1.
Effect 2: Allows a champion to use specific spells.
Spell Effect: Used in the Arcane Arrow spell damage calculation (Damage = 50% of INT).
Spell Effect: Used in the Spell Blast spell damage calculation (Damage = 30% of INT).
Spell Effect: Used in the Stone Skin defense calculation (Defense = 25% of caster's INT).
NOTE: Sovereigns are not limited by intelligence as to what spells they can cast.
Comment: People have a love/hate relationship with this stat. I personally love it because of the above spells. Others think you are better off not using magic at this time. The magic resistance portion of the stat is currently useless.
Charisma
Effect 1: Increases the prestige of the city your champion is stationed in by 0.2 for each point above 10.
Effect 2: Reduces the cost of champions (see table below).
Effect 3: Increases the amount of diplomatic capital that certain techs provide (Propaganda, Refined Diplomacy). (Diplomatic Capital = 5*Charisma)
Comment: You can drop this to 5 and have no ill effects when your sov is stationed in a city. Also, the prestige bonus is cumulative with ALL stationed champions! The recruitment cost bonus only uses your Sovereign's charisma, and this bonus has diminishing returns. Gutting this stat to 5 will make you spend double on champions, while increasing it to 15 reduces costs by 1/3rd.
Here is a table of starting recruitment costs based on champion. MOST starting champions cost 28 gildar with 10 charisma, but they can cost more if they have better equipment (Gara/Rilis/Jasper) or no equipment (Qayidd).
Charisma 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Gara 72 60 51 44 40 36 32 30 27 25 24
Rilis 68 56 48 42 37 34 30 28 26 24 22
Jasper 64 53 45 40 35 32 28 26 24 22 21
Generic 56 46 40 34 30 28 25 23 21 20 18
Qayidd 20 16 14 12 10 10 8 8 7 6 6
Here is the change in points compared to a base charisma of 10. A sovereign with a charisma of 5 will pay 28 more gildar per champion, while a sovereign with a charisma of 15 will pay 10 less.
Charisma 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Gara 36 24 15 8 4 0 -4 -6 -9 -11 -12
Rilis 34 22 14 8 3 0 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12
Jasper 32 21 13 8 3 0 -4 -6 -8 -10 -11
Generic 28 18 12 6 2 0 -3 -5 -7 -8 -10
Qayidd 10 6 4 2 0 0 -2 -2 -3 -4 -4
Spell Books
Each spell book costs 5 points. These spell books are not acquirable in-game. If you do not take these spell books at the start of play, you can never learn their spells. (Though Raise Mountain is available through a lv3 quest to find Moriah's lost journal.)
Comment: I personally think that all 4 spell books are useful and worth sinking 20 points.
Note: Tactical Spells are underlined and italicized.
Terraforming
- L1: Raise Land - Turns water, beach and cliff into land; land into hill; but not hill into mountain.
- L1: Lower Land - Turns mountain into hill; hill into land; but not land into water.
- L2: Revive Land - Makes land into fertile grassland - grassland gives Kingdom troops a 25% bonus and Empire troops a -25% penalty.
- L2: Desecrate Land - Makes land fallen - fallen land gives Kingdom troops a 25% penalty and Empire troops a -25% bonus.
- L3: Erosion - Turns cliff into beach.
- L4: Raise Mountain - Turns land directly into a mountain.
- L5: Destroy Land - Turns any land into ocean.
Comment:
This spell book starts off slow, but is useful for crossing mountain ranges or forming land bridges. Terraforming is fantastic for isolationists, as the AI cannot defend against someone raising a mountain in their path. Note that you cannot use these spells to destroy cities, and units will move out of the way. Conquest-minded players can use the revive/desecrate spells to swing combat in their favor. Raising and lowering lands can also affect combat, as hills give a defensive bonus for auto-resolving.
Combat
- L1: Arcane Weaponry - Enchanted unit gets +5 attack.
- L2: Arcane Arrow - Deal damage equal to 50% of caster's INT (with an unlimited tactical battlefield range) to 1 target.
- L2: Guardian Aura - Increases the target's dodge by 50% rounded down for the duration of the battle. (A dodge of 5 becomes 7.)
