Wandering heroes becoming their own faction after attacking a settlement.

Sounds like a plan.

Works for me.

It's against the core gameplay concept:

1. Even the childs of the Sov cannot become Sovs, because there is only one Sovereign / faction. IE. We don't have a "successor system" in the vanilla game.

2. Sov dies = game over

That being said, we've talked about this already. It would be cool to have a successor system, but it just won't happen in the vanilla => Some experienced Python coder will have to mod it in.

well i suppose i should have worded the title a bit differently.  what i mean is if the wandering heroes could attack a settlement and take it over for themselves.  i guess they don't have to be sovereign necessarily but they could, using normal tech create armies and try to cut out a niche for themselves, maybe even become a super power unto themselves.

edit : i am gonna edit the original post so that it makes things a bit more clear.

Ah I see...interesting idea. 

I like the idea. Adds more lively feeling to the world.

So basically, if a champion managed to take a city by itself it could control that city and become an independant nation of sorts - only with limited expansion (i.e. - only being able to take other sov's cities as the champion wouldn't have the power to restore land etc.) is that what you're saying?

If so, I like the idea. It'd be cool - but I doubt any champion would ever manage it. Not unless you, as a Sov, hired them and gave them an army only for them to go rogue.

Superb idea, and fits well into the present gameplay mechanics.  From my understanding, there will be many, many opponents who are in fact not lead by sovereigns. 

yes that's exactly what i was thinking.  if there was a way for it to work out.  it would be rare, but if a champion, especially if it was a warrior type champion wasn't hired after a certain number turns and he/she had gained some units and whatnot through their own adventures.  it would be like how conan conquered aquilonia of sorts.  conan even hated magic lol.

You should be able to offer a city to a hero to form a nation. Maybe trade a city for a rare artifact or something. It is the goal of many Heroe's to become Kings after all....

Great idea.  Looking at some of the Hero stacks I've seen in Z4, I can't see it being entirely improbable that they could take a city.  Hero stack of battle rank 40+ yesterday, if they set to try and take a city, they probably could.

This system is actually in civ (the original).  The pirates or whatever they were ccalled, could actually take cities,  then they went hell for leather building more units!!  I've seen a whole continent taken over by pirates!!!! 

Hero-led neutral factions (now Improved! with their own cities!!) is a nice feature.

An option for their allegiance(s) to Sovs would be also -- it would reward/punish diplomacy/charisma/etc.

Well, Champion-led Nations would have a very Viable option to "Vassalize" to a Kingdom or Empire. Their production wouldn't be controlled by the player, but all other actions could be controlled (kind of like a "permanent ally" in CIV).

Of course, while the level of cooperation is high ... their vassalage isn't necessarily permanent. The Champion gets assasinated? Nation goes rogue. Champion dies and leaves city to an heir owned by another player? City goes to the other player. In this way, Vassals are a bit more tricky, but can be pretty nice war allies (and economic allies) while the Champion you know and love is still alive.

This is a great idea. Maybe it could even be worked along the lines of "minor races" as we saw in GalCiv2.

Hero-led cities might not enjoy the same benefits as a sovereign based one, but they could play an important role trade-wise, dynasty-wise, diplomatic-wise, etc.

Yep, minor Champion led nations could be potential Vassals, War Allies, Trading Partners, or Oppressed Protectorate (Slave) Nation.

the way things go could be influenced by the personality of said champion.  maybe if the champion had some inclination toward your sovereign he may choose to take over a faction that your at war with on his own.  or maybe if he was bribed by a rival sovereign(who doesn't want you to know he had a hand in it) he may attack one of your settlements, take it from you and start attacking you with its people.  lots of possibilities here i think.

i like this idea too

And if you struck up Diplomatic ties with this new faction, you could provide a sort of Prestige interaction, where you would send groups of Peasant Soldiers to their city, which could then be disbanded, and as such become new citizens of that city/faction.

That would provide your Ally more people for them to use to either grow their city, assuming that increasing Prestige level would be more difficult for them to do than real factions, or use in army creation tio be used with their allies, (you) in joint ventures down the road.

One would have to be rather careful with providing to many citizens to quickly though of course. One would hate to lose their allegance, only to have to fight off what used to be your own people.

I think this could also be used on a smaller level too.  A successful adventuring band, very high level, wants to retire.  They sieze a keep from the monsters that have been terrorizing the countryside, and now possess a keep, where they live with their retainers.  They should also have a diplomatic standing and relations, as they don't answer to anyone, and could be provoked into taking sides, either with you or against you or in a different manner altogether based on their own interests and goals.

HA, it would be funny to get attacked by that farming bonus champion and he destroys your improvements and builds a bunch of farms.  like the  longer you leave him in power the more stuff he destroys and makes into farms. 

eventually he creates his own army of farmers(custom units he creates) and tries to attack you with the farmer mob.  or better yet you could hire him to do that to another player, would be hilarious in multiplayer.

hmm sounds like a wandering hero becomes a Sub-Faction not Kingdom nor Fallen maby the hero attacks with a army of Mercenarys and makes a surprise attack at night would make sense for someone who dosent have a faction and if the city was owned i dont know by Tarth(or whats their name) for example then Tarth would realy hate that sub-faction and would constantly attack to regain the lost city

This sounds awesome. One way or the other I think the implementation of smaller non-Sov controlled nations or factions is a must. Especially for the larger maps where only having a handful of major factions would seem somewhat limiting.

Yea ... Independent factions (Wandering Adventurers, small bands of non-magical rabble, A Necromancer and his Undead Army, Living Lairs) would definitely be cool

One sneaky as I could offer my grand niece to the heroe, making him swear alliegance to me at the wedding. Now I own the city and the heroe. No money needed.

this still seems like a good idea to me for Fallen enchantress.