Here by Brad himself:

Keeping your sovereign alive

This gameplay element/rule [Sovereign dies = game over] is dividing the forum community already. However Brad has stated that this is a core gameplay element, so I doubt that it will change. [Perhaps they will implement an other system -like the suggested dynasty/successor system- later on as an option...who knows...because lot of people would like to play with different settings as I see.]

I think the reason they don't just settle this and make it an option is because it is not like a victory condition option which can pretty much be handled by if this option is enabled go to this bit of code and if disabled don't do this bit of code. It seems to be a very central part of the game design, and (my opinion) it seems like it would take major (read: almost programming two separate games) to provide both options.

There has to be a way to lose the game and it appears that in this game the DEFINING occurence that causes a loss is sovereign death. That is kind of hard to code around.

 I am all for a special building mechanic simular to AoW, but that cannot be spammed in multiple cities like the AoW wizard's tower was. It might could be implemented as a simular concept as Civ 4 has "national wonders" (National Wonders are buildings in Civ that only one per empire can exist.). To make a suitable penalty for losing a hero or soveriegn, it could be made that a ritual has to be preformed by the special building for X number of turns requiring X resources.

 I am in agreement with previous posters that my hero's survival if things go wrong should be up to me setting up the apprpriate back-up plan and infrastructure. Never should it be frustrating random chance.

 I also love the epic idea above!

I can live with the Sovereign death = game over rule [if the AI will be good enough ], but have you seen the October survey? 40% of the voters voted for "I think there should be other options." That's 40 players out of 100. I think that it is an impressive number.

I really think the idea of Sovereign death is a good idea, just make the battle system as different in HOMM as possible. Therefore its not 100% "commit him to battle or not" ... but you have an entire fluid battlefield to fight on, and you can decide how close to the melee you wan't your sovereign to be. Of course, if a dragon wants to fly over your soldiers towards your sovereign ... well there's not much running from that situation. But if you hang back to just cast spells, a horde of foot soldiers shouldn't just automatically capture and kill you when you have a whole third of a battlefield between you and them, giving you time to prepare/cast spells in order to help you escape ... to the edge of the map ONLY AT THE LOCATION YOU ENTERED .... to make it a little harder than simply anywhere on that side of the map.

I mean, correct me if im wrong, but it seems like you could make your soldiers stronger, higher morale, thus increasing your chances of winning .... the closer you are to your troops and the fighting, especially if you engaged in direct melee yourself. So you have a fluid scale of Greater the chance of winning = lower the chances of escape, and you can always play the cautious tactitian, using the men as pawns in a grande chess game ... or the courageous alexander, fighting with the men, winning battle after battle all the way to India and back again, at your own mortal peril.

What about instead of dying, the main character gets reset at capital city with no experience and loses all special abilities and items?  Kinda like in Kohan how they were immortal and could die but then you had to spend money to unlock their amulet?  Otherwise, if there's a risk of the person dying and me losing the game, I'll just park them in my main city and have them do research or spells or something.  There's no point in risking it.

I’ve leave the forum for a while & not so sure what feature has already been implemented to the Sovereign. 

I am happy that “sovereign dying is a non-negotiable”.  I just need to make sure “sovereign dying is NOT Game Over”.    Whether a game is over or should not ONLY depends on the sovereign’s life.  “Sovereign dying = Game Over” MAYBE the most popular game style in multiple player, but it does not means this is the only way to determine the win/loss of a game.   The Game Over of a game should be determined by whether a game Goal (e.g. rescue the princess) is achieved or failed.

A “Heir” mechanics is badly needed in this game.  When a sovereign dies, his empire may (or may not) turn into chaos, it is very nice for gamer to continue playing even with the less powerful, younger heir.   Gamer are attached to the Sovereign, but gamers also feel attached to the kingdom he spend hundreds of turn developed.

Heir mechanics also makes the AI Sovereign hunt less mandatory.  The hunt still rips tremendous benefit but it does not means it is a number 1 priority.  Nerf it. 

Rgds to Sovereign dying in something “tactical” like in combat, I like it.  However, STRATEGIC mechanism should exist so the gamer can prepare before his inescapable fall in battle.  So far I like the idea of “Amulet of Life Saving (Evasoion) ” mentioned in this thread the best.  When you wear such amulet in combat, you know your Sovereign will be teleported to safety even you lost the battle.   

Developer will need to make a very nice gameplay balance on how & how difficult this amulet can be obtained.  There should be many ways to do it.  For example, each player (or AI player) are equipped with one such item at turn 1.    The amulet will only have 90% chance of functioning when the wearer dies.  When the amulet functions, it is consumed.  Or essence is spend to purchase one such amulet in a goodie hut.   Or this 90% chance will become 70%, 50% etc chance when you are using it the 2nd time in the current game.