- L3: Spell Blast - Deal damage equal to 30% of caster's INT (with an unlimited tactical battlefield range) to all targets in a radius-2 pattern.
- L3: Berserk - Target's defense is transferred to their attack for 5 turns.
- L4: Spell Immunity - Target is completely immune to enemy spells OR SPECIAL ABILITIES.
- L4: Touch of Entropy - Deals 30 damage to an adjacent enemy.
- L5: Blood Rage - This SHOULD give HP back, but it only increases the damage you deal by 10%.
NOTE: Spell Immunity has no upkeep, and it is found in the CoreSpells_COMBAT_Tactical.xml file. It only costs 64 mana to cast. Yet... It comes up as a strategic spell. Bug?
Comment:
Warmongers, delight! This is a great spell book. Arcane Weaponry, Berserk, and Blood Rage, and guardian aura are geared toward melee. (If you cast berserk on an armored archer, they can actually do damage.) Arcane Arrow and Spell Blast are great to abuse with hit-and-run tactics. Finally, you have Spell Immunity, now a tactical spell, that makes a unit invincible to all tactical combat special effects.
[1.19] Spell Immunity was changed from being a strategic spell to being a tactical spell.
Mobility
- L1: Return - Returns the caster to your capitol city. (Useful for champions because it only requires an INT of 8).
- L1: Blink - Teleports the caster to any tile on the tactical map... even to some unreachable tiles!
- L1: Wind Shield - All allied units get +5 dodge vs ranged attacks until the end of combat.
- L2: Teleport - Teleports the caster to any friendly tile.
- L2: Mobility - Enchanted unit gets +1 strategic movement.
- L3: Greater Mobility - Enchanted unit gets +2 strategic movement. Stacks with Mobility, too!
- L3: Haste - Increases the combat speed of a unit by +1 for 5 rounds.
- L4: Greater Haste - Increases the combat speed of all friendly units by +1 for 5 rounds.
- L4: Escape - All units flee the tactical battle.
- L5: Call of the Titans - All unstationed units on land are teleported to the target tile. (This works in enemy territory too!)
NOTE: For return, it's "Capitol", not "Capital".
Comment:
Mobility lets you move units around better on both the tactical and strategic maps. Teleport is incredibly useful and outshines all the rest. If you don't take the mobility spell book, you WILL regret it. Call of the Titans is no slouch, but it costs too much to use frequently. It's best used when you have enough mana stockpiled, but it can make one hell of an alpha strike.
[1.19] Blink was removed because the developers couldn't think of a better way to stop people from abusing it. It was replaced with a worthless spell, Wind Shield, which only protects against archers. Since archers can only have a max attack of 20, defensive tech can quickly negate damage from bows.
Enchantment
- L1: Alchemy - Turn 25 mana into 25 gildar!
- L1: Nature's Bounty - The enchanted city produces +1 food.
- L2: Invisible Workers - The enchanted city produces +1 material.
- L2: Inspiration - The enchanted city produces +1 tech knowledge.
- L3: Call To Arms - Instantly trains the first unit in a city's training queue.
- L4: Enchanted Hammers - The enchanted city's building construction times are reduced by 25%.
- L4: Alchemy - Turn 100 mana into 155 gildar.
- L5: Guardian Ward - Summons a city defender unit, who's HP depends on the city population.
NOTE: If you summon a Guardian Ward, their HP is the only thing that depends on the city. They are stuck with an attack of 26 and a defense of 33. The spell isn't that great, though, because Call to Arms costs 150 mana and can give you a unit better than a Guardian.
Comment:
Enchantment lets you convert your mana into something useful. You can turn it into gold, food (not efficiently), materials, or tech. You can speed up the building construction times, and you can instantly build a company of troops that would normally take 48 turns to complete. The only disappointment is Guardian Ward.
Histories
Only one history can be taken at a time.
I recommend taking a history that will last the entire game and leave the production bonuses to your talent selection.
Miner
Effect: Increases metal production by +20%.
Comment: This is useful when combined with faction traits.
Warlord
Effect: Start with two Sentinel units - 12 HP/4 ATK/1 DEF/1 CS/2 MOV.
