(Written after playing the release version 1.02 for 20 hours or so).

For me, a good 4x Fantasy-based game has always been something of a Holy Grail. I was hooked by "Masters of Magic" and this sort of game is my favorite. Of all of the countless fantasy games I've tried, this one is among the best. Be forewarned, I'm biased because I've looked for this type of game for so long, but I'll try to give it a thoughtful review.

The Good:
-Strategically, the game gives you a hard time. The AI takes a dim view of your success, and likes to declare war when you look weak or dangerous. It feels right at that level.
-Many game design choices were made correctly. I love the tactical combat system with fungible starting spots (and with the option to skip tactical and instantly resolve a dull fight). The tactical map isn't just a window-dressing either. Both the tactical and strategic maps are detailed, and the units interact in interesting ways. Terrain matters, and even the layout of the province you're fighting over is a factor. All of this a great source of variety and fun.
-Lots of Fantasy fiddly-bits are everywhere. The world does feel alive, not just like some kind of random number generator gone mad. Nations have unique provinces--all of them do. This is excellent for immersion and a sense of exploration.
-Many key elements on the strategic level resemble games like Europa Universalis. It feels like a good version of that kind of game--less number crunching and more immersive.
-There are many settings, which I haven't explored all of, to set up the game you want to have. That's great design right there.
-The dev(s) seem to be into fixing things. That's always needed when a new game is launched, and that's happening here.

The So-So:
-The price isn't rock-bottom, and the game itself is a work in progress. It's very playable, and I've only had it crash once in 20+ hours of play. But still, this is an unpolished gem.
-The game doesn't explain itself very well. This was an issue for me, and even after seeking out wiki-type info, I was left with gaps. For example, I believed for my first few days of play that the unit production queue was a QUEUE, building one unit at a time. This is not the case. I eventually figured out the game builds all the units in the queue at the same time.
-The tutorial, as the brits say "is dodgy" and actually seems to evade comprehension. After a point is made, you are forced to click "next" or "Okay" literally dozens of times to get it to g

The Grim:
-The interface is clearly unfinished. It works--barely--but there are plenty of problems. Just try to find out how you cancel a trade deal with another nation... or what will happen if you do.
-Lots of things are printed with tiny print, or with incomprehensible miniscule Icons. This reminds me of the early hearts of Iron games--but it's worse here.
-There are a number of mouse-focus bugs. For example, you can run your mouse over various provinces and the game will give you an informatational card which talks about that particular item
-There are highly exploitable imbalances in the game at the tactical level. For example, missile units do more damage to units that are fresh--too much damage. Skirmish units can rip up big lumbering standards in melee.

In short, the game has great feel, a good heart, and it's fun to play. There are distractions and errors everywhere,e however, and it's up to you to ignore them.

A call back to the days of Age of Wonders, I found Sovereignty to be a compelling turn-based grand strategy game that pulled me in with the motto of "one more turn" as easily as it did years ago. Brutal, but not as unforgiving as Dominions, the game has a level of difficulty that can appeal to veterans of the genre but not high enough to detract casual players.

The game's nations have unique goals and storylines, with several having multiple objectives while some have harder single objectives. These can vary from reclaiming your kingdom's old glory, to forming a Grand Alliance of free states. Several even have no ambitions beyond seeing other specific nations do better than everyone else.

The rosters are different depending on race, with variations depending on nation in that race. Allying someone gives you one of their nation specific units as an Auxiliary. Combat is tough, and forming armies for either auto-resolving or leading the attack yourself are viable strategies. Sadly only armies led by heroes can actually be commanded, and other than random chance there is no way to recruit heroes (who can die). Different unit types (cavalry, infantry, "archers" which include mages, and siege) have different effects that when combined with your hero or other units special abilities can be devastating. There is a magic system in the game, it is a little shallow but still very useful. Upgrading it can be risky as you have to invest a percent of your income to it.

There is currently no economy tab, just an overlay when you hover over your gold which sadly does not always work. Income is easy enough to calculate, 150 gold per economic level in a given region. Each region can be upgraded, and each nation is able to upgrade a certain terrain type cheaper. There are special resources, gathered at 1 per turn with no way to change output, that can either be put towards buying certain units or selling on a world market.

