As I posted in another post I think the balance here would be linking spell research to being in a city or even capitol city. Not only do spell points take X amount but each spell takes X amount of turns.

This means that sov's that run around killing things will be combat strong while sov's that stay at home will be magic strong. Also if the construction of magic items took time inside a city with the approriate building. that would also help balance out the Exploring vs sitting at home.

As for an adventurer is going to be more capable than a scholar I tend to disagree when it comes to magic. The more iconic veiw of magic is the strongest casters are the ones who spend years researching in their towers. Dropping the world changing spells while the adventurer wizards are more adept of slinging fireballs or poison clounds.

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.

I agree with the separation of experience and essence. Essence should be something special, and difficult to obtain. There should be ways to gain essence from both staying at home, and adventuring. I really like the idea of getting essence when you kill someone that has essence from before, absorbing a part of it for yourself, this means you could make a mean assasin type sovereign sneaking around and killing people.

Perhaps shards could be used in generating essence, this might make them a bit too valuable though. Perhaps the sovereign can spend his time meditating in the city, generating essence, but unable to do anything else. I do hope at least that essence will be a truly valuable commodity in the world, so that everytime you spend some you are forced to consider if its worth it. Spending essence should be a big deal in my opinion.

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.

Ha!  Seems like mutually assured destruction to me.  But seriously, Patton would destroy Einstein in a fist fight.  And when does anyone say that!

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.

Which is why a fairly steady, equal, gain of essence through each channeler, is the way to go in my opinion.  The choice is how to spend it, and there your options should be extremely numerous, with each player being able to choose a different route.  I know people aren't fans of communism, but why does fighting improve your ability to channel magic anymore than research or learning?  If essence was consistent I would still use my sovereign for fighting if I chose to go a combat sovereign route... but you better believe I would be using that essence to turn him into a superwarrior.

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.

Why not?  Perhaps marginal increases can be had, I mean hell, essence gain rate could even be something that you purchase in the character start up screen for a significant number of points.  But that being said, why should I be required to go throw my sovereign into combat in order to remain competetive?  You keep treating essence gain independent from leveling like it is limiting your sovereign, but from my way of thinking having them linked is extremely limiting.  It limits me to two options to remain viable, adventuring or combat.  And if you add buildings that increase essence, since that improves both the combat sov and the non-combat sov in the manner you describe, it doesn't do anything to balance the equation.  Which once again gives me the player two options.

Essence channelling is a trait innate to the sovereigns.  So who is to say it is one they are capable of improving?

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.

I think lwarmonger is right on the money here.  The only way to make active and passive sovereigns equal on the essance front is for a flat rarely changeable slow increase.   Then leave it to the decisions of how to use said essence as the differentiation between Sovs.

Then all you need to do is balance the city bound sov bonuses to make it a viable alternative to my Sov is going to kick butt in every battle he looks at.  My spell idea above was actually to have a set of spells (not ALL spells) be attainable from intense time consuming study.  I would be wholly against ALL spells being attainable that way.  Really the subset of spells is just a system to reward stay at home Sovs, as they won't be gaining any stat increases because they are not out leveling.  Remember though, that the spells are just DIFFERENT, not more powerful versions, otherwise it would prone to balance issues which can't be resolved (imo).

Another system for providing some type of reward for stay at home Sovs is to be able to learn spell modifiers.  eg:  To learn area of effect modifier for cloak of fear spell, the Sov must participate at a local Arcane laboratory for X turns.   X should be large, and the spell modifier should be for a specific spell.  If it is not for a specific spell, you would have the active Sovs be active then go and learn one or two modifiers, making them toooo powerful compared to anything else.  And since it experimentation going on with the Sov using his magic power to play with the fabric of spells, you could have random events that happen in the city the Sov is learning the spell mod.  eg, while learning cloak of fear area of effect mod, you have accidentally caused X population to flee! no doubt they will be back sire!

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

You are not alone. The "essence system" must be tweaked indeed.

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.

I hear you Demiansky, I couldn't think of a way to have the player do something to make the SOV sit at home (mini games imo are NOT an option ).  The only ideas I seem to think of are always static (not player driven), based on various events that happen automatically each turn.  Note though, that I am whollly against XP gain for stay at home Sovs.

A way to have the stay at home Sovs gain XP would be to link it to the amount of  "help" they are giving to the city they are in.  For example if your Sov has the skill mason (+10% building speed), you could give the Sov XP = function(time saved).  I'm not overly keen on this idea though, its just something to through around see what people think.

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.

I think there is somewhat of a Consensus to Remove Essence from level gain entirely.

There is a smaller Consensus to have all essence be equal and slowly gained over time at an equal rate (among all Sovereigns)

-> meaning no sources of essence, just the essence that your Soverign gets over time.