Detailed and Expanded look at Essence

Profession: Magical Researcher.

The Magical Researcher, if inside a city, will increase the essence output of Magical Academies by 50%, and increase Spell Point acquisition by 50%.

This makes him the ideal Garrisoned Governor of a City with many Magical Towers and Arcane academies.

Being a Magical Researcher also makes the Magical branch of the tech tree cost 4/5 the Knowledge points. This means that your magical research will be 20% faster than other Sovereigns.

While never as Intelligent or Wise as the Field Command Sorcerer, the Magical Researcher has more access to Essence and Spell points, ultimately meaning that they can cast more often from a wider variety of spells.

Meanwhile, the Adventuring Wizard will have greater Wisdom and Intelligence (usually) which means his spells will be more powerful, and his mana will recharge more quickly.

Another potential use for the extra essence provided to a Magical Researcher (if the garrison of a truly potent magical city), would be a greater flexibility for the creation of more magical items and a flexibility to imbue more champions with essence. Therefore, if you choose this path with your extra essence, you will have many more magicians that merely yourself ... and you can send these mooks to the far corners of the Continent to do your Exploring for you.

Ultimately, Magical Researcher is the profession for a Sovereign that never wants to leave his home. A rare choice, for sure, but not inherently a weaker one.

There has been some suggestion that a Sovereign should be present in order to absorb building based essence (in order to avoid city spam). I would argue that this would be too much of an advantage to the Stay-at-Home sovereign (and especially the Magical Researcher).

Thus, I propose a one-city approach, as opposed to as strictly Sovereign-needs-to-be-there approach.

This can be done in two ways; simply- via "only in capital", or awesomely- via a "phylactery"

Void Phylactery-> All Sovereigns have created their own Void Phylactery, as is customary among all Channelers, in order to draw essence from the world. The Channeler's main goal is to absorb essence in any ways that he can, however some sources are to abstract for the Sovereign to tap into directly. This is what the Phylactery is for. It will absorb any emanating essence within the local area (city).

The Phylactery is indestructible, and a mental link between the Sov and his Phylactery allows him to know where it is at all times (will show as an Icon on the map regardless of in enemy territory or dungeon).

The teleport spell (in addition to teleporting anywhere within your territory) can also teleport directly to your Phylactery's location (or nearby, if the exact location is too small).

So, to capture an enemy's Phylactery is to temporarily remove his ability to absorb essence from buildings ... and also invite immediate attack upon your location at any time.

One thing I would put out there is that since essence acquisition is so central to the sovereign, essence should only be gained from his physical location (ie a direct transfer).  So while those buildings and artifacts produce essence, they would only produce essence when a channeler was physically present to absorb it (while they would be producing essence the rest of the time, it would be going to waste as no-one who could channel it would be present).  This would both reward any channeller (not just a magical researcher) for being in a city (instead of only being there to heal), and keep things a little more balanced.  Why should a big empire gain more essence and more magical power than a small empire?  After all, that big empire already has an edge when it comes to the military (sheer numbers) and the economy.  Why make it more powerful magically as well?  If one of the goals is to limit city spam, then I should be able to hole up in my one city with a couple of attached outposts and focus on magic, or adventuring (sending strong hero's out without quick expansion), and be more powerful in the area I choose to focus on (magic/adventuring) then a nation that is focusing on aggressively expanding their empire through city spam or conquest.  If by aggressively expanding your empire you automatically become superior in essence and magic, and oh incidently your hero's become as powerful as a nation focusing on adventuring because it is easier for you to adventure with broader borders, then suddenly this becomes a city-spam, whomever claims the most territory first wins game.

I thought that is what we were trying to avoid.

Well, perhaps we should reduce all building-based essence outputs by 10x (or 20x), and Sovereign presence in the city repsectively increases essence by 10x or 20x.

Although, it is worth noting, that given the current system (assuming you didn't focus on Spell Point buildings) even sitting in one city for 100 turns is only going to give you a couple levels worth of essence (if that). Of course, if you are a Magical Researcher, it will give you 50% more ... and of course if thats your plan then you will probably focus on spell-point buildings ... which might give you a relatively high essence compared to a leveler essence gainer.

Overall ... maybe it would be better if ONLY the capital could gain essence for you. The amount of SpellPoints provided by buildings ... is only applicable in the capital. This makes it relatively equal for all player's across the board once again. Maybe the Sovereign has a Void Phylactery that absorbs all essence produced at this location. He only has one Void Phylactery (indestructible) and it is tied directly to his soul ... and for some reason it is in the capital (or maybe you could move it to the city of your choice).

