I'm not sure if that is the best solution but it is definitely worth looking into.  I was also worried with experience only coming from battle.  If a mage is sitting in town researching and casting spells he should also be getting experience.  If not then you will soon find him weak in comparison to those other mages that are out there fighting.  At a minimum there needs to be more ways to level up your sovereign or there needs to be an alternate path to getting essence as you suggest.

Unless there is an never ending supply of Quests, that you can get to without have to traverse enemy territory, their placement will remain random I assume, then even Questing would be a finite source and could only be offset by battle.

It doesn't seem, that I have noticed anyways, that the whole Essence re-gen kit is active, perhaps when it is, it will be the thing that works it out, as in Essence will become a component based on time, and not soley on EXP and Level, but be a tandem set of sources.

The OP is concerned about how a SOV would get EXP that converts to Levels that then provides further Essence. Even given the tiny map we now test on, much of it, although not being directly controlled by an enemy faction, could be considered hostile or enemy territory.

I assume you have had your SOV hat handed to him on occasion by a wondering Troll Leader right?

So, currently, even the simple act of Questing can be hazardous and find your SOV back home at 1 HP waiting to fill up or consuming those valuable GH treats found earlier.

Your #1 item would have to have some serious variables in use to determine the true "difficulty" of a given quest. What if you have to traverse through enemy territory? Have to take out a Troll home base? etc etc. All that would certainly add to the "difficulty" of any given quest, vs one that appears 2 tiles outside your Capital City.

I do not disagree with Quests providing EXP per say, just that if EXP is to easy to get through methods other than actual confrontations, not always of your making even, then hiding a SOV away and leveling him up to "Total Annihilator" mode before he sees the Light of day, may detract from his supposed leadership qualities.

Personally, I just don't want to have to have a combat channeller.  I want it to be a viable option for me to leave my channeller in a city, have him be a weak combatant, but have him buff that city while he accumulates essence for the world destroying spell he is researching.

Or, I want to have my channeller imbue a large number of heroes with his essence, making them stronger, and then sending them out to do his bidding, while he stays behind, nice and safe to act as a governor.

Or, I want to be able to imbue a ring or a sword with my essence, making whomever possesses it exceptionally powerful in combat, and then keep that with my channeller as I go out to personally quest, or conquer, or whatever.

Or I want to dramatically enhance my land while my channeller remains behind city walls as a philosopher king, presiding an extremely rich land with a powerful army of citizen soldiers/heavily armored knights/mercenaries defending it.

Pretty much, I want lots of options for how I use my limited supply of essence.  Lots of options for how I use my one and only channeller.  I want having a powerful combatant, or even a combatant at all, to be an option, but one of many.  I want it to be offset by the other options, so there is a legitimate choice for channeller use, essence expenditure, and exactly what kind of kingdom you want to have.

And finally, I want to be able to be powerful without having to paint the land in my color.  I should be able to employ all of my non-traditional capabilities (magic, essence, monstors, ect) to be able to create a small powerful kingdom.  You have a big army with a huge economy because you invested a great deal of essence into the land?  Well that is fantastic for you, but when I use the essence I've been hording all game with my one city with two outposts (created for resources) for a super spell to turn every cow or chicken on the planet into a violent, flesh-eating monster, who will be laughing then?  Suddenly that huge army has to defend every city you own simultaniously from a massive onslaught, whereas my small territory is easy to defend.

Leveling, at least right now, reflects improved combat power.  Your channeller should not automatically be a supercombatant in order to be strong, therefore he should not automatically be a high level, or attain a high level, nor should that be important for success if you aren't pursuing a strategy that requires a powerful channeller.  He could just be really squared away at governing, and the city that he is in is fantastically large and rich as a result.

A lot of "I wants" in here.  I say this because I have such high hopes for elemental.  This was originally the way that this game seemed it was going, and that is not reflected in the beta at this time.  That being said, I understand that just because it isn't in right now doesn't mean it is going to be in.  I just wanted to voice my desires for options.

I would disagree.  Splitting experience seems not only fairly contrived, but also inefficient.  Why would my channeller gain experience from his heroes?  Why would he be a better fighter without ever having fought? Separating essence from experience (given the backstory that seems perfectly reasonable) is both an easy option to keep both strategies competitive, and enables both dramatically different sovereign use and essence use.  Not to mention it automatically keeps things balanced between player nations while still enabling significant differences in strategy.  This way you won't simply "get lucky" with placement when it comes essence and shards.  Nor will you be forced to have a physically powerful sovereign, and it truly becomes a tradeoff between assisting your channeller with essence to make sure he doesn't die in combat (and having a physically powerful sovereign as the results of both essence and levels), or using your essence differently and having a substantially weaker sovereign.  If you still choose to risk him without "enhancing" him prior you don't incur that opportunity cost of essence, but you also incur substantially higher risks as he is much weaker.  Personally I think this way gives the most flexibility, the most balance, and scope for the most possible routes to take when forging a kingdom.

