And HERE is a thread I created on topic.

As you can see, there is a large cry from the Stay at Home sov community to completely detach essence from levels.

Hence this thread, to see how many people agree. I personally have no problem with having only one equal gain of essence for each Sovereign, however the thread I have linked to highlights my personal favorite system.

I do agree with you on the principle for having an Arena where people can fight for levels ... either only accessible every so often or potentially lethal for participants. Preferably both (have "safe" battles once/ 5 turns, and indefinite supply of "lethal" battles)

i like that essence gain is derived from levels, but the way i would do it is by having an essence number and that determines how fast you gain essence per turn.

sovereign starts with 10 essence.

sovereign essence points = 1

you put .1 into it for each point you invest at level up.

each essence point is +1 per turn you get back.

so a sovereign with 1.5 essence points would gain 1 essence on the first turn, then 2 points on the second turn, 1 point on the third and so on.

do you guys think this is to much? unbalancing perhaps? or maybe there is alot more stuff you can do with essence that we don't know about. unclear right now i think until we know what more you can do with essence.

Hey Stmorpheus, I like your idea. I mean, its not options A,B,or C but it could be workable (assuming people can live with essence tied to levels).

One thing I would diverge on, though, is that 10 points of essence gen (what your character "starts" with, lets say) creates 0.1 essence per turn. Each additional point of essence (or each point of essence) adds +0.01 essence per turn.

Meaning, that if you used all 10 points on essence, your char would now be gaining 0.2 essence per turn. (1 every 5 turns as opposed to 1 every 10 turns).

So do you mean that you can place points into "magical research" upon level up (instead of essence) and then redistribute after level up?

Or do you mean start the game with 10 points -> maybe you are stuck with your choice from then on ... with possibly a chance to increase essence.

// In any case, I think we seem to agree that an essence "stat" as amount of essence gained per turn is favorable to gaining essence in large chunks.

In any case, the essence is permanent (or rather, using it is permanent) so there is no "essence regeneration" simply "essence generation" with the constant and incredibly slow gain of new essence

Not at all.

My example would be instead of the actual spell points system.

Magical studies would give you Magic points. And you have to split it between several things like essence improving, crystals imbuing, spell points for learning new spells, life spreading.

I f a magical study gives you 5 magic points, then you have 5 MP to split. If you build 2 magical studies you have 10 MP to split, etc.

In MoM you earned Magical points (don't remember the name) and you had to split it between skill (it was a stats that said how many Mana you could use in one turn) Mana (how many Mana points you would earn in a turn) and Research.

And you had to choose : lots of mana ? But you didn't have enough skill to use big spells.

A high skill ? But you didn't had enough mana to cast them

A lot of mana and skill ? Too few spells to cast.

So .. choices.

I sorta-kinda might be a 'Stay at Home Sov' player, and I don't at all like the idea of making essence some kind of steady-accrual resource. I don't even really like the idea of buildings that might generate essence, even very slowly. Maybe it's partly because I'm confused about how and when the sovereign-gets-XP-from-his/her-units thing went away. Mainly, it's because I want essence to be special, and the general direction of this thread seems to want it to be an Elemental analog to just another mass-production commodity.

I'd prefer a direct model for spending experience points a-la the Hero System RPG; spending points at level gains is an OK compromise, and I like the idea that you can choose to invest all the points from a level gain in essence, nothing, or just a portion. That's the sort of 'simple' thing that can generate lots of variety in gameplay when connected to the larger system.

Not that I don't have some critiques for the current design myself. For me, the prime stat function of essence should be determining casting time for overland spells and mana-per-fight for tactical spells. Shards should be able to generate mana and mana pools should be unlimited in size. Essence misers should be able to burn through their mana far faster than essence investors; essence investors should have more and stronger champions and custom magic items, or at least more mundane resources (land & peasants). I've felt this way pretty much since the boards started despite seeing many different critiques and proposed alternatives.

This is not a bad idea. Reminds me of AoW's point distribution system between gained mana/turn & research points/turn.

