I guess also conversely you could add in the possibility to play completley without an army, and gain a boost in magic research

But Im not sure I like it, since it favors  gravitating towards one extreme, and you'll see less mix in between. Bascially, too much min/max

But what I feel your idea is doing is giving too much of an advantage to the extreme. So sure, no one is forcing you, but if you don't you'll be at a disadvantage.

... is it just me? or does this sound a lot like the current build? lol.

Most games I've played, I never actually cast a single spell

Ultimately, I'm with wintersong here: in the full game, magic should be an integral component in gameplay. If you dislike it you can choose to ignore it, but doing so should put you at a fairly severe disadvantage. After all, just because you pay no attention to magic doesn't mean that everything else works better...

There could be something to equalize the playing field for players who do not wish to pursue magic because it isn't their inherent interests. Yet, one of the major fundamentals of the game is magic. As kingtiger said, ignoring magic will handicap you enormously.

I have to disagree with an option to play without magic. The game is about it and many features of the game are intertwined concerning it like the crystal shards, buildings, research trees, cetera.

Even though Heroes of Might and Magic had some factions that were more "might-oriented", no HOMM game had any faction without magic whatsoever. Some factions had better opportunities than others, otherwise it remained the same and ignoring magic in that series as well was very, very bad to do too.

Isn't it this game call War of Magic ?   Our devs aren't going to agree to allow the existence of this option!    

The whole point that these characters becomes Soverigns is because they can use essence and magic to restore the land. A Soverign who can't do this goes against the lore of the game and wouldn't have become a Soverign in the first place.

Well, there could be combat magic specialists instead of Ether magic specialists.

Consider this ... you could either cast Fireballs, Pillars of Fire, Lightning Storms, and Tsunamis (powerful spells, wide area of effect)

OR

you could have self-enhancing spells only. Like greater-Ultra Magic Shield, Greater-Personal Levitation, Greater-Haste, Greater-Blade Quickening, Greater-Health Restoration .... and also some personal ranged spells like Chain Lighting and Flame fingers.

personally Im more a fan of the second one, however the occasional ether magic is cool too. I suppose I just like the "anime character" type of magic vs the Nuclear Bomb type of magic.

And of course, there will be the summoning of creatures magic, and the creation of undead magics. Perhaps these Sacrificial altars either add undead points (less maintanence for undead troops) or add a stockpile of bodies that can be trained into undead troops ... aka the more sacrifical temples you have, the more undead troops you could train/summon per turn.

I mean ... flying around the battle, shooting lighting from your finger tips, and landing to shred through the enemy ... very nice.

It doesn't go against the lore of the game. It doesn't say that only magic users can be leaders. Let us say you play as a leader of the people who can't use magic. No one of them. At all. Doesn't lore allow groups of people no one of which can use magic? Let it be more difficult, ok. If you care about the word Sovereign, we could call it something different, a King or a Leader.

It does. Unless you don't consider magic to spend Essence to bring the land to life.

No one prevents you because all the leaders are magic users. It's not a matter of choice. And currently the only way not to have any magic spells (Essence use aside) is not to pick any magic book. Which I think it's a placeholder as Humans are supposed to be Life Magic oriented and Fallen Death Magic oriented, which would mean that in the future builds of the beta you would have always one book.

The new Civilization it's going to be like Panzer General so I don't see how you can add tactical combat (even if optional) without changing the whole system of units in the map and combat.

As wintersong said, yes it does. Soverigns use magic to restore land and allow civilization to thrive. If a Soverign can't use magic then he can't restore the land and his civ can't grow.

I suppose you will be able to remove all of the spells via modding. Problem solved.