My name is pigeonpigeon and I approve of this message.

Although I'm not sure that I approve of your last bullet point, especially the part about the channeler who lost territory regaining their essence. I'd much rather see all essence spent as a sunk cost that can never be recovered, no exceptions whatsoever (could still gain essence in the ways you mentioned, but no spent essence should ever be returned to you).

Edit:

Yeah, I'd vote either no, or make it a game type. Another issue is if the ratio of total essence to map size is off you could literally end up almost forced to a stalemate due to insufficient essence to go around. And, quite frankly, I feel much happier when I know I can always get more of something even if it's supremely difficult to do so. 

Yeah I'm not so sure about that. I'm actually torn on it. Because if imbuing land with essence to make it habitable makes it conducive to your own spells and provides unending LoS, then it would be odd for a different channeler to gain all those nice new things just because his army conquered the city. Oh, I just thought of a potential resolution: If you conquer another channeler's imbued territory, then while you occupy it the channeler loses his connection to it, but you don't gain a connection. The land remains habitable, but the conquering channeler has no special connection as if he had imbued the land in the first place. This way the conquering channeler isn't forced to spend essence, but doesn't get the bonuses of doing so either. One question is: if the original channeler re-conquers the land, is his connection restored?

My view on essence is completely different. There should be no ways to gain essence. There should be no way to recover essence. Certainly if you imbue land with essence and then lose that land to an enemy there should be no "Here is your essence back". My opinion.

I do agree with bullet points 3,4 and 5. I agree with the first part of point 1, but again on the "hope to recover essence" aspect, I believe there shouldn't be any.

To Pigeonpigeon, regarding your last paragraph: I want all channelers to start with all of their essence and all channelers start with equal essence (with a possible option equally available to all at setup to have extra essence - VERY costly). How you spend this incredibly vital, unique and limited resource should be what this game revolves around. Your point is valid, If channelers have all of the essence at the get go, how to keep them from being overpowered rather than growing into their power? Actually that is the answer - the essence is there but much of it is either untappable (they have to research in order to use essence that they already have) or like in MoM you limit how much they can channel per turn. Initially this would be a very tiny trickle. Again with research, the amount they can channel per turn goes up.

It may seem to be a subtle difference, but it is there. With the latter, ALL of the essence is available from the get go, but you start with a very small "hose" to drain your essence tank thru. With the former, the essence hose may be larger to start, but the essence is partitioned. In other words you might reach a point where you were temporarily out of essence until you completed the research to access the next portion. That may be confusing and I will explain in more depth if anyone would like.

If they do make essence totally and irrevocably non-renewable, then that's the way I'd want it to be done. And I would be satisfied with it, I think. However, it might be harder to balance for different size maps and different length matches. And ultimately, I think essence would be just as important if you start out with a little with the ability to gain more little by little.

The major difference that I see is that with your method, people could down-right run out of essence and if things change to their disadvantage they'd be hosed. For example, people who invest their essence in other things could easily end up disadvantaged compared to people who hoard it (people who hoard it keep their options open and their channelers godlike). Late game could end up with a bunch of lame channelers who can't really do much anymore (no more essence to invest in anything, and due to said lack of essence their combat and probably spell abilities would be significantly reduced), and other channelers who are at the peak of their power. Yeah, the former would probably have more settlements or heroes or have some nifty spells going, but the channelers themselves would no longer be able to add or do anything. And if a game drags on, the situation would just degenerate.

Whereas if you can still get ahold of essence, it allows things to continue progressing even if the game does drag on. It allows channelers to continue to impact the state of affairs. It could also help alleviate the mopping up process when you know you've already won; once you've reached that point all that matters really is how annoying it is to finish things up, and being able to get and use more essence would make things significantly more interesting/fun, I think.

Another thing is, these are not completely mutually exclusive ideas. I like the idea that channelers start out with more essence than they can use until they put effort in utilize it, but that can be the case even if it is possible to get some more of it.