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Sovereign dying is intimately related to the reason WHY it needs to be fighting tactical battle every turn, or WHAT benefit it get when it is not fighting tactical battle.   Say, if I let him sit in castle for many turns without leveling him up much (while speeding up spell research), I will then be very hesitant to bring him out fighting again.    Say, if I leveling him up every turn fighting tactical combat, he might then be not very useful doing spell research.

Is the only way to level up the Sovereign is to let him gain experience in Tactical battle?   I don’t think so, & I don’t want to.   For example, if he has been researching spell & sitting in city, every turn gives him 1% permanent bonus to the Sovereign’s spell research statistic.   And if he has been sitting in city casting a huge spell for X turns, X permanent bonus is given to his spell power, so his next spell will be more powerful/damaging.   And if he is training troops in city, he may gain leadership skills for during tactical battle.   

When he is in a city and taking some action, some permanent bonus will be granted.
When he is fighting, permanent bonus will be granted to his combat/melee related statistics, may it be ATT, DEF, DAM, leadership skills etc.

I dont want to spend most of my game time leveling up Sovereign's MELEE skills so he can survie in battles or being a 1 man killing machine.  This is boring.

What about a ritual of rebirth you have to cast before you die - giving the sovereign one other chance at life - after some time he reappears at the capital. The ritual should be affordable the first time over, but becoming increasingly crippling in cost with each casting, so the third or fourth casting would be extremely painful.

The system would be as follows:

Sovereign is killed without active ritual of rebirth: game over.

Sovereign is killed after the ritual of rebirth was casted: sovereign disappears for fixed number of rounds, the ritual of rebirth ends. After the fixed number of rounds the sovereign reappears at the capital, not protected from death anymore. The ritual has to be recasted at greatly increased cost in time and resources. In the meantime the caster is not protected, his death means game over.

 If the ritual is recasted the caster is again protected, maybe at increased "time-out" penalty in addition to increasing the costs of the ritual itself.

I think such a ritual would be a good idea, it eliminates the randomness a lot of people did not like - you know if your sovereign is going to live or not. The game mechanic sovereign dead= game over still stands, but it gives an option to people to be ready for it and prepare accordingly and the feeling of power a high level sovereign should project is not mitigated: he is so powerful he can even be prepared for his own death. It would also give a possibility to use the sovereign in combat without fearing a game over because of plain bad luck - it would still be painful and should be a strategic decision, but i do not like one bit games where i have to let the mighty heroes behind because their death= game over and where they need babysitting all the time. 

Please tell what do you think about it.

I'm rather fond of the "unique building" idea. Reminiscent of the wizard's tower from MoM/AoW... actually a hybrid of the two.

Basically: you build your tower, but rather than a tower, let's call it the Crypt Sanctum. It takes a big pile of time, resources, magic. You can only have one, and must raze it before starting to build another if you wish to change its location. When you die, you are returned to your Crypt Sanctum, reanimated, and the magic is lost - you must build another to survive the next death.

The location of your Crypt Sanctum cannot be concealed. Your enemies will know it when they see it... and if they capture the city where it is located, they immediately destroy it. (Alternately: its location is secret, but a spell cast on you in combat reveals it. Alternately: just put it somewhere they won't be likely to ransack, m'kay? There are a few options here.) Perhaps due to the magic binding the Crypt Sanctum to your sovereign's soul, he instantly loses half his maximum health or somesuch when it is razed. (And this happens even if he is the one to raze it, when he decides he wants it elsewhere!)

This places the avoidance of death in the realm of both tactics and strategy, with no die rolls involved. Can you spare the resources to build a crypt, or should you just hide out somewhere quiet instead? And: where should you put it, such that a few well-placed catapult stones won't render you mortal?

Sovereign dies = game over is a core gameplay element as it is now. That being said, if we gonna have other options later on...I would prefer to have a dynasty/successor sytem.

Prefer all you want.  I'd bet good money you won't get it.  Making the Sovereign harder to kill or giving him a mechanic to escape from a "nobody could survive that!" situation doesn't violate a key gameplay element the devs have decided on.  A dynasty or succession system does.

This is unlikely to be or become Fantasy: Total War.  I'd like to see F:TW, but this won't be it.  You're not playing an empire in Elemental, you're playing a Sovereign.  Once your Sovereign dies, you're playing a hunk of cold meat slowly decomposing in a ditch somewhere.  You're in no condition to direct an empire.

.... with massive maps over 5x the size of huge in Civ 4 ... you WILL be playing the empire wether you like it or not, other-wise there would not be a "hide your sovereign" option. However yes, I do agree that the focus should be YOU ARE THE SOVEREIGN, if the sovereign dies you lose .... its just that in all likely hood you will also have a GIANT EMPIRE.