The devs have added modeling tools to the game, and soon it will be workshop connected. I can't wait to see what players will come up with, and I hope this helps keep a thriving community. Also active, the devs released a bug patch after only a day of release. Their attention is on this game, and I hope to see additional improvements in the future.

I would recommend this game to anyone who has every felt the tug of "one more turn" or anyone who likes heavier board games. It is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for beginners, but anyone at least familiar with the genre should easily enjoy this game.

Updated 20161208-

**My issues with the game are largely unaddressed, but it has more polish. The Devs are incredibly active, but it still has a few gameplay issues that I find irksome and keep me from recommending it at this time.

EA REVIEW (still)! NOT A FINAL VERDICT! (Also, I'm just a guy who plays games, not a professional).

**-The means of conquering provinces: NO CHANGE! Regardless of the size of the conquering force or HOW I took the province (wiping out all combatants or taking all objectives), you still have to burn turns waiting for the economy to hit bottom, leaving you with a pyhrric trophy of a province. I would suggest giving a conquerer different bonuses instead of just gold for taking victory point cities (such as a reduced conquest time).

--On a related point, there is still a chance of revolt in that province. 2% doesn't seem too bad, so you leave it alone for 5-10 turns... Also, didn't I just DESTROY the economy?

**NO CHANGE -/+ I both love and hate the campaign. I know it's a work in progress, but it could use some more balancing yet. This is due mostly to the number of variables: Empires all have their own version of units, they all have different types and quantities of lands (each yielding different ammounts of gold), and they start next to adversaries or potential allies of varying strength. Your goals are unique for each to compensate (somewhat) for the difficulty of your initial state.

-- However, if you were looking for a game with less static values (e.g. "I want to play as a 5 star Elven race"), you can't. At least, not yet. Who knows? I would prefer to have the map's ethnic boundaries variable in at least one game mode, allowing the player to choose their race for a domination game, but use another races starting area and resources. It would convert the land to your type and swap with theirs, so they would then take your area. This would only be for non-campaign games (obviously).

**-No multiplayer. NO CHANGE. Not even hotseat. Hopefully will be implemented in some form.

**-A lot of turns are spent gathering resources (gold), without much to do. NO CHANGE! Overall, not a huge issue, but the pacing is a bit slow even for my tastes (and I love Twilight Imperium-style BGs with 6 players...). This is not so much of an issue for larger races, but for some starting positions, it can impede the fun factor.

**-Can't improve areas other than economically. FIXED! (Kinda. You can now build in provinces up to it's economic level. A level 2 means two slots that are compatible with that terrain and it's features/attributes.)

**-Can only directly command battles with a hero. NO CHANGE! This means that composition determines likelihood of victory, but not all races have ranged, cavalry, or versatile units, making this treatment especially harsh and the conclusion more tragic.

**-Stacking limits (20 per army, only one army per zone). NO CHANGE! This makes it feel more boardgamey again, and really detracts from the strategy. Why can't I have two armies move into the same zone to do a coordinated strike? Why not make the PLANNING of the attack happen during the turn, and the actual combats all happen after you hit "end turn"? This would be more like Warhammer's "Mighty Empires" rules... Then have an increased upkeep modifier for "overage", such that you now can keep more than 20, but it will cost you (1.5x or something).

**-Tactical movement. FIXED! (Scaling issues are gone and scrolling is now much smoother.)

**-/+ Music glitches occassionally. FIXED! (Music is quite nice now and very fitting. It enhances the mood nicely without being bombastic.)

**- The dispersion of materials. In my entire empire, there is no wood for lumber? It only exists in a few places? Clay as well? I have to trade with another empire that is 4 turns away and have to wait to build a town hall because my civilization apparently has always relied on these trades. I agree that specialty items should be rare, but I don't have the resources for my own NATIVE units? Odd. How did we become famous for them to begin with?