I don't like the idea of a finite "essence tank" that never comes back.  The problem I see is that hoarding your essence is not particularly fun. You don't get to see the settlements, cast the spells, fight the battles, etc. But you pretty much have to do it, because hoarding confwers a massive advantage late in the game. Thus, in order to win, you have to take a strategy that makes 75% of the game boring. This does not seem like a good idea to me.

Essence should not be an easily renewable resource (if at all renewable), and it is not a problem if channelers are incredibly powerful early-game (that just makes it more interesting than the usual grab-resources, avoid-fights, found-cities standard start to TBS games).

The vibe I'm getting now is vaguely like Larry Niven's Warlock series, and that's an awesome thing to remind me of. The balancing act between keeping yourself strong, keeping your empire strong, and preventing yourself from being magically weak enough that a smaller, more magically-inclined empire can just walk all over you sounds good to me.

That's my view. Actually I think there should be a balance between hoarding and early investment - the ideal would be if both could be viable strategies. It is silly to worry that hoarders will be at the advantage though, since that aspect of the game is still in the design phase, and as Luckmann points out, it is just as likely that hoarders could be gimped by having no armies, no followers, and no infrastructure. How can you research those late world changing spells that you are hoarding essence for if you don't have the facilities to do the research?

I then suggested that 'Core Essence' would basicly become Mana. Why create the concept of 'Core Essence' when Mana will or could potentially fill that role already. Mana grows back. Mana is a (possibly rare) commodity that (possibly) grows back on an individual basis or as a civ-wide resource.

I'm sure that the devs are already working to make both essence hoarding and heavy essence investment equally viable strategies, and I imagine they could do an equally good job whether a channeler's essence never increases during the game or can increase through quests, vampirism, whatever.

My only 'good reason' for seriously wanting ways for channelers to gain essence is that I think it would be more fun. It could add variety to quests, diplomacy, evil spell design, and more. And it's also great fun to be able to recover in mid-game from what you only belatedly understood was a bad mistake in the early game.

@ GW I like the idea of everyone having an exactly set finite amount of a primary resource. Mana fills the role of a renewable source of energy. However, if you really think having ways to get essence during the game is a fun option, it seems like that could be easy to add as an option at setup. (Allow essence as quest reward/some other way). It is weird that I see some people wanting essence recouped after someone takes over your land though - what is the point to taking land if it then requires essence from "the winner" and returns essence to "the loser". I would much rather that there be a reason to defend land once you have invested essence in it. It seems like this is just a mechanic toextend the game out and "keep everyone in balance" as far as power goes. To me that is not a game, and it even makes a poor sandbox simulation. There needs to be the ability to make poor choices and the ability to lose - as I am understanding it this whole concept is to protect players from consequences of unwise choices, and I am not seeing the attraction. Is there something I am not getting, or is it just a difference of opinion?

I'm not that fixated on any particular detail in the 'essence reconciliation' part of my list and my impulse is most certainly not to undermine "the ability to lose." I'm just very fond of the idea that a channeler establishes some sort of lasting connection with any form of 'imbuing' essence, whether be in lands, a champion, or an artifact.

For land transfers, I'd be just as happy to see the conqueror have to use a lot of mana to 'seize' the land's imbued essence after establishing military control. Even better if a military victor can choose to accept the idea that the occupied land is dutifully providing info to the channeler who restored it but lost the meat-fight, and that spells from that defeated channeler still get some bonuses in the occupied land.

But if starting essence=all your essence ever, I might not be "just as happy," but happy enough.

Like maybe a late-game superspell that lets you drain the essence and return the lands to their blasted, post-cataclysm state?

That's certainly a possibility, and one of the few I'm willing to concede--I'd considered mentioning it in my post, in fact, but figured that someone else would say it.

That aside, there are two rules that describe basically the entirety of my view of a good essence system:

1. Spending essence should be, in a significant majority of cases, permanent. For that reason I oppose anything ever having a recurring essence cost.
   
2. The total amount of spendable essence in the game should never go up (while one channeler might gain from casting Re-Cataclysm, he'd gain less than, or at best as much as, the one who restored the land).