Sounds good, might need to bounce around balancing that 100 mat number but that's to be expected.  Additionally, I think it'd be cool if revitalized land spread based on the terrain (eg. faster along rivers, slower in the hills etc).  I don't know if that's the case currently or not.

For overall essence, is there any planned way of acquiring it other than through sovereign levels? It might be interesting if there were special sites which generated essence over time (very slowly, like 0.25 pts / turn) that could serve as focal points of contention for players.

ICE's (Iron Crown Enterprise) old 'Treasures of Middle-Earth' book had an interesting item, the 'Gift of Yavana' -- from that book "...white, green, and gold boots that cause 1 plant to spring fully mature from each footstep according to the wearer's desire..." (p49) -- fruit/nut trees, flowers, etc.

Always liked that idea for a magic item. 

Anyhoo, the idea would be that a Sov would spread "life" (revive land) where he/she walked as an innate ability (no boots necessary of course).   Maybe require essence > 0 (to reward not spending it all) and the more the essence the faster/greater the spread (for game balance -- adds another choice with tangible differences).

It'd reduce the essence requirement for revival, give Sovs another reason to get out and about in the early game, make revival spread more active than passive, and allow some control over where revival occurs.

While this is a cool idea (very cool) it does bring up one tactical drawback.

Assuming Kingdom channelers spread life and empire channelers spread death. You Sovereign would become incrediably easy to track down on the map when invading the opposing faction lol.

ATM essence cost to build a city, and later will be material costs, plus X amount of tiles between cities min that is still being worked out. Think it is 5 atm.

Also with resources on a global scale vs a city scale it is alot easier to make a mistake and stop all city growth due to lack of food/housing atm. So unless you are like me and going to build balanced cities (As I absolutely hate specialty cities). You really need to know what you are doing and plan like chess as opposed to checkers.

Though another idea would be to tie number of cities some way to sovereign level. Mabey like 1 city for every two levels?

Well this part is easy to fix. Just have all starting Sov's have just enough for the first city. Is it realistic no, is it lore centric no. But does it fix the problem easily and cleanly, yes. Lets face it if you are so nitpicky that that little issue would seriosuly be a problem for your immersion (and no I am not implying that you are WS just saying it for those who might forward that aurgument lol). Then you seriously need to re-evaluate your OCD. 

I don't think under this new system it would be the sovereign building cities after the first.  Sounds like a good job for a few hundred pioneers to me.  That being said, I think a concern with this would be city-spam, and how to prevent it.  I'm fine with a massive city that has 10+ small mining and farming towns supporting it.  But covering the world in settlements is something I thought we were trying to avoid. 

Papa MoM dealt with city proliferation pretty well by limiting the settlement size according to the geography. The abilty to build level 5 cities anywhere seems a bit crude to me. As for the initial investment, 100 materials sound fairly reasonable and logical to me. Having the cost increase with every additional city (150 for a second and 200 for a third) would balance city-spam and represent the costs for building away from the capital.

The consequences of the original post seem to be rather troublesome.  If essence is used to restore a segment of land, you end up with an incentive to pack as much as possible into a tiny blossom of "life land" and save the essence for other endeavors.  It also creates a dispraportionate incentive on hording your essence and using it to conquer other nations that have used their essence to restore land.

Personally, I think essence should be used in a completely different fashion.  Imbuing heroes and such is a great idea, but instead of essence being used to directly improve land, I think it should be used to create unique city improvements that would not otherwise be buildable without essence (with expendable mana being used to restore land).  For instance:

Well of Life: Use 5 essence and commit your sovereign for five turns.  The population growth of your city doubles, houses in this city can accomodate an additional 25 percent population, and your citizens in this city are immune to natural and supernatural diseases.  In addition, the rate of land restoration around the target city doubles. 

Deep in the earth there is a vast river of life energy that has gone untainted and untouched since the days of the Great Rending.  You send forth a part of your being and run it through the soothing water like cupped hands so that the parched and rasping world may have a drink.

Monument of Industry: Use 5 essence and commit your sovereign for five turns.  Your city yields 25 percent more resources, and the productivity of your citizens is increased by 50 percent.

It has been countless decades since the world has known hope; since man could look upon his works and know that it was not destined to crumble in a doomed world.  In the Nether you can sense the ether that inspires the great works of man.  You reach out with a piece of your being and clutch the ley line of human inspiration.  You tether it to a monument so that all whom may touch it may be infused once again with hope for the endeavors of humankind.

Altar of War: Use 5 essence and commit your sovereign for five turns.  All units trained in this city gain 20 experience and 2 qualities/buff/improvements of your choosing. 

The Empires have grown weak in the lull which Kingdoms call the Great Rending.  In the Nether you hear again the drum beat of war.  You carve away a beating mass of your soul and cast it roaring through the great beyond.  When it returns, the lost qualities of courage and conquest will march with it through the darkness of the Nether to serve your ambitions.  The Empires will know war once again.     

Anyhow, just some ideas.

I like where Demiansky is going, but I think i would double the turns or more.  I too think Cities/settlements should be a special endeavor.  But not too special ( :  Maybe one-of buildings, or certain types of buildings that would demand a very large radious, could help aleviate this.

I like Demiansky's Well of Life idea.

Double post happened, somehow, due to editing. So more building ideas (following Well of Life's inspiration) are below as follows.

I think 100 materials will at least avoid city spam in the early stages of the game. 100 materials at the start of the game is pretty significant, especially considering all the other uses of materials. I guess the exact number would need to be tweaked a little, but the idea seems sound to me. I do feel that essence should still be a cost in creating a new city, or to put it a bit more accurately as a way to revive the land. Hopefully you will need to balance the creation of cities with all the other cool stuff you can spend your essence on.

I like the idea of using essence for specialized buildings in towns, or maybe as a way to enhance a resource like wheat to produce even more.

My first read of Brad's OP gave me a big "Oh no, city spam is in the plan now," but that evaporated quickly because I'm very good at misinterpreting terse scraps from Mr. Wardell. In thought-experiment-land, though, I'd still rather see essence as the fundamental limit on city creation and a very rare resource for spell casting. Like thrice in a 1,000+ turn game rare.

Essence for significant structures like the Well of Life Demiansky sketched, on the other hand, seems like a good thing because it has a sort of permanence to it that I expect to be associated with a resource as precious and powerful as essence. Yes, you can lose towns with special buildings and lose champions you've imbued with essence, but that's not at all the same as seeing essence stacked up along side mere mana and consumed in a single event.

I would like somthing like that !