**+/- Tooltips. I love that these are included, as there are a lot of attributes and values that need clarification. What I don't love is that you don't have them at a few KEY times:
Deployment: I forget what my units can do. If I mouse over them, I can see their card listing their abilities, BUT I don't remember what they mean. Please give me the ability to left-click on the unit to LOCK their card up on the lower left so I can get the tooltips.
Unit Promotion: You offer a few cool choices per unit (NICE!), but don't show me their original stats, so who can I make an informed decision as to whether they NEED defense or if movement would be better? How many HP do they have, so I can see if healing is viable?

**RECOMMENDATION: Still keep an eye on this one, and if you want to help out in its development, buy it. It has some interesting ideas and I like the IDEA of it being a world where militaries have to muster, diplomats have to travel, and trades must be struck, but all of it feels arbitrary rather than immersive. You have a few details here and there, but it ultimately feels shallow and tedious. Otherwise, I'd STILL say go for Dominions 4 for now and check back.

I am not a review writing type of guy, but I'm making this exception for Sovereignty. I really enjoy this game. First, the art and atmosphere is excellent. I'm a strategy hound and I've had hundreds of hours of gaming fulfillment with games that have horrible graphics like the Dominions series or Stars! I don't require graphics, but Sovereignty turns my head. I feel like it is a beautifully detailed board game. The music is agreeable.

What makes this game stand out is the combat system. A tremendous amount of thought and creativity has gone into the tactical combat system and I respect and applaud the designers. This isn't the worn out rock, paper, scissors of archers beat spears beats cavalry beats archers. Instead, infantry is usually weak with lower attack and defense values, but contains the potential to become a tank in numbers and with positioning. Infantry has an attribute called Shield Wall which gives it (and it's neighboring Infantry) a defensive bonus against archers and cavalry. If you have two fellow infantry touching you, you get the maximum bonus. This is pure genius! It is similar to fighting with one ally having your back or being in a line of infantry, one on each side of you. Once a Shield Wall gets set up, it can be a tough nut to crack! This makes it interesting that one or two infantry can just be bypassed, but a line of them literally wall off an area. Archers have the standard offensive, defensive, and counter-fire functions, but place a row of say 3 archers behind a line of maybe 4 infantry and you have an incredibly effective army. Siege weapons like catapults can shock the infantry in a wall, archers can soften them up, then you can charge with your cavalry to try to puncture through or flank around. It's a lovely system and it's the core of why I like this game.

Another solid implementation in this game is terrain. The various races have terrain they prefer economically, but also give them advantages in combat. The foresters prefer the woods and mountaineers the mountains. Forests decrease the effectiveness of arrows. When you defend in the woods or mountains, you get a +2 defensive bonus. Hills give +1 for attack and +1 for defense. As a cavalry specialized nation, Berany, I dominated with Uhlans in the plains. Then when I took those horses into the mountains, my speed was gone and my combat effectiveness plummeted. I really liked that visceral feeling the terrain gave me in the gaming experience. I was crushing opponents with my charges and felt the game was getting too easy until I hit the mountains or ran into the Boruvian Empire's Royal Pikes. The pleasure I got raining arrows down on the opposing infantry as they waded through the river was satisfying.

The spell system is still in development and needs work. You are limited to six spells. Some people don't like that limitation, but I do. I like tough but interesting choices. The problem right now is there are too few spells to choose from. Basically, there's really no choice of the 8 or 9 spells. Everyone will pick the same best 6 for their nation. I'd like to see more spells and more variety, but still limit our choices. The magic research system is brilliant. You get five points of magic research per turn for every 1% of your economy you devote to research. This is revolutionary. In other games, to research a certain spell or breakthrough, there is a fixed cost because gold or income essentially is equivalent to research. Therefore, typically it is better to scale up your economy first, then do research. This means large civilizations, space empires, or what have you, will always have more technology than smaller ones. Not so in Sovereignty! Even if I have only one province, like Sirucil, I can be #1 in Magic Research if I commit a higher percentage of my economy to research. Kudos to the designers on this! Other games in the genre should adopt this method of determining the cost of research. On the flip side, military powers can capture Landmarks on the global map to speed research, which works well. As your domain expands, you will have larger military upkeep costs and may need to cut back on your magic research, but Landmarks enable you to somewhat keep up in the arms race.

