Who is your favorite Kingdom/Empire?

Ok, Lord Xia, put that mindreader down, and step back.

I also like Kraxis, because if anyone should unite the world, it's them.  I loved leading Karavox to an alliance victory in the my last playthrough.

You know, I didn't even talk about  Karavox.  I have a bit of a love hate with him.  I like his story, he is one of the more powerful sovs in terms of both physical power and magic, as having krax blood and cruel makes him better in combat than most Sovs, along with having two level 2 paths in magic.  But, they are not magic picks I would take and I certainly wouldn't choose cruel, as it hurts.  But diplomat is a solid choice for profession, it gives bonuses in trade and allows you to take control and steal enemy troops in battle. And wealthy is among the best traits a Sov can have, can use it with betrayers to pile on the heroes, or use it to rush early troops or buildings.   

From a balance aspect he's broken but yeah from an RPG aspect, he's more interesting than say, Altar.

I personally love evil, magic, female sorceresses...too bad her Civilization suck so much lol. Still I wouldn't mind even more weaknesses to her Civ, if she get more personal power in return. Ceresa is central in the lore too (right?), more glory to her.

That would be a cool mechanic, if your ruler of a wraith or Amarian faction, you start with level 1 in life/death.  That would balance out the weak races, by making their rulers have more magic or traits than other rulers.  

Now I was gonna say Umber...

In that case I like the Warlord ability from Warlord Verga since that gives me the ability to upkeep a lot of troops. (its not really effective though, I just want to use the troops)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I like Resoln and Pariden. Why because their leaders are sexy sexy women!

Umber is still in the game, I create a leader for them and Capitar.  Umber is pretty good.  They get bonuses in medium to large armies with their blood, their faction traits are assassin gear, which gives poison to units and better broad and long swords.  And they have Tarths master scout ability.  I play as them every now and then.  Actually, they and Kraxis are the premade factions I have played the most.  

I've only played custom factions, but I like making heavy armour archer units so I've been using the trogs during the last few faction makes.  The weight bonus helps me have higher initiative  & the +1 to attack helps as well.  I don't even use the juggernauts

my apologies for not having a standard faction when I play, but with my custome setup I have archers with all but the chest piece of master plate (use a +5monk robe or somethin), they have both +3 fire/ice attack necklaces & both initiative necklaces, a two essence city with two more essence added through other means with aura of haste (or whatever it's called, +1 initiative per essence & the +1 fire attack per essence spell & +1 defense per essence spell) = gives me some archers with really high defense, attack of 20ish (with last upgradable bow), & an initiative of I think 27

I usually play as a custom sovereign, though I find both Resoln and Altar to be pretty good vanilla races.  Of the two, I'd say Resoln for a quicker game (Crow Demons are crazy-strong when they get some experience, and Grave Elementals are tough as nails, and both come free when you build a shard).

Resolin or Pariden. They have 'enough' magic to make the game fully dynamic.

I actually knew, but they are kind of secret, so I wrote up Trogs too.
I generally tend to like the "Swarm" concept, and thats why I give my umber heroes the "Warlord" trait, so I can spew out a ton of units to gain the blood bonus (In which is the "Mechanical" reason I like umber, they HAVE to team up)

I don't really like assassin's tools, and master scouts bother me, so I never play with master scouts.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Resoln.  All I play.  I love magic, and those who can mightily wield it.

Gilden. Give me a hammer and light plate over magic any day. And +1Hp per level is so nice now.

Tarth... not because of master scouts, but because of their bows... I'm a sucker for a bow and arrow.

Frankly, I wish there were a random leader option at game startup.  I like playing any of the vanilla sovereigns.

Yea me 2

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

That would be nice to see at some point. A random choice for generic sovereigns and an option to include custom sovereigns. Same when choosing the AI opponents to include or exclude custom sovereigns to compete against. But alas, this would have to be added on with an expansion pack.

Yes, it's true: my love affair with Procipinee ended after her spellbooks doubled in point cost.  Irreconcilable differences, you see.  She went back to her mirror, and I moved on to custom sovereigns.  These days I typically prefer a mix of the Light spellbook, with different backgrounds and traits, and a race that has Enchanters and Betrayers.

If I was asked at wand point to choose a couple of lore-based rulers to play, I'd opt for Kraxis or Gilden.  More heroes and better defenses for Kraxis, all those lovely stacking HPs for Gilden.

such a hard choice.  I guess  I play as altar the most for faster experience and henchmen.  

On the empire side, I like Ceresa and her armies of shard demons.

On the empire side I like Magnar. There is nothing more pure and wholesome than sending six slave armies at a city to weaken it for your quendar fire mages to invade.

I like all of the sovs/factions except Yithril, though I think there are some balance issues.

I have not played as Kraxis are they able to use all spears as one handed? I don't see this in a trait description or in the manual?

No they have access to 1 handed spears.

Altar. They are quite frankly, the most powerful by a very long way, and also the most enjoyable imo.

You haven't tasted power until you've roamed the world with an Epic army of seven heroes, all of them >lvl 30. Make your soverign a mage (since henchmen have only limited magical capability) and use your army of henchmen as carriers for all the legendary weapons you inevitably pick up while adventuring. Watch entire empires fall to your little handful of people.

Forget about the other "magical" nations. Altar can have all the mages they want, mages with insanely high levels and tons of inherent defense without having to touch armor. Bonus points if you happen to make friends with pariden and buy a few spellbooks from them.

The free prestige from completing quests also allows them to reach incredible city sizes that take most people forever. And to top it off, they get a unique leather cuirass (early armor tends to be with you for a long time) and two powerful unique swords. As i've discussed elsewhere, swords are overpowered weapons, and athican swords are just that, with a cherry on top. 

I like pariden too, but i don't really see how anyone can compare to the altarians. 

Umber, but without master scouts. Its all so sad. First they take away Umber as a default nation, then they give them the most newbie ability of all. Its sabotage from the other races...

I would gladly pay for a DLC where this is fixed.