I find the implementation of Essence in the game confusing, so this is an interesting thread.  I don't know what Stardock has in mind for essence, but it would seem to me that Sovereigns should build essence for doing sovereign-y things.  As in, that's the reason they're reworking the world and raising new civilizations, to build essence to make themselves more powerful.

My quick thoughts on the matter...

- essence builds each round based on:

1) the population of your nation

2) special essence generating resources(?)

3) essence research

- essence bonuses (immediately boosts to essence):

1) completing quests & destroying monsters

2) perhaps with an evil attribute (or a researchable tech) could make the destruction of non-monster units/slaughter of civilians also increase essence.

3) goodie huts

4) destruction of another sovereign (= some % of their essence transfers to you)

- there's no upper bound on how much essence you can have.

- sovereign powers are unaffected by sovereign level.  if you want to march your sov. out to fight monsters and whatnot, that's fine.  it gives you an extra hero.  but in terms of using essence, there's no difference between a level 10 sov. and a level 1 sov.

does that make sense?

By giving essence for combat and combat related things though, you are once again forcing the player into the realm of using his channeller only as a combatant and adventurer.  Combat and adventuring should give experience, which increases levels which improves combat ability, not magical ability (at least insofar as magical ability is separated from physical abilities... combat magic vs global magic may be learned, I don't know).  Essence should remain the same, as that is how much magical power your channeller "channels" from the earth.

To me this is both a realism issue, a balance issue, and ultimately a game options issue.  If someone who goes out and adventures/fights and survives is more powerful in magical terms and fighting ability than my channeller who stayed back in the capital doing nothing but studying magic (researching spells and governing), then something is wrong with this system, as once again it becomes so that there is no option for me the player.  I will send my channeller out to fight, because while I might lose him, I will lose if I don't send him out.  That channeller out fighting should be a much stronger combatant than my channeller who wasn't, and because the other channeller was out fighting (and presumably winning) their kingdom has been enhanced by that success... but that being said, at the very least they should be equal magically, simply because my channeller has been doing nothing to enhance my kingdom except govern a city and study magic.  Now it is balanced.

But then what is the point of having city enhancing attributes?  Why even bother having different types of sovereigns when they are all going to be fighting/adventuring sovereigns?  And while I agree that a sovereign that is out fighting will be much better at fighting and combat magic, a sovereign that is studying magic is much better at less applied magic.

I guess a good analogy is Einstein and Patton... both exceptional men, in very different ways.  You give Einstein an armored division he would be completely useless.  But put him in a labratory and you've got an extremely potent inventor and theoretical scientist.  Whereas Patton is unquestionably a force multiplier for an armored force, but put him in a lab and he's useless.  I want to be able to put my channeller into either one of those roles, and based on how I use him (either as a leader or as a scientist) have him grow into that role.  But they both should be viable.  Just because a channeller is good at throwing a fireball doesn't mean he can summon a creature worth a damn.  The guy who has been sitting in a laboratory researching and experimenting with summoning will be a hell of a lot better at that in a pinch.  But they would both be equally powerful to their kingdom in their own right. 

It is just when it comes to a direct fight, Patton will kill Einstein, hands down.

Hmm... I think that essence generation could be viable with what you describe, although personally I would prefer it to be equal across the board.  An argument could be made for either, but I want to see essence made more powerful, which would mean it would be inherently unbalancing if a combat channeller could acquire larger quantities of it.

Also, two other considerations are this.  In multi-player, every person would be driven to go all out to make their channeler the most powerful by throwing them into combat right from the start.  A more powerful combat channeler would automatically equal a more powerful empire, and therefore instead of picking one or the other, or making tradeoffs, you'd just have to throw your sovereign in and hope for the best.  I would like to see a system where the player could opt for a more powerful personal combatant... but that would be at the expense of their civilian development, or heroes (less giving essence to both land and heroes), hence there would be tradeoffs for whatever route you took, but each option, or a mixture of the three, would be viable

Then you take the AI.  With the AI forced to expose their channeler in order to remain competetive, what I want to avoid in singleplayer is an AI sovereign hunt.  Knowing that the AI (and players too, for that matter) is going to be forced to expose their sovereign in order to remain competetive, a hunter killer concept when it comes to channelers should be competetive, but should not be the crux of the game.  If a significant number of nations keep their leader at home, because it is a viable option, then that as the be all, end all of strategies becomes less of a game killer.

