Very nice update and improvement with latest 2.05 version. Definitely would recommend!!!
Similar to Birthright setting and playout, but with a few strategical goodies too.

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

I won't recommend it at this time, as it seems like they took Wizard Kings (Columbia Games, Boardgame) and changed just enough to muck it up. The devs seem extremely engaged, so I hope that over the next year, all of these items will be addressed.

-The means of conquering provinces: You deplete the resources (not raiding and gaining immediate, but just destroy it) until it has ZERO value, and then it becomes yours as a pyhrric trophy. You now have to spend money to rebuild it based on the type of terrain it is. This is clunky and offers the player exactly ONE way to gain land.

--On a related point, now there is a chance of revolt in that province. 2% doesn't seem too bad, so you leave it alone for 5-10 turns... It will eventually burst out with a ridiculously large force of local rebels that are stronger and better equipped than the nation that spawned them. Also, didn't I just DESTROY the economy? How are they getting their arms and supplies? (I suppose the 7 Samurai argument of hoarding farmers applies...).

-/+ 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. Not even hotseat. Hopefully will be implemented in some form.

-A lot of turns are spent gathering resources (gold), without much to do. 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. No forts, no special sites. If it wasn't on the map to begin with, it's not there. Should have some sort of specialization process for areas (military, economic, magic, diplomacy). Would give more options for those slow turns. Even is it's just a minor bonus, they add up over time.

-Can only directly command battles with a hero. 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). 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. It is like moving a ladle through molasses. There need to be options for scroll speed and mouse response. As it stands, it feels disjointed. Additionally, near screen edges there are issues clicking on units, so you have to center them and then deliberately click on them. It gets frustrating and also occurs on the strategic map.

-/+ Music glitches occassionally. Has a "tick" that occurs in the songs and I've taken to switching it off. Otherwise, it's fitting and pleasant.

RECOMMENDATION: Keep an eye on this one, and if you want to help out in its development, buy it. Otherwise, I'd say go for Dominions 4 for now and check back. It just has more options and is (right now), the better game in almost all respects.

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.

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.

UPDATE 26th FEBRUARY 2016. V2.0 is getting back to being a stable version and the developers are now picking up pace of the fixes, and will hopefully soon be putting in new features for the game. There are still some basic issues for me, not enjoying the tactical battles so much as they are today compared to 1.9, but progress is going in the right direction and developers are actively taking on board suggestions and feedback. Suggest if you are interested in buying you keep an eye out on development and feedback in the forum of the latest updates. Getting back to being a recommended game, a little more to develop.

UPDATE 15th FEBRUARY 2016. I apologise to the 15/16 people who found my original positive review helpful. As a warning, while v1.9 is still available, the game using the new engine build (v2.0) is backwards in many aspects and has multiple issues with bugs, CTD, UI, that hinder enjoyment for established players, so I suspect new players especially would struggle with 2.0 (although you can still play 1.9 and may enjoy this). As 2.0 is the future for this game, and the state is poor (albeit it's been in beta review since prior to Christmas and development appears quite slow for the tiny development team) I can no longer recommend purchases of this game in the present state. If the state improves to an enjoyable game, following successful patches, I will be able to revert to my original review. My original review is left up for reference, regarding how enthusiastic I was for this game in 1.9. I still support this game and its development, but can't recommend people spend significant money on this game in current state. My review would change to Not Recommended today.
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I really enjoy fantasy wargaming over futuristic (Warhammer v Warhammer 40,000), so this type of game really appeals to me. It feels like Game of Thrones on a board. I was worried about purchasing because of mixed reviews on how the early access is going. I wasn't disapointed to buy in December 2015 - it's a very good game, and turning into one of my favorites. It's not a bad game at all as it is, but I'm looking forward very much to future developments and polishing up.

Positives:

Excellent fantasy setting, many unique factions to play (Humans, Giants, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Undead, etc) all with unique troop types and abilities. The factions vary in strength and size, making for some unique gameplay.

The tactical battles are good. With so many unique troops you have to plan how best to use them against a wide variety of opponents. Reminds me of games like Fantasy General. Each troop has morale and health, and you need to keep an eye on both.

Reasonable magic system where it takes a little while to build up your spellcasting capacity.

