For Single player - If the answer was NO, then the Sov becomes a nuetered unit. With YES, he retains his magical aura and prestige.

For Online play - The Host decides, those who agree join, everyone else can go pound sand or each other.

I gotta say that the only option I don't like is both. For cohesiveness sake you have to pick one. They can't both make sense.

Hi cephalo, can you explain that a bit more please? Why on Earth wouldn't you want the choice? Cohesive integrity, as you say, would surely be maintained if you never chose the one you didn't like?

Clarifying a bit my 'no': I consider it is much more interesting for a 4X to lose based on your own incompetence than by sheer tragedy in one single battle. Let us not make every game a regicide, please.

Think on all the complexity, the struggles one nation might face after its Sovereign is dead. Now think on how 'game over' is a cheap way out of building a proper scheme of succession.

This is exactly why I'd prefer the choice...because I could choose 'Yes' unless my games were being ruined by a regicide dynamic, in which case I'd change.

Yes.

In my opinion, this question is fundamental to the game. How you present the players role will decide how you design nearly everything else. I think that you are basically talking about two different games over this question. If the designers want to control the atmosphere and the pacing, by allowing both as an option I believe there is a danger that both will end up clunky and unpolished.

Let me try an analogy. If you try to make a movie from one characters point of view, and then try to make the same movie from a different characters point of view, you aren't going to be able to use all the same footage that you had. You are almost certainly going to have to work twice as hard, because really you are making two movies.

I'm not sure I'm making sense, but I believe that there is a sacrifice to be made if you try to give a fundamental choice like that.

There should always be a good balance of risk vs. reward. Sovereign's should be powerful enough that there are strong motivations to get him into the action, but not so over-riding that a player is forced to.

As far as I know they haven't gone back on the decision to keep Sovereign Death = Game Over. It does bring to mind the question though of why they put so much work and love into the Dynasty system if none of those children will ever become Sovereign's them-selves. In the long run the best thing would probably be a "Heir Option" that you would check at the beginning of starting a Custom game. Also by only allowing this option during a custom game they keep the integrity of Sov Death = Game Over for the single player game and ranked online matches.

in Age of Wonders, among other starting options is "leader on map". If checked, you start with a hero that is you. If he dies it's game over. If you don't check it however, then you DON'T start with a hero and you have to lose all your cities to lose the game. I highly preferred to not have the leader in the game since it was so easy to power up your leader with DEF and RES so he couldn't die and then get a little ATT and go kill the other leaders. And that was WITH Warlods Mod that restricted heroes to ATT, DAM, DEF & RES to 5 of 10.

I agree with Raven X here, it would work very well with an "heir option" in sandbox mode only. Then the backstory and the campaign could stay the same, and it wouldn't interfere with ranked online games either. 

It was pointed out earlier that only the sovereign you start with has the ability to channel life back into the world, but this is not a problem: just let the heir inherit this power and any remaining essence. It was proposed already, e.g. this post on Sovereign succession: https://forums.elementalgame.com/372235 

This would be a real dynasty system, where the key power (bringing back life to the world) is held only in the current Head of the Family, and inherited through the generations. For a very good example of this from literature, try Anne Rice's The Witching Hour, about many generations of a family with witching powers, the key power and family secret inhererited to only one in the family per generation, much like above. So it's not even a "gamey" solution.

No.

BWARGH!

Uh... ahem...

No.

To make it clear, though, I do trust the devs.

They are using the Dynasty System for two things: create a sensible way for inheriting the land of another kingdom after its capitulation; and allow for a champion system, by using your sons/daughters as powerful hero-like units. At least this is what leaked so far.

True. Those are the foremost obvious things the Dynasty system does. It does open the door for a lot of other uses though. Either way, I agree with Sov Death = Game Over. I never had a problem with that idea as You Are the Sovereign. When He/She dies it would make sense that your game is over. I think having the "Heir Option" for custom games would be a nice touch though. Definitely limit it to Custom games though so it doesn't interfere with Ranked Online play.

This would also help be able to play Really Long custom games. A game could go on and on so long as you had a un-married child/Champion to take over the Empire should your Sovereign die. This could also make it very hard to defeat a enemy if they have a lot of children running around.