Units come in standard, mercenary, elite, and unique unit types. Mercenary units typically have short build times, but high upkeep. Elite units are limited to four total you can have at a time, and uniques are one unit only. I really like having few unit types because it forces to me try to use different units in different combinations. Each nation has an incredibly different play style and experience due to this restriction. As Sonneneve, I had one superb unique healer, my Unicorn, for my entire nation. That made my army with that healing unit much more effective than any of my other armies. With Bereska, my only healers were my elite War Priests. I researched Herbalism to increase the healing power of those four units and they were able to fully heal one unit per combat round. As Berany, my Uhlans are classified as mercenaries so I utilized a Mercenary Captain hero to get a double turn with them once per battle. I used the same technique with Marna's Gendarmes as Myrmont.

Units are either single individuals or groups. Groups lose combat effectiveness as they take damage whereas individuals do not. So as my archers take damage they become ineffective, but my Bone Demon still does as much damage at 50% health as he did at 100%. On the other hand, it becomes harder to damage groups with arrows as they become fewer in number, but individuals are fully vulnerable to arrows. Clever system! You can soften groups up with volleys of arrows, but you still need infantry or cavalry to follow on.

Although the tactical battles shine, the strategic portion of the game is rudimentary. The map overall is promising with interesting variations of terrain, special landmarks, and particular provinces with special abilities like allowing you to dramatically improve your diplomatic communication times. However, provinces can only be developed through a simple mechanic of leveling a province economically. Capital provinces can be leveled to a max of 9, ports to 7 and all other provinces to level 5. To capture a province, you must lower that development level down to zero, one turn at a time. After you capture the province, you can then build it back up, one turn at a time. There is no infrastructure currently as far as building additional fortifications or buildings. Frustratingly, you can't even build roads to speed up the travel times of units through your territory. You don't unlock more possible units to construct by building something like an archery range to allow construction of archers from that province. Instead, you can build any unit right from the start of the game in any province you own as long as you have the resources. You can obtain resources via trade, or by purchasing them on the market. Sometimes you won't see the particular resource you need for 20 turns, then it will show up for one turn with 15 for sale, then the next turn it's gone.

Diplomacy is basic as well. Besides trading resources, you can establish non-aggression pacts and alliances. Interestingly, if you are in an alliance, you can build one additional unit type from your ally. If you go to war with that ally though, the units disband.

The game is in early access. It is currently very buggy and I've had countless CTD's. Sometimes I have to restart my computer to get the game to load. The AI needs serious work. There are balance issues. Some unit functions (like cavalry's Roll Up) are not currently functioning. On the plus side, the developers are quite responsive. I am still playing this game and I really hope they succeed. This is a special game and the designers are to be commended for some revolutionary concepts.

crashed on start up

how long has this game been in development? early access at its best is a way of financially supporting projects but too often in practice its just another way to feel ripped off. its become a euphormism for "unfinished, incomplete, badly made, poorly designed....etc".

please note, that within minutes of copying the above comments as a discussion thread i recieved a message from the steam moderator informing me that the developer had removed it from public view:

"You have been permanently banned from all Sovereignty: Crown of Kings discussions.
You were banned by a Sovereignty: Crown of Kings developer."

the same developer who got my support (money) a long time ago and who still can t give me a game that works.

This is another game I really wanted to like, but just can't.

By now you probably understand the game's primary allure: it's a turn-based grand strategy game in a custom-built fantasy setting. The key difference between Sovreignty and a 4X game like, say, Civilization is that the game world is bespoke rather than procedurally generated. Its replayability comes from the ability to play each of the prebuilt game-world's many different nations rather than having a randomly generated new world each game. AFAIK this makes Sovreignty unique.

But the devil is in the details. The game's concept is great; the implementation... not so much. The interface is klunky, the AI is nonexistent, and many of the game's features seem completely unbalanced. (Note that by "unbalanced" I'm not referring to the asymmetry between the different playable nations -- that's a *good* thing -- I mean that some basic gameplay mechanics are vastly OP while others are essentially useless.) Not to mention that the game crashes -- a lot. At least it doesn't take a long time to reload!

