From my perspective, the dynasty system could be a really amazing system within Elemental. Thus, when a sov dies, some heir should take over the throne, but in the case of a lack of applicable heir, I think it would be cool if the faction split with the various champions splitting up the kingdom. Normally, I loathe to bring up the total war series with respect to Elemental, but in the context of a dynasty system, I think the comparison is worth discussing. The idea of loyalty and possible civil wars is something that could add a real level of depth to the game, as a sov's death could spark a civil war, or ignoring a champion too long would cause them to defect.

I completely agree with you. The dynasty system is basically a bare bones system and only serves to create free champions and ties between factions. From one perspective, it is very understandable why it should be include and ultimately expanded as it breaths a bit of life into the sovereign by showing a kind of personal progression. Yet, from another perspective, it is simply another system in WoM which feels like it does not tie into a focused game. In other games which use a dynasty system, the focus of the system is not placed on an individual but on a family structure in general. Thus, as the game progresses, you get a type of emergent story about the family which also has a direct correlation on the faction they are controlling. For instance, in Rome:TW, you had a family that progressed over many generations, and each member of the family distinguished themselves based on the course of their personal history. You might have a son that started out as a good city manager, but would slowly devolve into a insane drunk corrupting the city that was once a jewel of your empire. Thus, even though the focus of the game is your empire, your family plays a pivotal role in the shape of that empire. In Elemental, the sovereign leads the faction only in so much as he is titled as a ruler and his continued life keeps your faction going. While in some abstract way your control over diplomacy and research are attributable to the sovereign, this unit finds itself only as a special case of a champion in the game at large. The sovereign's children too are only special cases of champions, and in many ways, are not as special a case as the sovereign himself. Therefore, expanding the dynasty system should go hand in hand with an specific expansion of how the sovereign and his family effect the game at large beyond a mere abstract level.

On when a faction dies: here's my idea.

When there's options: what happened will be a function of chance, relations, and power.

If a faction has an adult male heir- they become a sovereign, and the faction stays in the game. 

If a faction has egalatarian, and an adult female hair, they became a sovereign.  The husband will join the faction if there is one, kids have a chance to.

If a faction has an adult female heir, and is not egalitarian, then the heir's husband becomes ruler.   There's a chance the faction remains independent or joins the husband's faction.  If the faction stays independent, the wife becomes the sovereign.  If the faction does not, then the cities join the husband's faction.

If a faction has a child heir, then it joins the surviving spouse's faction.

If the faction has a child heir, and it's not of a surviving faction- then go down the line.  Faction may destruct, chances increase the further down the line you go.

If the faction has no heir, or the spouse is not of a faction- the faction destructs.  Cities might surrender to the conqueror, based on charisma.  If cities dissolve, refugee camps and adventurers will spawn from this.

This is probably overcomplicated and imperfect, but an idea of the type of depth I'd want in this system.

Anything is OK with me as long as cities don't just disappear in thin air. In general I am for a more complex and realistic approach.

The Sovreign dies: The first born gets the throne. if no children survives the spouse gets the throne and can re-marry.

If nobody in the family survives, the city either becomes independent (like minor factions and each gets a completely new sovreign) or get absorbed by the closest neighbour faction (meaning the distance from each city of the dead faction changes owner based on its individual distance from the closest of all the foreign factions, if they are too far that maybe doesn't apply)

I suggest that a message for each city changing its alliance explains why it shifts toward a specific empire (distance, tech bonuses etc...)

If in a new system cities survive the death of their ruler, that rule becomes very important and could inspire some new technologies in the diplomacy tech tree, that could seduce a new city into becoming part of a specific empire overcoming the rule of distance I just mentioned. (and boosting the diplomacy tech tree which is pretty lame IMO)

I'm thinking of having the base peon HP actually be lowered further to 1.  So yea, the peons will become fodder for sure compared to champions but on the other hand, people will be running around with much larger groups.

Appoint sons and daughters Duke/duchess of City name and then you have a mechanism for splitting kingdoms by dynasty (whichever cities are close to thier duke stay with them, whichever are close to the king/capital stay with them.

I actually love this idea. Allow players to appoint their children dukes of cities, which would grant some sort of significant bonus. When the Sovereign dies his heir takes takes over (cities go neutral). However if the heir is married the step-parent takes over the kingdom, also those of his siblings that are married transfer themselves and their cities to their step-parent's faction. 

Plus it's just badass for your children to have their own titles. Look the duke of Strethen has taken to the field!

Of course if you did this it would probably be necessary to allow the AI to recognize that heirs value increases with titles, and thus allow people to set dowries and trade alliances through marriage. i.e. I will marry off my entitled son for 1000 gold or to stop a war I'm losing.

Yeah, this should not be a problem. Consider how the memory is actually being used. Consider a unit U as using some memory space x. The vast majority of that space is the base definitions for the unit - the model, textures, base stats, etc - which we will call space y. If you make a constant version of U in memory than you only store x once, then you only have to store the variable definitions with a reference to this one constant version of x. So while you are right that more troops does equate to more memory, each instanced unit really probably only needs like 1kB at most in memory, instead of what could be between 50-500kB for the constant instance.

Honestly, I am less concerned with dukes and lords at this point. One of the things about WoM is simply that you never really have to work with your cities at all. In most 4x games, you build a settlement and that settlement fights you a bit, but in Civilization, this comes in the form of corruption, happiness, and sickness. Thus, in that title, you are forced to make choices to balance the negative consequences of other game actions. In the total war games, you have plagues that can devastate cities, riots that can cause cities to create rebellious factions, and other such oddities which make weight your choices.

So, it's been over two weeks since you said that the logs for 1.2 would be out, which puts you at over a week behind the scheduled release, any word about that?

Thats a good idea, about saving as a scenario.  

One of the awesome things about Crusader Kings, is that you can save the game, then star up as any other ruler.  In one game, the Turkish Sultanate leader died, and his closest heir was a Christian.  This made them a Christian nation and playable.  I stopped, and saved the game and switched rulers and saved that game, and I play from that save start all the time.  I use to have a ton of saves like that that are the start of something unusual.  I lost them when I changed comps, totally slipped my mind to save them...grrr.  But, I will just have to put a few more thousand hours into it.

You know, I'd pay good money for some DLC that implemented a dynasty system like Crusader King's. I don't think it's completely incompatible with the "You are your Sovereign" idea. Maybe he's just too busy to run the day to day business of your towns. Maybe the sovereigns are all worshipped as God-Kings and their religions spread through the cities of the world like Civ IV. Maybe you even define your religion upon character creation, and it would give you benefits in all the cities in which it was the dominant one! Not that the last two are related at all to the first or to suggest that this is realistic, but I can dream... I can dream.

*sigh* Maybe if the modding layer is powerful enough, I'll take a stab at this.

Yeah, for a "running log" it's sure going pretty slow