Think it is 15 currently but never the less.

There is some concern being stated about SOV's "having to" roam about, and invariably fighting, before settling on the Proper location.

The faster spread idea helps those who will have not issues going out, right from the start, and seeking that "sweet starting spot" that now consists of a Farm and some Forest (and perhaps a Shard), on which to start their game.

Given the faster spread speed (open to balance of course) and the related use of less Essence consumed to start more new cities, it becomes almost prudent, at least based on even the Tiny map in use, that spending a few turns to uncover some extra FoW looking for a really good "spread" area, an area that is possibly not to constrained by any local terrain, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes etc.

And as such, the non-combat based SOV, will still surely have to face the "Wilds" for the first early turns with nowhere to die back to. Game over!

Reminds me of Age of Empires/Mythology nomad maps with AI or poor players. 3 minutes into the game "Such and such has been defeated!" Damn crocodiles.

As has been suggested here, essence needs to be separated from experience (aka the level of your sov). The way I think it needs to be treated is more like a global resource.  It feels like SD wants essence to be a resource of some kind, but its current implementation does not allow it to be. If it was a global resource you'd consume essence when you want to make your sov more powerful, start a new city, or enchant a powerful artifact.

Once its a global resource, you'd have to decide how best to gain essence. Unused it has no effect on your sovereign, but should you choose to imbue him, all of his stats would be increased (hp, mana, att, def, etc.) Making him more powerful at they cost of your kingdom.

I would suggest it not be a traditional resource, or even be acquired from shards, as that puts you in the position of having to deal with the consequences of the structure trading hands via conquest.

Research, stealing it via destruction (by killing an opponent with essence, razing a city), and/or special quests/items all seem like the decent choices.

With essence no longer tied to levels, mana would need to become its own stat, preferably one you could increase just like hp.

Anywho, those are just my thoughts on the matter.

in my mind essence is part of the sovereigns being, and like all things that are part of our being you only get better by using it.  lets say that you take essence gaining away from experience.  just like your body, if you lift weights you get stronger, if you run alot you gain more endurance, to me if you were a powerful wizard full of magic, then you should get more by USING it.

so i propose that the more spells and essence you expend the more essence you get.  a system similar to the elder scrolls morrowind, or oblivion.  you use enough essence then you sort of gain an essence level and get more max essence, each turn you get a small amount back until you hit max.

Maybe you can also expend essence in training if you can't figure anything out to do.  you put your sovereign in training mode and you actually loose 1 or more essence a turn as you train.

as you gain essence levels it takes more and more to go up each time.

maybe even have 4 choices when you level up you can choose from.

max essence - a level here increases max essence by X.

essence regen - a level here increases amount gained back a turn by X

essence efficiency - a level here decreases the amount of essence needed to perform action or cast spell by X%.

essence infusion - a level here increases you maximum mana points by x amount.

I don't think that using essence should lead to gaining essence. Using spells, maybe. Researching spells, maybe. But not using essence.

Essence Hoarding not being a viable strategy would seem ... like a loss of options.

so let me ask this.  what do you think essence is?  i consider it a power that comes from inside the sovereign, like the force, or chi or chakra(if you watch naruto ha!) or something.  how would you explain essence?

USING Essence is done by Spending mana ... but if you spend essence, its a permanent dip in your life-force ... therefore it is a permanent decrease.

Spending Essence to give other things life (like reviving the land) kills your own chackra-> Drains your own life <- to a certain extent.

Sure, by years of flowing mana through your body, casting spells, you can slowly build up your essence ... to the point where you are a God-Emperor super Shaman.

But yes, creating powerful things drains you of life, thus weakening your essence. And no, you cannot build up your life energy by slowly dying/ draining your self. Only by doing things which damage your body less permanently.

Gaining essence by spending essence would be kind of like learning how to run by breaking your leg.

Ha Ha i suppose that would be a tough and pointless way to learn how to run,  but when you work out you shred your muscles only for them to heal back even stronger.  i guess i don't like the idea of just taking essence from things. 

i suppose i would like it more, if you have to in some way increase your max amount you could hold, and then get more essence, but of course you could only get as much as you could hold.  By gaining levels or something you could increase your max reservoir.  i just don't think you should be able to hold a ton of points unless you in some way through experience or training or something could hold more.