I'll keep playing because I want to finish at least one campaign, though at this point I'm certain it'll just be a monotonous grind. I started playing my first game as a tiny "one-star" elven nation and in my first war easily whipped a much larger neighbor, then handily defeated a punitive coalition consisting of every single bordering nation, incluing the gameworld's #1 superpower. I can't imagine the game presenting a more challenging scenario than that. (I'm not bragging about my martial expertise here -- just pointing out that the AI is childishly easy to beat.)

I'd like to say that the game has potential, but that's like saying a farm tractor has the potential to win the Indy 500. In theory, I guess -- but not without some serious rebuilding.

Well the only thing wrong with this excellent game so far is that since I brought it 5hrs ago its caused "onemoreturniste' and I haven't been able to stop playing it.Fortuneatly the undead wiped me out so I could get a bite to eat and go to the loo. It's a very good game,stable,no bugs, lovely maps,splendid music and help along the way with a steady flow of information that is never intrusive.Layout is good ,looks grand,everything seems to operate perfectly and its fun learning how things work in in the game.Being a very, old man and doing what old men do I read the manual and watched the walkthrough over on youtube before I started playing and this was, most likely, not needed as though it surely is a complex game, I could easily blunder along picking it up as I went.It aint cheap but its worth every cent. 10 out of10.

I really want to love this game. There is a great game lost in this technical mess. Glitches, bugs, and crashes abound. Graphical bugs make this game unplayable on many machines, even though it should. and was intended to, run on a potato ( like Dominions ). Add Slitherine's prohibitive price point, and it makes perfect sense to wait until this lemon gets fixed. Just don't hold your breath, it's been months since they promised a patch.

I will gladly change this review when even half these issues are solved

17 hours in and beaten the game with Aevinwode (small elven realm surrounded by hostile orcs, humans and dwarves )

Cons:

Major con with special place : UI is bad.. windows non responsive quite often. CTD quite a bit..fix ui ASAP!

1) Tutorial is broken, gets stuck...seems to be general problem since last update? Reading game manual helps since game is not complicated.

2) Game is generaly hard early ( 1* elven nation start ) and requires some tactical play, but quite fast becomes too easy and you can roll over strongest nations very fast. Starting with stronger nation its probably extremely easy from start.

3) There is very limited managment of your territory. Build 2-3 things that give you some extra gold per land and thats it..

4) After winning with smallest nation i feel i have seen most of game and lost desire to replay..

5) Diplomacy needs more work .. it feels like it tries to do much but in end gets used to trade territory with allies and resources only.. Plus once you destroy one human ( or whatever ) country pretty much all humans will hate you so you cant use it for much

Pros:

1) it reminded me of playing Birthright: gorgon alliance ( without exploring as party :(!!! )
2) Great ideea for multiple nations and races with different units, objectives, spells
3) Fun battles early
4) army xp and skill development ( love this, it really gives personal touch to armies )

TLDR: Fun game but still needs alot of work. At start fixes to UI and maby more different options for teritory buildings because this is very limiting. Would recomend game at discount or when few more patches land.

Well, I really like this game. It's really fun to try out the different factions - they emphasize different playstyles and come with different campaign goals, diplomatic relationships and forces me to adapt to unusual situations, like for example fighting without regular infantery at all - only skirmishers and/or ranged troops.

Diplomacy feels more natural than in most other games, for example the Total War series, where it'd very difficult to build a lasting relationship with your neighbours. That might be, because due to the background some countries are pre-programmed to go to war or remain at peace, but again, it doesn't feel unnatural. When it comes to certain faction, diplomacy is a must and pays off, for example when playing Ravenguard, an evil, isolationist country.


However the game has a few shortcomings, which are the reason why I cannot reconmend it. It's a shame, because I think Sovereignty is an unpolished gem that doesn't get the attention it deserves. Also because it has potential, that will probably never be fullfilled.