And looking over this last paragraph, it is time for me to go to bed, as I'm not sure how much sense I made there.

The topic raised in this thread has been one in the back of my mind for quite awhile now: How to keep developement of the Sovereign progressing for all player types.

I like the ideas posted by people so far. I also have a couple ideas of my own...

- Let the sovereign claim a portion of xp earned by all units under his command. An interesting way to do this would be to make a slider when you create the sovereign. On one end would be how much in % of xp earned by the sovereign's units is funneled to the sovereign. On the other end of the slider would be an xp bonus for all xp the sovereign earns himself. In the middle would be no bonus or malus.

In this way the player chooses how they want their sovereign to come to power. Either through the power of their armies/heroes, or as a power in their own right. This would be a large decision that lets the player choose how they play the game, which is a good thing.

- Another idea to go along with the above solution would be to include a sovereign category for research. Each level of research would give two or more options that are mutually exclusive. Once an option is chosen the others go away and become unavailable. I think this would benefit the game by giving players options after the game is started to continue to customize their sovereigns. One that is not based on XP.

One part of leveling up has been the fact that your only choices are to increase stats. Skills make sovereigns different. They do not make them unique. Without the ability to add unique skills or talents after sovereign creation, leveling up is a bland experience. A research based system would let players choose to advance their sovereign through combat for xp, and/or gain skills and talents by using research.

Well, warmonger, the idea is that the essence would be siphoned directly into the Sovereign. Whether he was in the city or not. The idea of the Magical Researcher is to increase essence output (and spell points output) by being present within the city.

But yes, all essence output is given directly to the Sovereign.

In other news, this Topic has been moved to a new Thread.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382224

Well ... I personally don't mind if essence is divorced from levelling, for as I have stated earlier it is probably a better investment for the Warring Wizard to leave the magical schools to provide his essence, and for his levels to provide his intelligence and wisdom. (stronger and cheaper spells, faster mana regeneration)

Could you bring this discussion to this thread?

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382224

I think such a thread, to start from the open system I have outlined, might better focus our conversation.

For, as I will now state, if you look at my rules for acquiring essence over time, and in combination look at the profession "Magical Researcher" ... then you will see how staying at home could give you more essence and more spells.

I'm not sure that I like forcing a Sovereign to remain still in order to learn a spell ... or if that even makes sense from the perspective that we use Spell Points to buy spells as opposed to meditating (unless meditating grants a % based chance of learning a raw and powerful spell).

On immediate use I state killing other Sovereigns or Champions. If you kill someone with essence, you should be able to absorb their remaining Essence like in Highlander.

As for magical items and magical beasts ... you'll probably get extra essence from destroying an Item (because it was useful) and less essence per difficulty for killing a magical beast because ... you are kind of already obligated to kill such beasts. (unless you befriend it/ use it as a mount)

When I say all Sovereigns, I do not mean all Champions ... I mean all Soveriengs, as in each PLAYER will only have one Sovereign.

As in, all essence created by a nation adds directly to your ONE Sovereign's essence bar. As in, ya know, the guy who -if he dies- you lose.

Have you read my most updated essence-gain based ideas yet? You can find them here

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382224

If you simply want to use your essence in a way that improves your economy (as opposed to warfare) then you could research *usually* frivolous magical techs in order to better cultivate the essence you have attained.

What I mean is, that you could (after teching a certain technology) spend essence to turn a square into fertile land, or grow trees ... however this can only be done on revived land within your borders. Also, each time you use the same spell (creating fertile land) it costs 50% more essence each successive time. So the first time it might cost 4 essence, then 6 essence, then 9 essence, and then 14 essence, and then 21 essence. (if you wanted turn 5 game-tiles into Fertile land)

In addition, you could probably use essence to imbue special equipment (Like a Crown of Governnance +50% prestige in garrison city, non stackable), (Robe of Scholars +30% knowledge points per turn, non-item-stackable (only stacks with buildings)), (Shirt of the Vizier +40% gold production, non stackable) ... in this way you could make a really good governor by spending lots of essence on items that increase the output of your city.