Of course, the idea of stealing someone's Phylactery should be discussed (whether it should be possible or not) -> which would only prevent the Sovereign from absorbing essence produced by buildings.

The problem that I see is that when you come up with a solution for balancing a stay at home channeler to a channeller who is out fighting you then eliminate the balance by enabling the sovereign out fighting to get the same benefits.  There needs to be a more academic, less combat oriented way to improve your sovereign.  Otherwise every player will be forced to play their sovereign the same, and where is the fun in that, from both a roleplaying and a strategy standpoint?  Now weighting a sovereign staying in a city built for magic seems like a decent balance to a sovereign who is fighting and exploring, but then giving the same (or almost the same) capabilities to a combat channeler defeats the purpose.

Forcing all essence generation into one city mitigates the whole "larger empires become stronger at everything" problem, but it doesn't help the whole "sovereign adventuring and fighting becomes stronger at everything, even things not particularly combat related" problem.  Because a channeler can have a city generating essence, and gain essence leveling up, while another one just has the city, is just as imbalanced.  Now, having a "Magical Researcher" kind of a step towards balance.  The problem is that now you are locked in.  As an opposing player I know you are going to stay in your cities, and you as the player are going to be forced to stay in your cities, because that trait is powerful enough that if you choose it you have to play a certain way.  Once again, we get the problem that people are locked into strategies.  Now if I'm a channeler that specializes in assassination... I know where to find you.

A game I felt modelled this perfectly in style, if not in game mechanic, was Dominions 3.  You chose whether or not to have a combat pretender, enhance your positive dominion attributes, or have a wide selection of magic in addition to a number of other less well used possibilities.  You could use your pretender for a number of different things, and how well it complemented your chosen faction determined how well you did.  This meant that you did not have to employ your pretender in any specific way, and while a combat pretender was good at combat, he/she/it wasn't necessarily good at anything else.

Essence is so powerful, or has the potential to be so powerful, that monopolizing it to any one playing style just seems unbalancing.

The stay at home advantage is the Magic Researcher profession -> +50% Spell Points and Essence for staying at home

HOW IS THAT NOTHING!? DO YOU WANT IT TO BE 100%? 200%? 1000%??????

IF you want to be specialized at turtling, you should pick a turtle profession. Do you expect a Warlord to be better at magic just because he sits at a stuffy desk?

Does an Academy of Wizards in DnD ever keep ALL of their members locked in the tower, never to search for artifacts?

OK!!!! HERES AN IDEA!!!

all sovereigns gain +50% spell points for staying at home, Magic researcher has (additive) +50% spell points ....

which means that magic researcher doubles SP for staying at home, and has 25% more spell points than any other class that stays at home. YET! all classes have more spell points for staying at home. Happy!?

I am not monopolizing essence. Adventurers can gain essence by sacrificing the rare artifacts that they could use in other ways. THEY COULD USE THOSE ARTIFACTS IN OTHER WAYS. Warlords gain essence by leveling up (THEY COULD LEVEL UP IN OTHER WAYS) ... meanwhile, anything given to a Sovereign SIMPLY because he sits at home is a non-choice and thus some-how broken.

Why should my king be an adventurer?  He's my Sovereign, not some rabble mucking about through ruins.  That is why I hire people.  My Sovereign is there to rule the peasant scum/gentle townsfolk of his Empire/Kingdom.

Is this for a mod you're making?

Supposing that it is not, and you're actually suggesting these changes be made to the game, I'll add my comments.

one time additions to essence

- destroying a magical item and absorbing its essence Destroying a magic *artifact* of extreme value

- killing a magical beast  Legendary Monster and absorbing its essence - It should not be "I killed a unicorn and gained power," it should be "I slew the titanic fiend Arthgaaaaul and feasted on his life on the steppes of Morra" in other words a very rare

- killing a Champion/Sovereign and absorbing their essence champions should have to be specially sacraficed for this, you should have to build infrastructure to process another persone like this.

- completing a quest and getting some essence-based reward yes, though they should again be rare

- discovering a specific Knowledge (technology) which increases your essence under what circumstance should tech dominance extend to magic dominance?

Long-term increase of Essence

- Sovereign produces 0.1 essence per turn

- Each "Spell point per turn" produces 0.05 essence per turn

- Palace end game building ultra-expensive building produces 0.05 essence per turn one time gain of 5 essence

- Ancient Artifacts give 0.02 essence per turn

- Super Rare Ancient Artifacts give 0.05 essence per turn one time gain of x essence

- Godly Ancient Artifacts give 0.1 essence per turn

Its not "planned for a mod" but may become part of one. I like your changes to "one time" gains to essence, only the rarest of the super rare... however I like all of my Long-term Essence gains Ideas.