First neither the mod manager, nor the mod editor work for me. The editor constantly crashes and the manager won't even open up. Which bothers me even more, because I can't use a mod that adds more unit portrays to the game. Sovereignty has plenty of units, but reuses several unit portrays over and over. It's not very confusing once you get used to it, but clearly not something you should expect from a finished game - or when the mod manager won't work.

Magic is dull. I like the variety of spells - every faction (I've played so far) has at least a few unique spells. You have to research them first with research points which are granted through your provinces, buildings and financial investment. Thus you gain spell points which unlock spells or higher tiers in you spell tree. However the number of spells that you can have is limited and you can never unlock all spells a faction has to offer. Balancing? Maybe, yes. However unlocking works pretty fast and once you're done, there's no point in investing further. Why not make recharging spell depend on your investment as well? Why not have an additonal research tree for non-magic things, like technology or social development? Thus you could shape the society of your faction, toward a more peaceful or agressive playstyle.
Also the branches of a spell tree are fairly linear. When I start researching, I just look which high tier spell I want,
because you won't get more than one high tier spell. In order to unlock one, you have to unlock all lower tier spells of that branch, which takes up spell slots. Spell slots are limited and thus make it impossible to have more than 1 highest tier spells. Balancing? Yes, I guess. But since the branches are fairly similar, I'm set in my way how to spend my spell points from the beginning. I can rarely change my mind, because otherwise the spell slots that I used to reach a certain high tier spell were wasted.

Construction is also kinda dull. Each provinces has a number of slots for building, usually 1-3 and more for capital provinces. In the beginning of the game you'll be limited with your resources, but since you'll have at least one resource that is naturally occuring in your realm, you can trade it against the resources you need. Later in the game you'll have amassed tons of such resources and getting the required building material is only a matter of time. Then you carefully pick specific buildings that offer different bonuses.
But that's all there is. The number of slots (which also represent the economic level of a province) cannot be improved. There're no populations that pay taxes, or have to be protected from raiders. There's no growth or prospering, no development aside from the bonuses. Some provinces have landmarks with special effects, which is cool, but you will hardly spend any time with the management of your country, which I think would be wonderful with the many diverse factions, races and cultures in the game.
It's not bad - it's just a very swallow aspect of the game.

Sometimes the AI acts very stupid. They have a sizeable larger army than I do, send in only a fraction that closely resembles my own strength - only to proceed to stumble around on the battlefield without attacking my troops. After a limited number of turns, the battle is over.
To be fair I'm glad they don't have to balls to attack, because I'd be screwed, but it feels odd and also very boring when it happens almost every turn. Imagine this: hitting the "end turn" button to get over with battle after battle.
In other cases the AI can't seem to make up their mind about either attacking me or claiming victory points. Sometimes they even let themselves being defeated because I could easily take all victory points without opposition (then when they retreated they were all imprisoned, because I was playing Icespire).

All of this aside, I would still reconmend the game. So far the game is still fun and challenging, but there's a big dealbreaker: bugs. My playthroughs work fairly well in the beginning, but as I proceed the game becomes more and more buggy:
- armies that seem to occupy a province of mine, but are not really there any longer
- warning that a province is being occupied, even though there is no attacker (happens when an enemy attacks you, and retreats on their own the next turn)
- provinces are shown as damaged (which apparently was a feature in an earlier build, but no longer is)
- perhaps the stupid AI if you like
But worst of all are the constant crashes later in the game. Sometime the game gets sluggish - a sign that it'll crash in a few moments. It also likes to crash during battles or enemy turns, which means I have to fight some battles not once, or twice, but even trice. This is super annoying and REALLY inconvenient for those who want to play the Iron Man mode. I don't know if Iron Man has autosave and at this point I can't be bothered to find out.
The devs seem to have made an effort to fight those bugs. Sometimes after a crash, I'm shown a bug report which I could theoretically send (but ironically it doesn't work for me either). The last update was half a year ago and the game is as buggy as ever. I don't expect more bugfixes in the future. Even if they released some bugfixes, they might not fix the CTD.

I've played the game this far, because I sincerely enjoyed good portions of it and since I already had spend my money. However I cannot reconmend it further with a good conscience.