Sovereignty Made Simple

There are already several excellent guides on Sovereignty, including my more complete step by step guide. This guide is meant to help people who aren't ready to claim Sovereignty yet, but who want to understand how it will affect their future.


What's Sovereignty Good For?
Sovereignty allows you to claim some of the squares around your city as yours. If you have a Sovereignty claim on a square, it (1) prevents someone else from settling there, (2) helps in the defense of your city, and (3) can increase the resource production rates in your city.

Unless you're worried that a new city will pop up right next to yours or you have an enemy sending armies or hostile diplomatic units at your city, then there's no need to claim Sovereignty until you've upgraded your food plots (or other relevant buildings) in your city to level 20. Sovereignty has an hourly cost to gain it's benefits, while basic buildings and resource plots don't, so it makes sense to upgrade them to level 20 first.


Research Needed
To claim Sovereignty, you need to have researched (in order): Timekeeping, Bureaucracy, Pioneering, and Inventory Management (which requires a level 15 storehouse to research). At that point, you can build a level 1 warehouse, which allows you to research Sovereignty, which opens up the sovereignty research tree.

Socage allows you to claim 20 sovereignty squares. Researching Fee-Farming (50 squares), Copyholding (75 squares), Burgage (100 squares), and Serjeanty (150 squares) allows you to claim more squares under Sovereignty.

Landholding allows you to claim a level I sovereignty on a square. Tenancy allows a level II claim, Fiefdom allows a level III claim, Vassalage allows a level IV claim, and Feudalism allows a level V claim.

Serfs allows you to build sovereignty structures on 3 squares that you have claimed sovereignty on. Peasants (6 structures), Thralls (10 structures), Lieges (15 structures), and Subjects (20 structures) allow you to build structures on more squares, but you can only build sovereignty structures on a maximum of 20 sovereignty squares.

You will need at least Landholding and Socage researched before you can claim sovereignty. If you wish to build a sovereignty structure, you will need to research at least Serfs and the level I technology for the structure you wish to build. You must have a level I claim on a square before you can build a level I structure, and you must have the level I structure technology researched before that structure can be built.

You will also need to have researched Militia, Stratagem, and Occupy Territory. You need at least 1 commander with 1 military unit under him.


Where Should I Claim Sovereignty?
It costs the least to claim the squares immediately around your city to a depth of two squares, so it's good to settle at least 5 squares away from the nearest cities. However, the location of good resources or other considerations might create a need to claim squares further away. You choose which squares you want to claim--there aren't certain squares that you have to claim.

Though some squares have special sovereignty bonuses, you can build any sovereignty structure that you have researched on any sovereignty square you have claimed as long as you're within your limit of total structures. You can only build one Sovereignty structure on a square, but you can demolish that structure if you wish to change what structure is on the square.


How Much Will Sovereignty Cost Me?
You can claim Sovereignty at 5 different levels. The higher the level, the greater the benefit. For a basic Sovereignty claim:

A square 1 square away (directly N, S, E, or W) of your city will cost:
Level I: 10 research points & 100 gold per hour
Level II: 20 research points & 200 gold per hour
Level III: 30 research points & 300 gold per hour
Level IV: 40 research points & 400 gold per hour
Level: V: 50 research points & 500 gold per hour

A square 1.41 away (directly NE, NW, SE, SW) of your city will cost:
Level I: 14.1 research points & 141 gold per hour
Level II: 28.2 research points & 282 gold per hour
Level III: 42.3 research points & 423 gold per hour
Level IV: 56.4 research points & 564 gold per hour
Level: V: 70.5 research points & 705 gold per hour

A square 2 away from your city (2 squares directly N, S, E, or W) will cost:
Level I: 20 research points & 200 gold per hour
Level II: 40 research points & 400 gold per hour
Level III: 60 research points & 600 gold per hour
Level IV: 80 research points & 800 gold per hour
Level: V: 100 research points & 1000 gold per hour

A square 2.24 away from your city (2 squares away & 1 square to the side) will cost:
Level I: 22.4 research points & 224 gold per hour
Level II: 44.8 research points & 448 gold per hour
Level III: 67.2 research points & 672 gold per hour
Level IV: 89.6 research points & 896 gold per hour
Level: V: 112 research points & 1,120 gold per hour

These are the cheapest 20 squares to claim. To get all 20 squares to level V Sovereignty would cost 1,778 research points and 17,780 gold every hour.

