Do we have to build?

this if from the official site. If you want any of that stuff you are going to need to build an empire.

I think in theory you could. But the game will be rather hard. Your technology rate would be abysmal limiting your adventurer research, and without a town to buy items from you'd be limited to what you could pick up from low level goody huts and quest (You need adventure research to access the better ones).

In short yes you could do it, but it will take a long time to get anywhere (If you can survive that long).

The "go on quests" part suggests a city free play style, though quests may very well be tied to cities by obtainment, so building may still be essential. I, for one, look forward to an in depth building mechanic. Building in strategy (and simulation) games is my all time favorite thing to do (which is why Dawn of War 2 doesn't appeal to me very much at all). I'm quite looking forward to this game now that I've read more on it.

I don't think you could...

What you could definately do though, is focus a lot on the magic/adventure/warfare tech trees, have VERY few cities, and spend most of your effort buffing up your sovereign to make them as powerful as possible. I'm sure it's very possible to have some sovereign that can wipe out small armies by itself with enough effort. 

Considering you won't even be able to "go on quests" without the proper research, then yes - you must build.

You could always take the talent that your sovereign provides one knowledge point. Tech progression will be sloooooow but its viable. If your quest go well you would also get some Gildar which means you can recruit NPCs and some of the NPCs also provide knowledge.

But I thought that since you come across people in the world, that generate income/research points etc, you could somehow get by with just that.

In this YouTube vid he does explain that he is getting revenue "even now" (at 5:58), without having build anything. And by not sacrificing essence in doing so, the result would be making you more powerful. So instead of building, I could make my living from conquering others. Is that not an option?

It's mostly a question of balance, which could easily be changed in a mod to make lone adventuring easier or harder. The mechanics are all there to allow for solo adventuring without building up an empire. You can have research, spell research, gold income without cities. You can get items through quests, you can hire wandering champions, etc. It's just a question of numbers - whether you can get enough research to make it viable (considering you don't need to research things like Civilization and Warfare), whether you can get enough gold to support recruitment, so on so forth. But stuff like that is easily tweaked in a mod.

I think building at least one city will probably be essential, but the good news is that you won't have to spam cities across the map in order to build up a powerful civilization.  One well-maintained city will be better than 5 poorly maintained ones (at least as I understand it).

You absolutely could do it if you wanted to. But it's a challenge. A big uphill challenge.

Eventually there will be people who succeed at it.

But the game isn't specifically designed to support it.

But it is, since all the required resources needed for solo adventuring (gold, research, spell research) can be acquired without building a single city.

Yeah, I'd say the design allows it but I don't think it encourages it. The balance as of Beta 4 would make that a hard path to follow. Depending on how the progression has been changed for the release, it could be easier to go solo as a wandering wizard or much harder.

Realistically, once the game gets moving the AI civs will constrict the land you have to wander on and, because your overall army is likely to be very small, many/most of them will decide you're a good target. Being such a good target, they will be unwilling to form treaties with you (such as non-aggression, which would let you wander their territories). And of the winning paths, only Conquest is really reachable without having some cities researching the necessary techs.

Technically, you can. But if your sovereign dies and you don't have a city, it's game over.

So you probably want to have a city, even if your research and attention are focused on adventuring.

You could gain those points by conquering indies/enemy cities.

that video in part is not valid any more. we no longer use essence to found a city.. we can found the first one for free the rest require a pioneer unless you concur a city.. I also believe if you loose all cities you regain the ability to found a city again with sovereign but i might be wrong in this..

you can get gold / items from beginning huts but these rapidly run out. you need to further research adventure to keep getting more access to quests.. again doable but hard with out city...

doing it with out at least one city will be extremely difficult ... if you do not have a city taking advantage of resources is not possible as they need to be in a cities area of influence. Also note the some researched improvements magnify these resources making them much moire valuable.

I tried this kind of strat, focusing on adventure to the detriment of all else.... I find it's pretty ineffective in beta 4. I'd definately want to focus more army/civ early on, with maybe a few breakthrus in adventure so I can do better quests (level 3+ are pretty win). The main problem with it is that I simply didn't have enough research points to do it... I also fell behind military wise and economy wise, and I'm in a war now with Paradin, who has a MUCH stronger military then me (my 46hp, 20 damage, 10 armour sovergein can't do much vs 100hp, 180 damage squads -.-). 

But I wouldn't need to of sacrificed my essence to start building. If I take over one by force I am essentially stronger for it. Right?

Do you even need to spend essence to build cities in the final product? I don't think you do.

Storm is correct as I posted above

in fact its easier to get essence now (when you in crease it during level up in beta 4 it rises by 3 points iirc) this just increases mana and there fore max spell casting. you do still use essence to imbue non magic using heroes with magic (costs 5 essence). as long as essence is above the spells you wish to cast's mana requirements your all set.. However controlling shards makes your magic more powerful.. I do not have exact numbers but one fire doubles damage of fire spells and additional take it up further.. plus spell of mastery requires controlling, either all or a set number of shards (not clear on this yet) in order to cast..

so essence still plays a big role just not the same as it originally did ..

Shards increase their book by... Well normally spells do N damage. One shard = 2N, 2 shards 3N, 3 shards 4N etc etc. 

I don't think that you can survive without founding a kingdom/empire. You are missing to many sources - spell research, guildar income, breakthroughs and building on special tiles for e.g. shards. I think initially, it was only planned that you can wander around in the beginning of the game, but to win you have to found a kingdom/empire - as you want to heal/conquer the world

Yeah, the first thought I had was not building at all and aiming to make a powerful melee warrior, ignoring magic as much as possible. Actually, I wanted to do this co-op vs loads of AIs with a friend, but he's not playing without tactical battles for MP.

When we first heard about this game ages ago it was a multiplayer rpg/tbs!

The problem with relying on mods for this kind of thing is once everyones got a slightly different version theres no benchmark, you know? You cant have people running different mods on the same high scores table.

Also, I kinda thought it would be like Dominions3 and you could research crafting and make a squad of awesome geared commanders and watch them face off vs armies of 1000s. Such a good game, that.

But, yeah, I'd totally like to see this play style acknowledged. Not made overpowered; just a viable option. It makes sense it would be a greater challenge and thats what we want.

Also in the Dev journal 5 Brad mentions that if your sovereign dies in an assault on an enemy city in enemy territory hes Dead Dead, IE GAME OVER MAN. I don't think the solo sovereign taking over the world without a city is plausible due to that.