Hi there, I was thinking between the balance and ideas of the sovereign creation abilities and some things are really bugging me, one of them are that there are only really 3-4 "really usable" backgrounds for sovereigns, since these gives a great benefit over your entire kingdom/empire, instead of just granting a +50% damage bonus against beasts for your sovereign...

So I thought I would give some idea for changes in the sovereign creation skill-set, while YES this IS mod-able, the way it looks from the start is the way the game is represented, if the game is released with poor balance and tons of weird skills that people would never use its going to be looked down upon... (That got slightly negative, sorry )

going to take them from list first to last:

Adventurer: This makes your sovereign start at level 2, while this gives a slightly better start, it really only is a +10 xp at the start of the game, and actually a tremendous penalty compared to picking "Armourer" (which my firefox dictionary says is misspelled in the game), or warlord.
I would propose we could merge this trait with the "General" trait to give a solid trait, either that or merge it with the "Natural Leader" trait (and rename it).

Another proposal could be it would unlock a special technology, which might be interesting, could be that the "Adventurer's Guild" could only be built by people with the Adventurer Trait.

Bandit Lord: This makes the sovereign start with 2 "useless" bandit units, both bandit units start at level 2, start with 10 hp, 79 accuracy, 20 initiative, 8 attack, counter attack, and a pair of throwing daggers. While decent starting units, this is again one of the backgrounds that only gives a temporary and very limited benefit. It would be cool if the sovereign picking this trait would be able to craft bandit units in they're town, or was given a +10% wealth income due to banditry, meaby a chance to convert bandits to the hero army whenever you meet them (pay X gildar for them, or just a straight out ability that converts bandits unless they resist). Still hope for some empire-wide benefit.

Diplomat: This is a fine background, except the wording is terrible, I have nooo idea what the ability "Silver Tongue" does when creating a sovereign, so would love the description showing this.

Hunter: this trait gives 50% bonus damage against beast creatures... to the sovereign... but only to attacks, don't think it work on spells (I probably should test this before yelling, but honestly, not now )
Again, its terribly specific and only gives the sovereign a bonus, where I think backgrounds should give an empire wide benefit to hold ANY foot against warlord, armourer or diplomat. Also "Beasts" are really restrictive, either I think it should give an empire-wide trait that gives a bonus 20% damage against non-trained non-champion units, (including the sovereign), or give a special access to technology that gives powerful hunting technology (warfare stuff). One could be a bow that gives more damage against beasts.

Warlock: This gives the sovereign 50% bonus damage with spells, this is really nice but I don't like where it is fitted into the sovereign creation, and its terribly restricted to fire spells only.
I think it should give some empire spell-like bonus, like +1 mana each season, and 25% bonus to all spell integers (slow would decrease initiative by 25% more, heal would heal 25% more hp, flaming hands would deal 25% more damage),
meaby instead give the 25% bonus to elemental damage instead, so trained units with mage staffs would get a boost off this trait, this would not help my issue with Warlock trait not boosting heal though .

Armorer: this is really nice, especially because the armour values are already so high compared to damage, and hit-points for units, boosting armour even high will create nigh-impenetrable armies, only change to this trait in my hopes is that they fix the armour to damage values in the game

Beastlord: A nice background, better designed than Hunter (IMO) since this gives a more empire-specific boost, taking over animals and putting them to defence in your cities can be really powerful. I do still feel some lack here as its only the sovereign that is able to do this, I would hope that the faction controlled by the sovereign would be able to train units with a TRAIT that gives the trained units the ability to try and take over beast units.

General: A nice background if you use your sovereign a lot, this does give something empire-wide, but in a hidden way. It gives your sovereign a 25% bonus to experience gain, so he will gain more levels of course, which gives prestige. That said I hope they change this trait slightly, can merge it with "Adventurer" to let the Sovereign start at level 2, and then give a 10-15% bonus to experience gain empire-wide.

Summoner: gives a nice summon spell early game, and an empire-wide +2 levels to summoned units, only reason I wont use this is the uselessness of summons, and summons doesn't get much benefit from levels, only change I would give this trait is give summoned units a scaling attack power and defence which scales with levels.

Warlord: This background gives a  50% reduced wages to EVERY trained units AND to champions, this is the background I would use the most frequently due to its powerful abilities to give more Gildar early game (less champion wages) and powerful lategame since your powerful high-end units will not drain your Gildar reserves. Meaby only give this benefit to Trained units, and give the 50% wage reduction to the Adventurer background.

Just want to make a notice, all these changes are not to be made simultaneously, I am just giving 2-3 ideas to change the backgrounds which I think really sucks

I will hold it here, and meaby post more ideas later on when my back doesn't hurt badly
Hope you guys find some interesting ideas, if this thread fails I will feel forced to play a modded game

Sincerely
~ Kongdej