I think I see how you are thinking, but no, essence is not that expendable. You can gain essence from other things b/c you are a vampyre?

But really, NATURAL Wizards died out long ago, because customary Magics have dissapeared from (the air? midochlorians?)

Now, the only way to access magic is through shards, or the earth. The canon source of acquiring new essence will determine how my next statement is framed.

Essence definitely needs a re-tooling. Things should cost less Essence and there should be more ways then just leveling up to gain Essence. Fully agree.

As for how to implement that in actual game-play, I'll leave the details to Stardock.

Given that we barely have ways to use essence at all right now, it seems odd to say "definitely needs a re-tooling." I don't have any sense that essence costs need reduction because I don't even know if the latest build lets you do anything with it other than found cities. (I've seen the magic research for imbuing champions but not gotten far enough to see if it actually works.

Re levels and essence gains, I'd like to see some other options also, but for variety, not as a part of turning essence into little more than high-octane mana. To help Elemental carve new ground in the genre, essence needs to remain distinctly different, and the best ideas I've seen so far for doing that tend to center on keeping essence an extremely limited resource.

The problem was just that ... with essence being your mana cap, and with only 15 essence which AUTOMATICALLY drops by 5 for your first city, and spells costing anywhere from 1 to 10 mana ... basically means that in order to cast that high level 10 mana spell (which requires a shard) ASSUMING you stay at level one, means that you need to found your first city near a shard of that type, not found ANY other cities (until the revived land spreads more) and immediately beeline your magic tech to get more spell points, and to get spell point producing buildings, to be able to buy that spell ASAP.

Then, later research can be housing, and farming/orchards (IF THERE IS ANY NEARBY FOOD RESOURCES) ... and the only reason for these techs would be so that you can build MORE spell point producing buildings to get spells faster.

Then use that spell to capture other cities (without having to use more essence) ... and just get a few military techs to use those new cities to build soldiers, to back up your spell usage, and steamroll.

This immediate action is necessary because you have a long-term disadvantage by only having one city.

Extra: if you DO happen to gain a level, put all your points in essence (at least the first two times) and use any extra essence (above 10) for extra cities if need be.

Then, once you have enough cities, keep adding essence. Just stockpile it so that you can use your spell that many times. If there is ever a point where adding the 1 wisdom (0.1 mana per turn) is more effective than adding a whole 10 essence (+10 max mana), then switch from essence to wisdom ... or even intelligence if that extra 10% damage is better on your existing spells than having another spell entirely. I would suggest that after having 100 essence, adding 1 intelligence is worth it ... for Wisdom I have no idea whether its below 100 essence, above 100 essence, or EVER useful to add wisdom vs essence.

That is just an early mock-up for an essence hoarding Magic specialized strategy.

Devils advocate here... for discussion purposes of course.

Since you are basing this idea on the currently available system, which early spell, that has any real City capturing punch, and costs less than 50 SP's would you be referring to?

Even a min/max fighting SoV will have some issues roaming the field early on, and even worse, will have very few Magic Books, say 2, (1 Free) + whatever you spec in, or several negative traits on board, or capturing Cities with only peasants and Pio's, will be a very long ways out, turn wise.

The real need to get past city Level 2, to have a City capable of producing SP's at a desirable rate, 2-3 per turns could be a real issue.Without Food and or Materials, a pre-req for any City building at all, requires the Civ Tech tree be hit at min, 3 times.

100 Essence, if we stay the current course (not likely) is an obvious Pipe Dream. It would take 10 Levels of full 10 point dumping into Essence each Level. How will you defend you own City when the neighbors come knocking long before that?

The current Tech system encourages a MIX of early Tech, which is a good thing. I cannot see your mock-up having much chance under current arrangements, unless the Civ side went to Auto and I do not like that idea much.

Basically what I was saying, was to increase max spell points to 150 ASAP (via tech extensions) while you build any Spell Point producing buildings to fill that gauge. Hopefully you can time it so that you have already teched the spell point expansion (to 150 spell points) by the time your spell point gauge starts to fill up (approach 100) so that no spell points are wasted w/o having to buy a weaker spell.

Then, having your 150 spell points, your Fire book, and your Fire shard, with your ONE city because your saving your 10 essence for that Summon Fire Elemental spell which costs 10 mana.

