What exactly is a Sovereign in the game, or what you want to do about him?

So far, I thought that the sovereign is the channeller, thus it is basically the player...

However, for the sake of discussion: it could be your puppet king to draw all attention (and assassins) away from you!

Now there's a darned neat idea. I also read Scott's post to be using Sovereign as a synonym for channeler (the player's character). It would be a very neat twist, however, if you could do something like appoint one of your champion units as a sort of prime minister and take yourself out of the political limelight in your home realm. That might be another way of creating interesting play options for folks who want to build a strong channeler and keep her roaming around the map.

I like the idea of another unit being able to be appointed for political stuff.  But then u have to remember that unit could be bribed, enchanted possibly which could lead to some very dire problems...

I would love to actually being able to hide from other players (would most propably only make sense in multiplayer).

Only proper espionage can discover the lies, which cover the lies about your actual identity... Let's assume Swicord has an assassin appointed to put SnallTrippin out of the play. The assassin is indeed succeding in his mission and kills the official leader of SnallTrippin's magnificant empire. However, the real SnallTrippin is the actual prime minister and resumes command of the troops and the battle begins... (Sorry guys, I' prefer to stay out of the spotlights and let you fight it out. Yeah, the assassin was actual hired by me...err, I mean by Climber )

The cover would blow, if an enemy unit would be close enough to see the channeller, well... channelling and survives the next two turns.

The interesting thing would be, if there is indeed an assassin you can sent to an empire (likelyhood of success needs to be researched: good training, cloak of invisibility etc...). You then get a list of 20 candidates of the opposing empire you could try to assassinate. Only one is the real channeller. A spy system would be needed to get a good guess about the location of the target and an even better one for the actual identity... Of course, the likelyhood of success would need to be kind of low in general. Nothing sucks more then being taken out of the game because of some random event... Ah, perhaps an assassination system is rather a bad idea.

However, being able to hide from the opponent for as long as you don't channel next to them would be nice.

A good role for espionage as well. Would take a high level of knowledge about your opponent to uncover the fact that there is a "power behind the throne."

Hopefully the Channeller will have the power to choose his shape in the game which would allow for more unique game strategies...  or at least something which can be modded. 

ON A SIDE NOTE:

I see some devs referring to him as the Sovereign and others calling him the Channeller.   I see one of the most recent screenshot which uses the term  Heroes, yet on the forums we hear the word to use is Champion.  So I guess lots of the official titles are either undecided or still being internally debated.

Part of how I earn my living is the fact that working devs are often too busy *doing* things to be rigorously tidy about what they call those things. Even if we could protect them entirely from marketing twits, they'd still need help tidying up the vernacular and writing procedure guidance that mere mortals could follow.

And on the language-shapes-reality channel, I'd like to see the fundamental name for the player's unit remain "channeler" and have "Sovereign" be an optional title you might assume if you found a faction instead of going Gandalf. I've heard no plans yet for a set of differing political systems, so maybe all 12 factions are monarchies, but if they're not, some channelers who lead a faction might have another title, e.g. Guardian or Teacher.

(hi hi nice to see you again here, NTJedi)

I assume Sovereign, channeller etc is the same name then.  So far it seems that we have some idea of what it can do, but we don't know yet how it relates to the victory condition.  If my channeller got assassinated, will my game ends? 

While I think the devs did mentioned innovative victory conditions, I don't recall devs mentioned how the Sovereign relates to how I win/lose the game.

Ideally, there is some kind of script engine that say if I do acheive the goal of XXX, I win the game for this map.  The map maker/ RMG will determine what this XXX condition is as they see fit. 

But somehow I'll expect the Sovereign will be related to the victory condition 'every game'.  Although it will be a very interesting feature, if the player is allowed 'choose his shape' as NTJedi mentioned, I kind of doubt if this is one of the features have in mind.

Hello Climber, great seeing you again too.

There's several different ways the developers could change the levels of importance for the Sovereign.  The game could have an optional setting where the player has the game end if the Sovereign dies, or another option where the Sovereign dies if for 7 turns he doesn't own any more cities, or another option where even if the Sovereign is killed the player can continue playing. 

The different channeller shapes would definitely increase the games strategic options.  One player could be playing as the all seeing eye shape from return of the king providing him increased map vision, fire immunity, increased research and immobile.  Another player may choose an intelligent lion(Aslan) as seen from the Narnia stories... providing him strong magic resistance, map speed, and strong battlefield skills.  Another player may choose a demi-lich... providing him immunity to poison and disease, dark magics, and more powerful battlefield spells.   This is just a few... and only after your opponents discover your true form would they be able to effectively plan an assassination.

