I wrote this for something else, but might as well post it here, too.

Basically, I feel that Essence has lost a bunch of its intended purpose and currently just isn't interesting. In the beginning, Brad likened having Essence to Sauron in the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, in that hoarding Essence for personal use would make you powerful. Right now, the only thing Essence does is give you more mana to play with. This sort of kind of very indirectly makes you a "powerful" caster, since with more mana you might be able to cast 2 damaging spells instead of 1, for example, but that's uninteresting and pretty weak. Sauron wasn't powerful because he had more Mana, he wasn't even a "mage". His "Essence" allowed him to pick up a big mace and send a hundred guys flying with one swing of it. As it is, Essence is meaningless for Sovereigns who wish to specialize in melee, and half-meaningless for Caster Sovereigns.
 
So, here are my thoughts for turning Essence into an interesting and fun stat and game mechanic:
 

Untie Essence from Mana. As I mentioned before, this is uninteresting. Base mana off the Sovereign's stats (a combo of Int and Wis, or just Wis). This way, a Sovereign that chooses to specialize mostly in Melee combat will be naturally weaker with magic, due to having to pump points into Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution over Int and Wis, and a Sovereign that chooses Magic will be naturally stronger with it, having more Int and Wis while sacrificing Str and Dex.
 
Essence Modifies Stats. With essence not being tied to mana capacity, it can conveniently be used as a stat modifier, instantly benefitting whichever specialization the Sovereign chooses. You could even have an "Archetype" selection for Sovereigns. A Sovereign created as a "Fighter" will have his Essence applied to boosting physical combat stats, while a "Sorcerer" would have his spell-casting boosted. Alternatively, it can be more hands off and simply provide a bonust to all (or highest x stats - 3 or so sounds good) per point of Essence. This way a Sovereign that increases his Str, Dex, and Con to be a good fighter will have those stats boosted by his Essence stat, and one who increases Int, Wis, and Con will have those boosted.
 
Stat "Specials" From Essence. Stats can get Special Bonuses by having enough essence. For example, if a Sovereign's Strength is boosted by Essence, say having 5 Essence gives his melee attack an AoE effect in Tactical Battles, allowing him to hit the 3 cells in front of him (The Sauron Effect). Having 10 could allow him to swing a massive strike, hitting all enemies surrounding him. Or say for a Caster, having 5 could give his duration spells an extra turn or two, having 10 could expand the radius of AoE spells by one cell. Maybe even for a more pacifist Sovereign that's Charisma based, Essence could provide bonuses to the empire side of things, such as 5 essence allowing the Sovereign to cast Non-Combat magic (like beautify land, etc) for no mana cost, and 10 essence allowing him to revive land once every x turns for no essence cost, or something.
 
Essence Used to Maintain Powerful Auras. Mostly applies to tactical battles, having essence affect stats as described above provides for an excellent opportunity for this mechanic. Basically, a Sovereign would be able to maintain a non-magic (ie, no mana cost) Aura during tactical battles. Let's do an example, including the previous Stat Specials idea. Let's say we have a melee Sovereign that has 12 Essence, allowing him to do the massive 360 swing that sends lots of baddies flying. But for an upkeep of 3 Essence, he can maintain an aura that Frightens all enemies that aren't immune (like, a dragon probably would be immune), reducing their attack speed, attack damage, and defense. Or for an upkeep of 2 Essence, he can maintain an aura that Rallies his own troops, slightly increasing their attack speed. With only one Aura able to be maintained at a time, do I debuff my enemies and lose the ability to do an Epic 360 swing, or do I give my guys a slight buff and keep my ability to do it? After combat, the aura stops being maintained and the essence is freed.
 

Changes like these turn Essence into a very important stat that has direct impact over the Sovereign's performance in whatever he chooses to specialize in. As Brad was saying since the very beginning, a Sovereign can choose to hoard his essence, making himself very powerful - which is what happens with the above suggestions, or he can use it to Imbue his Champions with magic, at the cost of personal power - which is also what happens with the above suggestions. At the same time, casting the Uber-Powerful World Altering spells that use Essence will also leave the Sovereign *physically* weaker, due to the great effort needed to cast. Works perfectly!

guys what the point of discussing someting thats already been changed  before even seeing the actual changes?

well it depends on many factor like mana costs of spells, and stuff like that

also need to see the new system for building towns combine into it

how can we judge a totally new concept like changing empire into kingdom?

well maybe its just me but i cant argue b4 i touch with my bare hands

Indeed. My main "peeve" about essence now is that it exists to just (barely) serve the magic side of things. While it's true that your Sovereign is by default able to use magic, it doesn't mean that he has to be a mage - especially given the current stat system. If I choose to build my Sovereign as more of a physical fighter, essence does absolutely nothing for me. Maybe I don't care about casting Volcanoes so I don't have to worry about my Int (for max essence) because I won't have to worry about having enough to cast the spell. Maybe I'm content with him as the general of my armies, in the thick of battle with lots of HP and heavy plate armor and sword and shield, and the only spell I want is "Heal". Essense as it is now is only beneficial for one playstyle: heavy magic use. But that's not the only playstyle that should be considered.

I like the idea of an Essence limit being partially set by how much of the land is for your king.  Not by Empire or Kingdom, but by the individual player.  Have a given percentage of something in the land that is the kings and  let that determine the Max Essence.  You could even put objects in the game that bind sides, allowing them to gain essence off each others essence gains.  Take blood oath to a whole new level.