Then, after you get the spell, start using "summon fire elemental", win battles with it, gain exp, gain more essence so that you can cast it multiple times per turn ...

And then attack a city, and throw one fire elemental at it (at a time) until that city is captured. Early game it will  probably only take one, but you never know, so you personally should probably stay some distance away in case your first fire elemental is a bit overwhelmed ... but as long as it causes significant casualties to the enemy, summon another one and send it that way too. Also, if its possible to have MORE than one fire elemental summoned at the same time, then go to town

Anyways, to get your FIRST fire elemental spell, it requires NO civics tech (or change in city size) NO warfare tech, NO diplomacy tech ... all it requires is 3-5 magic techs and a few buildings. Of course, after you have the magic techs in place, you can start focusing on civic tech to try and get a bigger city for more Spell Point buildings. Furthermore, once your revived land has begun to spread, you can build another city which will give you more spell points buildings ... although if it costs too many materials to build a second city, then skip it ... unless you have enough room for max spell points buildings + some materials producing buildings. In that case, then build more materials ... however it might be better to INSTEAD focus on Food + Huts so that you can build more magic buildings in the one city you already have.

So really, to get Fire Elemental ... you only need a Size 1 settlement (probably with a single study and magical academy), level 1, and you can get your spell much faster than a non-specialized player.

The two real challenges to this strategy are ... finding a Fire Shard before you place your first city

and ... balancing Research and Spell Points so that you research 150 max spell points around the same time you GET 100 spell points initially, for maximized speed.

You guys haven't mentioned Champions in your scenarios...  It'll be interesting to see how Champs can be used to augment/replace some of the buildings/techs for some starting strategies.   Interesting tradeoffs -- spend the gold for a Champ that gives a few SPs/turn (and essence to have a city to be able to recruit), or spend the gold on buildings...  Plop down a city to grab a few Champs before trolls kill them off, or wait on a city to find a node with food and other resources nearby...

Beta 2 MP matchups will be an interesting test of these ideas.

Oh, for this scenario I would DEFINITELY want to spend the gold for a Champion that produces (at least 2) spell points, and a Champion that produces (at least 2) research points.

especially the spell point one.

i don't know, do champions die of old age?  if so, i am not sure i want to invest much of my finite essence into one.  i need to see the time mechanic more.

I was actually "envisioning" what I thought the ways of using and cost of essence were verses how fast I get essence now. I know/knew it would be tweaked and balanced. Depending on how much essence is tied to spell casting or imbuing later, you could end up never having enough because you're too low level and don't want to fight with your actual Sovereign. It was more of a "guesstimation" of game-play in regards to making sure we don't end up with a gimped essence system or too many cool things and not enough essence. People would Mod In or Hack In extra essence to suite their wants and desires either way though I think.

Nop. [...in the beta at least.]

I have not played a game in a week but I am pretty sure that Buildings (of all types) cost both Food and or Materials to construct. I believe, also, that some of the Arcane Buildings require a Town or larger city to even build.

How will you get around those issue without any Civ tech or moving up a City level at all?

P.S. These are some of the things I hope Beta 2 will start forcing us to figure out in depth...

I think you mean gold and materials ... although we have buildings that produce only 1 wood or 1 gold per turn, that require no tech ... similar to how gardens @ no tech provide 3 food each.

Yes. The most basic ones are like that, and for obvious reasons I assume.

Not to say your thought is not, maybe, doable, once we get into the true SP generators....

Well, we could just check within the current build I guess.

If my memory serves, in the current build we don't have any of the "max spell points" increasing technologies, thus this strategy, while possible earlier, is no longer possible because of the giant tech hole in the magic field (even more so than earlier)

That being said, once Beta 2 comes out, it will once again be testable.

In practice, however, I almost always go for a hybrid ... and I hardly ever get the same amount of usefulness from schools twice in a row (either I get the school tech too soon, or I get it too late, or I skip it altogether- until much later)

And I am undecided at this point about how exactly I feel about the "randomness" of the Tech tree setup. Your point about a "hybrid" seems almost built in, simply because any small change, or a slight variation in tech picks can alter things a lot.

Good or Bad? Testing may resolve but I am leaning towards it being preferred as it certainly will help keep the "must have" builds at bay for as long as possible in any one game...