Yeah, but my point was that you can make your sov melee heavy easily by adding as many str and def rings as you like.
Magic is butt useless right now, as are sovereigns in general, so whatever.
And I think the fact that you can load up on unlimited amounts of certain gear slots is obviously broken (or horribly bad design).
I give mine the thief profession for more spoils from victories since you fight a bazillion battles in this game. Gildar from beating up the endless beasties is a major revenue source. So why not and no other profession is really worth much long-term. You never stop beating up beasties unless you get bored sick of it (which I kinda already am, I avoid mobs when travelling eventually since it just slows me down).
I give him organized and tracker so he moves faster and his army moves fast with him. Getting around quick for those bazillion battles is handy. First two level ups I boost his foot speed (could do more).
I give him the ugly trait because you still get a bunch of kids (4-5). I give him the stupid trait because magic sucks and it doesn't matter if learning spells is slowed slightly. Once you get rolling you learn spells so fast you wish you could make it stop anyways.
I put all extra points into con for more initial health with the plan being to put armor and health on the sov as he levels so he doesn't accidentally die while automating battles, since tactical combat sucks too. Eventually I start giving him essence for the ultra rare times I do tactical and wanna watch him cast near useless spells. I keep hoping magic will suck less, but as the game progresses it becomes more and more of a joke.
Basically my sov is just a cheerleader and teleport bot for my death squads. Tech up warfare to make parties, tech up equip til you get med kits, custom design troops with armor (def) and medkits (health), train squads. Own. It starts sick and just gets to be ludicrous as you ramp up warfare tech. I put the best armor I can on my sov and give him a med kit and health items so he doesn't die in easy battles (annoying because when you have uber death squad units your sov should never take dmg, but the autoresolve thing is kinda iffy at times).
You will make squads, because your enemies will make squads and because beasties will start to get really nasty, much nastier than your feeble magic or summoned wusscakes can handle. Once you embrace squads, everything falls into place and you realize just how effed up this game is. 
All this is subject to change over the next several months as this game gets finished and balanced, magic sucks less, sovereigns are useful for something other than the first 30 turns or teleport bots, and so on.