Exactly right.  Applied vs theoretical magic.  My egghead will beat your jock to building a magic version of the A-Bomb... but one on one my egghead doesn't stand a chance.

Now, as for governance buffing items and improving tiles, I definetely think that is a good way to make a stay at home sovereign viable.  The problem is that doesn't necessarily compensate for the essence gap between an adventuring sovereign and a stay at home one.

Personally, I think an important thing to keep in mind is that you didn't just one day decide to become a channeler.  You were born or created that way.  People can't learn to become channelers.  How much essence you innately can channel probably isn't something you can, or should, control.  Now how effectively, and in what manner, you use that essence is most certainly up to you.  Possibly improving an already existing ability to channel is realistic... but then who is to say that your ability to channel magic has any relation to how much you fight or adventure?  Your ability to apply said magic in a combat role will certainly be affected, and you will get better at that application with practice, but the sheer quantity of essence that you possess wouldn't change, and it is already clear that essence has more than combat applications.  So I think that automatically favoring a pretender that goes out and fights when it comes to the quantity of essence that they possess (since you are already favoring them, rightfully so, with increased experience, fighting ability, and the empire enhancing victories that they are attaining) is favoring one approach a little too much.  Especially when you think of just how many players do love to turtle.  Turtling shouldn't be the only option, but it should be just as viable as aggressively expanding.  As an avid strategy gamer I like to alternate strategies, which is why the more strategies that can work through effective execution the better.

Tasunke, I will make a presence in your other thread to discuss the merits of your proposed system (which is a workable way to go, even if not the exact one I would choose), but I think that here is a good place to get a general idea of what people a) wish to be able to get with essence, what type of general metric people want to use to gain essence, and c) what various roles people see for their sovereign and how that would be workable using game mechanics.

If you can throw an A-bomb ... then one on one you would kill me. Unless you mean that you would die during all the pre-A-bomb years.

All the time.

Anyways, I would like to point out that if the ONLY other source of essence (than levelling) is given to sovereigns that sit in cities, then its forcing those adventurer/combat types to place points into essence.

And if you force all spell research into being in a city ... then NOT ALL SOVEREIGNS will have magical spells.

THIS ISN'T THE RIGHT STEP IN A WAR OF MAGIC

aka-this game assumes that all sovereigns everywhere will have access to magic and spells, and you must have magic to be competitive. If the only way to get magic is to stay at home, then no one will adventure UNLESS THEY HAVE MORE THAN ONE CHAMPION.

Or rather, people will do their adventuring until they get a couple magic academies, and will then remain, for the rest of the game, in their capital.

So your option is to have an equal distribution of essence ... and no way to increase how much essence you own. Everyone slowly gains essence over time, at a fixed rate, with no way to change this ... and the difference is only in how you spend said essence.

Good point in the OP.  Personally, I've always advocated for a research "strategy game" that would play out vaguely like a battle as a sovereign does research.  But I wouldn't so much call it research as "communing with the Nether Plane of Magic" or what have you.  You would use your magical assets and talents to plunge hidden channels and fight back nether mites all in the comfort of your wizard tower.  This would allow a "scholarly" sovereign to advance in scholarly pursuits as a result of player skill just like a warlike sovereign would advance in war on the player's tactical battle merit as well.

In one post awhile back, I suggested that while the Channeler was at home, he be allowed to traverse and expand throughout an "Astral Plane of Magic" where he could gather magical resources etc.  On the Astral Plane, he would have an astral self that advanced scholarly pursuits and pursue mana sources rather than terrestrial conquests.  This allowed the player to advance along civil means, conquest means, or a hyrbrid of both and sovereign advancement would all be linked to player skill.

Just chiming in in support.  I also don't care for essence coming only from combat, via xp.  Either make essence a more nearly flat per-turn resource, or enable the sov to level by performing other types of activities (crafting/administering/etc.)

To be honest, so far, I am not really digging the gameplay concept of essence in general.  I'm hoping that some tweaks are coming in later betas.  Or, that it's actually really awesome i'm just being dense and missing something

The problem here is that stay-at-home sovereign bonuses aren't player driven.  Leaving your sovereign at home doesn't take any skill on the player's behalf like managing a tactical battle that yields experience.  What I would like to see is some kind of management skill on the part of the player provide varying degrees of success when a sovereign is at home.

Personally I think the argument for XP gain for stay at home sov's is extremely weak.  They shouldn't gain experience, because experience improves combat and other worldly statistics.  They aren't gaining any of that kind.  But I am strongly in favor of de-linking experience from essence.  While that stay at home sov is going to be much weaker in terms of experience and combat ability, he won't be weaker in terms of the amount of essence he has.

Dominions 3 has a number of viable strategies that don't involve risking your pretender, however plenty of people still go the super-combatant pretender route, simply because in many situations it is the best one to employ.  But that being said, using your pretender for other things is completely viable, and won't hamstring your ability to play.