If your Library is upgraded to level 20 (which is as high as it can go) and your tax rate is at 25%, then it produces 1,013 research points per hour. If you have the Allembine Research Discovery (from completing the Human Statue Mystery), you will produce an additional 100 research points every hour.

The environmental bonus appears to average about a 2.5% bonus to your research points. If your taxes are at 0% to 25%, you gain a research bonus depending on your tax rate. (And a tax rate above 25% will decrease your research point output per hour). Of course, you can always pay real money and do a 20% Prestige bonus to your research point output. By these methods, you might be able to achieve 1,419 or even 1,641 research points every hour.

The point is that it's not really possible to raise 20 Sovereignty squares all to level V even if you use this best configuration. When picking a site for your city, keep in mind the above costs. If your city is one square east of a "food 10" square and one square north of a "food 7" square (a total of a 17% bonus to your total farmyard output if you do a Sovereignty level V claim on them and build a Farmstead level V on each) will cost you 100 research points & 1000 gold per hour. If they're both 2 squares away, then it'll cost twice as much for the same benefit.


Do I Need 20 Sovereignty Squares? Or More?
No. You don't even need to level them up to level V claims. But Sovereignty will help you grow your city to a high enough population level that you can build 10 cities (which is the current maximum per player). You need a total of 233,550 population in 9 cities before you can settle a 10th city. That's 25,950 population per city.

If your city has 7 farms at level 20, the flourmill at level 20, the 8% Nature's Bounty spell cast on the city, and a 25% tax rate, then you'll still need a 36% bonus to your food output to support that level of population. You can import food to your city or achieve this some other way, but claiming Sovereignty on the squares directly around your city will easily give you this bonus.

If your city has 5 farms under the same conditions, you'll need a 109.6% bonus to your food output. If the squares around your city only have a "5 food," then you would need 21.9 squares at level V Sovereignty with level V Farmsteads to achieve this...but that isn't possible. If you have good food levels on the squares around your city, it is possible but not easy.

If you like using Prestige, the 20% farm production bonus would help. A Geomancer's Retreat can help by doubling the Nature's Bounty spell to 16%. An easier possibility is to build all of your other cities on "6 food" or "7 food" squares, build higher populations in those cities, and maintain a lower population in your 5 farm cities. Or you can ship food to your 5 farm cities. Or use Exodus to move your 5 farm cities to a 6 or 7 food square.

If you don't care about getting 10 cities, then you'll mainly use Sovereignty for the possible Production bonuses, for security, and to increase your food output so you can also increase your taxes.


What about the Chancery of Estates?
The Chancery of Estates decreases the research point and gold cost of claiming level I Sovereignty by 2% per level--that's 40% at level 20. Two of these buildings would give a 60% decrease if both were at level 20. This building allows you to claim more Sovereignty squares than you could without it. However, at this time, any squares above the 20 that can take Sovereignty structures are basically only giving you a land claim. However, this building can also allow a player to build slightly higher Sovereignty structures than they might otherwise be able to due to their tax rate (which decreases research points) or the distance of the square claimed.

Normally, the cost of a Sovereignty level I claim on a square that is 1 square distance away would be 10 research points and 100 gold. Level II would be 20 research points and 200 gold, Level III would be 30 research points and 300 gold, Level IV would be 40 research points and 400 gold, and Level V would be 50 research points and 500 gold.

With one Chancery of Estates at level 20, a level I claim at 1 distance would be 6 research points and 60 gold. Level II would be 16 research points and 160 gold, Level III would be 26 research points and 260 gold, Level IV would be 36 research points and 360 gold, and Level V would be 46 research points and 460 gold.


Edited by Mara Zira - 25 Oct 2011 at 04:13

Edited by Silent/Steadfast - 17 Aug 2011 at 18:56

Silent/Steadfast, thanks for adding the visual. I was thinking a graphic would be nice, but I never took the time to make one. I appreciate that you shared yours with us. I think the red corners would be 1414 gold and 141.4 research points, though, right?

(Because of your chart, I realized I'd mis-typed a gold cost number, so we both made a mistake.)

your 2x3 on the corners cheers

Fixed!