22 hours on record and only one crash (but it was a crash at an annoying position just as I was winning a major battle).

Hours and hours of campaigns and scenarios (most are VERY lengthy) due to having some kind of World domination requirement. Even the smaller Scenarios will require you to wipe out 5 or more factions.

Each province is unique so has a description, and possibly some good bonuses if you take it on - a new resource, a boost to magic experience or a unique feature available to just the holder of the province.

The art work and theming is pretty nice, though I agree with some peoples thoughts it would be nice to have more background to the factions for immersion purposes.

Land and sea combat represented, plus some flying monsters available and siege (to take on enemy forts).

Some Improvements Required:

The economy is quite basic. There are a number of goods to trade, and goods are required to build unique troops. But for province income, you simply have to pay to build up economic value of a province, which in return gives you greater future income.

There's no buildings in provinces.

Diplomacy is quite simplistic and limited. There's no way currently to move through a faction to get to another faction, you fight provinces around you only. Also if you start as a major faction, and just take over just one other factions capital (wiping them out) everyone will hate you. You'll never be able to get friends easily again, let alone alliances.

Overall : If you're thinking about this and worried about early access, I would recommend buying anyway if you're half interested. It's excellent value for money. I put in more hours on this than I do major game studio releases that cost more than twice the money. Highly recommended by a wargaming strategy and tactics fan.

My followers and friends possibly noticed that I reviewed this game once and it was not that positive.
Since much happened in the development process last few months I have no choice to revise my review and I think now is the time to do so.

Sovereignty is a strategy game like no other and the development process isn't either.
There is a small dev team consisting of three people (I know of) Brecca, Jekky and Lordzima and there where moments in the EA process that I was so angry for them that I wanted to travel from Amsterdam to UK (figuratively) to shake up the dev team because of indifferent forum responses while they were playing Clicker heroes and Skyrim around thousand hours a day.
I even tried to refund the game twice (without success because I was already twenty hours in the game ;-) and in the end I'm very VERY happy that my refund request was rejected.

For one magic reason the most untactical dev team (marketing and customer support wise) was able to make one highly enjoyable strategy game and I still wonder if they are aware of that themselves and what supernatural powers they own to achieve this?

Sovereignty is the only game at the moment I know of which combines turn based tactical battles like in Field of Glory, Fantasy General etc etc with a campaign map like in Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis (in a less complex and less detailed way). There are many good tactical turn based strategy games and some really nice grand campaign games but their is a serious lack of combining them both and I think Sovereignty start to deliver and achieve this any time soon.

Development of the game is ongoing for about two years in EA (I guess) and just before release last year the team decided to rebuild the engine and start from scratch. Reason they mentioned in the forum was that the game was starting too complex for his own good technically/engine wise and the ambition to make the game multiplatform.
Result was that in the middle of the EA progress the game went from 80% completion to 10% completion with the new engine and it tooks a long LONG way to manage to get the game back on track and achieve the same quality of the almost finshed game.

But in the end after six major updates (around 100 serious bugfixes, tweaks, wishes from the community per patch) to the new engine this year the result is here and I can finally recommend the game because it is a pleasure to play now.

The replay value is gigantic. You can choose over 20 different realms (possibly more) and they are all very different and have there own unique role in the big campaign world. Every realm has it's own story campaign you can try to achieve victory with and you can choose around another five victory conditions for every realm you choose to start.

It's not just some stats which makes some units unique compared to each other but it's a totally different playstyle not seen in any other game. Dwarves who owns iron resources on the map and are good defenders and like a drink sometimes, elves who live in magic woods and all kind of fantasy monsters and humans with their own unique units, own resources, own buildings, own unique economy and spell list.

You can send spies to other realms, trade with other realms and have a good set of diplomatic options which not only affect AI behaviour towards you but influence the whole campaign map.

The best thing for me in this game if that war happened you can finally play out the battle yourself on a high quality tactical battlefield and those battles can last an hour easy. (I like to play on a slow speed setting and calculate every move etc etc). After battle you are able to upgrade units with medals, or choose traits for your hero.
In the battle itself you have an arsenal of tactical traist like "hit and run", capture units and break the morale of enemy units.

