Can you capture enemy spellbooks?

I hope so. If not I'm going to attempt to do some modding in this area if I have the spare time.

Well, in the beta the spellbooks weren't actual items, they were abstract. Having access to the Fire book didn't mean you had it in your inventory to be traded away/lost/dropped/etc. But getting them unlocked their respective spells for research.

If they're still not items, then chances are you can't capture them, either (honestly never tried in beta :P).

As for Sovereign escaping, each time costs a permanent 1 essence. The AI was dumb about it and kept attacking and losing the lone Sovereign over and over, so hopefully that's better in release, but unless you heavily pump into Essence, it becomes a costly habit.

Thanks Annatar, great info. 

Some were, I thought I found a Book that taught me spells...

Arggg now I am not sure, I know I got some through Magical Research, but I think I found spell books as well.

Time will tell, but as they are selectable, should not be that hard of a mod. (Famous last words) 

Lee

There were books that gave you spell points to push your research faster, but I don't remember seeing an actual book that unlocked spells.

Some quests in the beta did give you a spell. not sure if it was random as i acquired several spells this way. I doubt you will be able to capture eniemy spellbooks on release though.

It would be cool if you had a random chance to capture a spell book from an enemy Sov if they knew a book you didn't. It would also be cool if when conquering an enemy city you would have a chance to steal/learn one of their technologies if you didn't already have it and it was used in the town somehow. Example:

An enemy city has a Horse Stable (hence they know animal husbandry) and can make mounted units. You conquer that city and the Horse Stable is not destroyed during the battle. You can now make mounted units and learn animal husbandry as a result or can learn it at an accelerated rate because you already have the stables and the animals.

The same could just as easily be applied to magical research or diplomacy buildings or anything else, but, it would have to be made a rare chance of doing so or conquerers will have a distinct advantage because they would be learning other research paths through the act of conquering other kingdoms/empires while they are spending the bulk of their research in Military aspects to further speed up the process. It should be something low like a 5% or 10% chance and even then only if the needed buildings are left standing after the battle.

Thats a good idea, but maybe just a spell not a whole book that could be very unbalanced.

When you get a "Book" in Elemental you don't automatically learn every spell in it. What you get is the availability to "research" all the spells in the book. So you still have to learn the individual spells.

I like the idea of the spell going back into the realm as well.. maybe have a quest spawn somewhere where in the world that can be solved to obtain (learn) it.  

On a side note.. I've never really had a problem with enemy sovereigns fleeing since they always seemed to go right after my cities again and poof they were dead along with all of their cities gone.  I found that sovereigns, in beta 4 at least, did not have the correct logic in that they would attack a hero if it was the only unit in the city w/o doing a balance check to see if it could win.  It was always sad seeing one of my hero run up and wack an enemy sovereign once a then the entire empire would crumble.  If I placed a group of warriors in the city they stayed away.

Which brings up a great point.. why should cities disappear when a soverign dies.. why not just make it a neutral tribe?  When a leader is killed in battle their citizens don't just vaporize...

Why? Obtaining an unknown spellbook doesn't automatically provide you with all the spells of that school, you still have to research them in order to use them. On the contrary, it would actually provide for more tactical dilemmas, and tactical dilemmas are always good for interesting gameplay: Should I start researching the high-level Fire spells that take more time but are far more powerful or rather start with the low-level spells of the life spellbook I recently acquired?