Comment: These units are extremely underpowered.
Warrior
Effect: Your sovereign gets a +10% attack bonus.
Comment: This increases your sovereign's melee/ranged damage. If you plan on taking your sov into battle, consider this history.
Merchant
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 gildar per turn.
Comment: This only helps in the beginning of the game. Gildar is easy to acquire.
Bard
Effect: Reduces champion recruitment costs by -25%.
Comment: Reducing the champion recruitment costs allows you to quickly recruit a base of units that can act as resources, explore the map, and increase prestige.
Assassin
Effect: Initial attacks from your sovereign do double damage.
Comment: You get one strike per combat. If the enemy strikes you first or they dodge the initial blow, you lose your assassin strike.
Thief
Effect: Your sovereign earns 20% more gildar after battles.
Comment: You don't get much gildar anyway...
Adventurer
Effect: Your sovereign gets +1 strategic movement.
Comment: Extra moves are useful, but you may be better off taking the Tracking talent. Other histories are more useful.
Royalty
Effect: All Cities receive 10% more prestige.
Comment: Your cities will grow 10% faster.
Dungeon Master
Effect: Your sovereign deals double damage to non-humans.
Comment: This effect works for both attacks and counterattacks, but only to non-humans. It is not as useful as the warrior history.
Diplomat
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 unit of diplomatic capital per turn.
Talents
Attunement
Cost: 5
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 mana per turn.
Comment: This is extremely useful throughout the game if you rely on magic. It also allows you to maintain 2 extra spells from the beginning.
Brilliant
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 tech knowledge per turn.
Comment: While this talent tapers off in usefulness, it lets you rush the tech tree. You should have your first discovery before you build your first library.
Wealthy
Cost: 5
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 gildar per turn.
Comment: This only helps in the beginning of the game. Gildar is easy to acquire.
Meditative
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 arcane knowledge per turn.
Comment: Like Brilliant, this allows you to rush the spell tree without building an arcane research facility.
Green Thumb
Cost: 5
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 food.
Comment: This is extremely useful. Not only will it let you start building a hut on turn 1 and delay the need for a farm, it will also give you the ability to build extra housing once you would have normally run out of food.
Diplomacy
Cost: 10
Effect: Your diplomatic offers are valued +20% higher.
Comment: The diplomacy system as a whole is very lackluster. Essentially, this trait lets you pay 80% of normal value for treaties. It could be useful if you wanted to use diplomacy to trade/steal away the AI's entire metal reserves.
Intimidating
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets +3 spell resistance.
Comment: Useless!
Tactician
Cost: 5
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets +1 dodge.
Hardy
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign's hit points are increased by +15%.
Comment: Consider this talent for combat oriented sovereigns. The current mechanics emphasize defense over attack (high defense = blocked attacks), but attacks still can get through. Extra hitpoints can keep your sovereign alive.
Tracker
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign gets +1 strategic movement.
Comment: Very useful. With Traveler's Boots, you get a sovereign with 4 movement.
Naturalist
Cost: 10
Effect: Start the game with an iron ore deposit 2 tiles away from your sovereign.
Comment: Since metal limits what armor and weapons you can equip your armies, having a known source from the start can help.
Daring
Cost: 3
Effect: Your sovereign's attacks have a 3% chance of ignoring a target's defense.
Comment: It costs the same as a stat point. Take it if you can.
Weaknesses
Cowardly
Cost: -10
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets -3 spell resistance.
Comment: This is a free 10 points! TAKE IT!
Reckless
Cost: -3
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets -1 dodge.
Clumsy
Cost: -3
Effect: Your sovereign's strategic movement points are reduced by -20%.
Stupid
Cost: -3
Effect: Increases the cost of learning spells by 15%
True Effect: Nothing! Hahahahaha! How stupid is this bug?!?
Blunt
Cost: -3
Effect: Increases the cost of hiring champions by +15%.
Insane
Cost: -3
Effect: When stationed in a city, your sovereign reduces prestige generated by 50%.
Ugly
Cost: -3
Effect: Your sovereign will produce one less child.
Inefficient
Cost: -3
Effect: When stationed in a city, your sovereign increases the building production time by 10%.