The game is far from finished but at the moment of writing the closed beta 2.0 is almost finished to release public and with all the tweaks, new updates, new mechanism (prisoners, buildings and economy system) this is the right moment to start your EA adventure in this game.

If the devs keep their ambition to deliver like they did the last few months I can imagine that this game can become a big hit for strategy and turnbased tactical fans if they get some attention from the better game journalism magazines, like Explorminate[dot]net for example, they absolutely deserve.

It's just a massive title grows for some reason to big for the devs to handle last year but they are back on track and get my well deserved recommend thumbs up today.
Final verdict 7,5 out of 10 score at the moment but can easily get an 8+ when developing continues the way it does now. Gameplay is a 9 score for sure. But some elements are rushed and made without enough eye for detail. Some incosequent artwork in buttons, cut off lines in tiles on the battle map, no explaination for all battle traits and some game crashes for some people even after two years of development makes this final score.

So only buy at the moment if you like to help to shape the game whithout getting daily updates from the devteam (updates now are on a monthly base) and without expecting they respond to all the suggestions you make.

Instant buy when it's on sale. As a Slitherine title it isn't on sale very often.

Or wait till the game shaping up when beta 2.0 is released to public and more people can give input and help the small team to fix bugs. Hope the review was helpful for you.

Early Access Review!

Sovereignity: Crown of Kings is a very unique game. Although there are plenty of games that it has a superficial similiarity to, such as Dominions 4, Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV, ect, it definitely does its own thing and has something to bring to the plate, especially if you want your turn-based wargaming itch scratched.

The game revolves around picking one of 35 nations, each with their own history, diplomatic/geographic/military/magical advantages and disadvantages, and gameplay style. These nations are not balanced, but even the smallest and weakest of nations can fight off larger nations and become victorious. There are also multiple win scenarios you can choose from the very beginning, including a storyline campaign for each of them with unique victory conditions and events (And these storyline campaigns are very cool. This is one of the killer features of this game, in my opinion)

Production values are a little bit higher than standard Slitherine fare, but not by much. Right now many units share splash art, but what art there is in the game is great. The map is also beautiful, but missing some of the nice features that Paradox games have (Though these features are on the minimap). The user interface is a little weak too.

More importantly than that stuff though, the game is actually fun. Battles are interesting, and when you get into a fight, provinces are represented correctly on the tactical map, which is a really awesome touch and adds a bit of strategy as to which province you might want to attack from. The grand strategy component is also fun, but aspects like trade and building up provinces could use some fleshing out.

As far as bugs go, there are some annoying ones, but nothing too game breaking.

The devs have stated that they want to add new features, and hopefully those new features will strengthen up the weaknesses of the game, but I think I can't stress enough that the game is fun to play right now, and should only get better and better. There is a lot of content to delve into already, and even though the price may seem a little steep compared to some of the flashier games, I think it was worth it.

Review based on EA1: A great success, barring a few minor localization errors this game is already awesome in the very first version of the early access. An absolute triumph. If you're fond of a distinct mix of characterful nations with unique goals then this is the game for you. Although a few minor quibbles exist such as I feel that there should be more distinct art among the various human nations.

It's a pretty special game and it gives you that 'just one more turn feel' of old civ combined with a unique realm driven setting.

Can't wait to see what's added.

I saw the world map and the premise and was an instabuy for me. Europa Universalis meets High Fantasy.

In my 4 hours playing it, I tried 2 nations. My first nation was Cloudfells, the unique Giant kingdom. It got a bit boring on the long run, but mostly because I was "discovering" the game. For my second play I chose Dragonhold, a militarist and protective human kingdom that lives atop some mountains. And it was quite engaging! Being surrounded by potential enemies made me advance quickly to get "key" regions and it all fell quite entertaining in the few hours I played.

Pros:
+ Lots of kingdoms.
+ A varied and unique unit rooster per kingdom.
+ Some different gameplay mechanics depending on the kingdom you choose.

Cons:

- Diplomacy has few options to interact with other Kingdoms, making it feel shallow.
- Every land gives you the same coin (150) per economy lvl, the only thing that changes is the price to upgrade, making economy predictable and bland.
- No multiplayer.

All and All, It's a fun game, still in early access but with enough content to keep you engaged for a while.

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 buy 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.