However I am not sure that how could it be implemented in EWoM. Buildings are generating spell points, so it's pointless to spend any points on that. What do you mean on crystals?..as I see it could be distributed between essence/life spreading. When the Sov gains a level, he/she could distribute more points on these "feats".

So for example: Lvl1. Essence: 2 Life Spreading: 1 ; Lvl2: Essence: 3 Life Spreading 2. [Generated on every X number of turns.]

Well, I know in some posts of mine I have addressed the need for Quests to generate a significant source of XP.

As for alternate sources of essence, you can look at this thread I made.

There is people who doesn't like the idea of Sovereign death equaling the end of the game. People who doesn't like the idea of having a campaing because they only care of multiplayer and/or sandbox. Or people who... People can get very loud about anything.

I'm not saying that I'm against a debate about separating them but from my point of view, the system is quite fine as it is. Oh, it needs to improve and add things along as the different game mechanics are put into place (Beta 2). But to tie Essence, the uber mechanic of the game (bringing land to life, imbue non channeler heroes so they can cast spells, cast the most uber things ever dreamt...), into the RPG concept of character level is quite a control measure that I can accept and easily explainable.

Essence is life force which is an aspect of the bond between a Channeler and the Crystal Shards that hold the magic of Elemental. The stronger the individual, the stronger that the manifestation of that bond can be (if he raises the Essence stat, that is). Without that bond, no spellcasting is possible (altough if the character is a channeler, remains so for good even if he spends all his Essence doing stuff).

Just because someone want to have his Sovereign tied to a chair since turn 1 and still get Essence to do stuff without risking him into battle and/or because it isn't his style, doesn't mean that tying Essence to leveling up is bad. It only means that he need game mechanics that make viable such strategy. From gaining experience from the rests of the units (naturally to due to a spell) to gaining exp from using Traits based on staying at home, I'm quite sure that options can be offered.

Really, Stardock surely knew about this all along. Not all of them are warmongers, right?

Lol well .... in my mind a good sovereign has to have levels, and obviously to get levels you either need to fight, quest, or both.

There is a vast variety in ways that you can fight, quest, or both.

Ultimately, however, it depends on the direction the Devs want to take.

Multiple problems.

First, detaching essence from level up nukes choice in what kind of character you're building.  If you want to be a tank from hell, you go crazy on beefing the hell out of your character by physical stat boosts instead of essence.  If you get essence separately, you've made no such sacrifice and no longer need to choose between them.  This is bad.  Building a character is only a meaningful task when you have to make hard choices between one aspect and another.

Second, while you become the godlike tank, you can give your essence to all those champions, building an armada of godlike tanks that can still use magic.  You can also run around founding cities, while still having a godlike tank.  More choice removed, you can always have a godlike tank for a sovereign.

In the end, the attempt to separate essence from leveling so that one can play a stay at home sovereign has backfired.  You now inevitably have a godlike tank as it levels and by virtue of getting stomped into a greasy spot otherwise, must build and use that godlike tank in an offensive manner.

It's much better to change experience gain from being something only done through combat.  If your city is getting bonuses for having the sovereign there, the sovereign should be getting experience for whatever activities he's doing to manage that.  Casting spells, researching spells, managing the estate, a small bonus from empire wide combat accounting for strategic planning involved, perhaps even magical means of gaining experience through the combat of your summoned beings.

Assuming we can get them to change this evil plan to have your sovereign survive death on the battlefield to warp home, direct combat should be the most effective means of gaining experience due to the risk/reward factor of playing the front line.  If they do go with such a wuss method it doesn't even deserve that as it's all reward and no risk.

Actually there is a problem with this level up -> get essence method. Sov dies = game over. Maybe it's not a huge problem for the player, but what about the AI? The AI is also forced to fight with his Sov all the time in order to get the necessary essence. I am pretty sure that Brad will create an amazing AI, but I am also pretty sure that it will make mistakes, just like any other AIs. So basically the current essence system = handicapped AI. This is my opinion. This is why I say, that there must be other ways to gain essence as well, without being forced to level up the Sovereign. The current system is far from being perfect.