Stardock mentioned a concern over creating a whole new set of images for different shapes...  so I recommended they simply use the same images and adjust the sizes by a percentage.  I haven't heard a response so hopefully this means this idea I provided is working for them.  

I assumed that the channeler would be like the Age of Wonder Wizards, except actually able to do something on the battle field if you so choose (in AoW there was no benifit I could see from leaving your wizard tower except to go to another wizard tower) 

I know I wanted the sovereign in the next master of magic be able to be any race (original master of magic had only humans with 1 maybe two exception, the dragon and the cloaked guy) but this game doesn't really have that.   Since fantastic creatures are so rare, I expect that you won't be able to change your shape any more than you could in a game of the Sims.   It would be neat to be able to play as a beast like Aslan, but I don't really see it happening in this game.   (also, it would be wierd if you were being ruled by a talking lion.  Aslan didn't really rule, he kinda hung out in the background and let the people manage themselves.  Occationally disappearing for long periods of time without much explination.  He only was any kind of leader in times of need and it was a norm since half of his subjects were talking animals anyway.)

 I have a sad feeling you are correct, but at least the idea of the soverign being more than human has been presented on the forums.  We can always hope our fantasy suggestions will become a reality for this game thus increasing our gameplay strategic options and gameplay fun.

"use the same images and adjust the sizes by a percentage"
The experience from AOW:SM definitely transfer here. hehe.

If EWOM is really trying allows player customize their units, why not their heroes or Sovereign? 

If the devs' customization is only restricted to humans shape but not any other shape, it is disappointing.  However, I know that animating Aslan (or a giant rabbit or a dragon) with full plate armour maybe difficult, programmatically.  IDEALLY, I want to customize an elven archer ridding an archer, shooting ice arrows, if the game already provides as one of the fantastic creature.  

Animating different shape may be difficult, but AT LEAST I do want to customize my humanoid hero e.g. a club-wielding Hill Giant wearing chain armor.  He can be a regular customized unit, a hero or a sovereign.

In AOW:SM, the designer do NOT encourage the channeller actively fight battles; always sitting around to channel magic.  It feels like it is a sitting duck; no player emotionally attach to him.

I want the Sovereign be a 'special' hero fighting around the map.  If he lose a battle, it's ok; penalize me for a few turns when the sovereign take the time to escape back to the city he last visited.

Yes I hope we have the option to customize most pieces of the game... events, terrain, units, magic, skills, etc., .

I wouldn't expect beasts, dragons and animals to have their own armor body types provided from Stardock... this would be way too time consuming.  However the majority of fantasy races have a majority of units with two legs, two arms and one head, allowing one single armor image to be shrunk or expanded to properly fit the units for a fantasy race of dwarves, orcs, undead, humans or giants. 

Yes any single armor image should be allowed to have its size adjusted by a percentage allowing it to fit on smaller or larger units which also has two legs, two arms and one head.

I agree... one of the complaints from gamers about AOW:SM was the wizard was a couch potato. 

The Sovereign should be allowed to hold the form of Sauron(Titanic Fighter) as seen from the early part of Lord of the Rings or the form of Sauron(Immobile Eye of Fire) as seen from the very ending of Lord of the Rings or several unique forms in between each with unique strategic advantages/disadvantages.

I want the channeler to have a familar!   Like an imp, or a tiny dragon, or a cat!    And I want to dress them up in funny hats

I've always liked familars in D&D games, that could be interesting in Elemental. I would guess that the familars available would be based on your school of magic and your alignment. I do wonder how development would be handled overtime. Would the familar increase in power automatically as the Channeler gained levels or would the Channeler have to invest more essence directly into the familar to increase its power? And, I wonder to what extent a familar's power could grow if implemented?

The Channeller/Sovereign could imbue lots of essence into his familiar... providing it multiple fast deadly attacks yet still keeping it small.  Allowing someone to create that super deadly bunny seen from Monty Python and the Holy Grail... this is just something funny crossing my mind.   LOL

I saw a few different write-ups for the vorpal rabbit in my original D&D crowd. I suppose you'd need some serious Life magic to forge such a beast-weapon in Elemental, but it could help you win huge tracts of land without having to marry some goat-faced princess.

How about a clone spell1  and perhaps a clone spell2. You could send them out in the world and no one would be able to tell the difference unless they were killed. They wouldnt have as much power say around 20% but they could be used as decoys.

Interesting, and makes me want a corrollary spell, Summon Doppelganger. You could use a doppelganger as a decoy for yourself on some occasions, or to replace someone important in an enemy civ and give your espionage efforts a big boost.

I would prefer it if your Sovereign dies, you lose the game (like the first Age of Wonders).

Of course, I would be just as happy if the game settings can allow players to choose between 'appear back at capital city after a few turns', 'apprear back at capital city after a few hours with loss of XP' or 'instant death'.