I like the idea of Essence being a hard limit, not being able to be regained, so the player has to really consider what they want to do with it to not waste it.

I think Essence should be:

Finite

Whatever gets you Essence has to require a significant resource diversion to get.  If converting the land gets you essence then it should cost a significant amount of gold or time.  I don't include mana in this because mana will probably be the easiest resource to regain.  I'm not in the beta (despite my preorder *hint hint*) so that may be a false assumption but I base it on most other fantasy game settings using mana as a quick to regain resource.

It has to be worth it.  Whatever you use Essence on HAS to be a game changer.  A King expending Essence should make every other player tighten up and panic.  "Oh g*d what did he do?!?".  Raise an army of undead (an ARMY, not a couple of skeleton troops), crack the land (Chasm of chaos anyone?), Create a new form of life loyal to the King but autonomous, raise ancient ruins full of wondrous  artifacts, create a super weapon, cut a hole in the locker room for the other sex to peer through...

Although all of us have yet to see Beta 3, based on the Beta 3 Dev Journal, I have to absolutely concur with the OP that Essence is now broken.  Here are the relevant B3 passages with respect to Essence:

It only costs essence if you need to revive the land from the OPPOSITE ideology’s magic source Spells do not cost Essence. Only mana.

• Your mana max is equal to your essence.
• Initial essence = to unit’s intelligence.

Players will be able to maintain N enchantments where N is based on the caster’s essence. 

Shards provide Essence to controller.

^******************************************************

I no longer see a signficant differentiation b/t essence and intelligence, and what began as an exceptional concept (e.g Life Force) seems to have been considerably watered down.  Further, posters herein point to the fact Essence largely benefits the spell caster Sovereign and not those choosing to focus efforts elsewhere (fighter-types).

While I was a strong proponent of Essence being permanently drained under some circumstances, I am finding I am swayed from this approach given new posters' thoughts and the present game mechanics.  It seems to be struggle right now to find the correct place for "Essence."  So given the thoughts in this post, and the original theme of Essence is Life Force, why not have Essence be primarily used as a "booster shot" for the primary statistics of Strength, Intelligence, etc?  

This temporary boost would last a minimal amount of turns, but could be "dialed in" to enhance Strength from EX: 18 to 36 (18 ST + 18 Essence), etc. etc. etc.  In this fashion, the Soverign could become particularly "bad ass" in one or more Statistics, gaining the respective benefits, over a short period of time.  This Essence usage would be recharged slowly-- perhaps 1 point every 5 or so turns.

Such a mechanic would allow Essence to benefit ANY kind of Sovereign, is a relatively simple implemenation, yet preserves the whole "Life Force" concept whereby the Soverign has a "special ability" far beyond most Mortals.  Further, as desired, special situations could still permanently drain a portion of Essence (to be gained back through experience, etc.). but in general Essence would become a re-chargeable resource.

You're quite the impatient ingnoramous, aren't you?

Sorries - Hadn't realized you were still posting it... Was trying to be funny.

I think Essence should be something of an inheritable gene, so the next generation will have the original amount.  This would solve the problem of the depletion of essence, but you would have to make sure a steady line of heirs.

I also think when you have used up all your essence you should die, because essence is your life force and when its gone so are you.

I agree with most ideas like Annatar's and Deminsky's (sorry if it was misspelled).  Something I think would be cool is instead of stat specialization for essence is that there should be just for every x number essence for all stats would be +(essence divided by 15(example) rounded down if need be).

I don't like the idea. The only magical "presence" is in the Shards from which the channelers get their stuff. Plus it going totally contrary to "make a sacrifice to revive the land".

Ahout Essence being broken, I haven't been able to test too much lately so I can only agree that something seems missing but cannot go beyond that comment.

Don't like it because it won't work/not fun or because it goes contrary to a pre-conceived notion on how the game "should be"? But maybe you didn't read the whole post, but the idea actually goes back in making the shards key to the channelers land restoration. Right now they feel like accessories and reviving land is blah. Anyway, better that we don't continue this here.

As for the OP's idea, it certainly sounds more interesting than what we have now. Its central component is that you gain essence in restoring land land, and get away from sacrificing essence in order to restore land (which I agree with the OP, is not an entirely fun mechanic). So how entrenched in the lore (and in the books) is 'sacrificing essence to restore land'? Is there no going back at this point?

One other thing, Im not so sure about making the empires and kingdom behave differently in acquiring essence. Especially in multiplayer. Not that it would be impossible to balance, but it certainly makes it harder. Though having unique playstyles for each would certainly add to the game's replay value.

Agree with Annatar11's reply 1 of this thread on everything but "stat specials" since i imagine it would be too difficult to implement fairly.  As for the powerful essence-auras, that might work but is not the theme of this post(unless these auras/specials are built into the mythical creatures or artifacts i describe. Having a cleave attack for 3 essence or spending 3 essence to make a cleaving sword are similar).

Never played the beta, but i plan on buying the game asap and am concerned with wisdom and essence.

My Thoughts:

Essence-Spent on Special Powers.  Remaining pool gives a bonus to stats.

Wisdom- How much magic you can do at once

Intelligence- How strong the spells are. AKA int+1 damage or a 1+Int/2 strength enchantment

Essence:

I see essence as a measure of the "special power" versus "life force" of a sovereign.  He uses up some of a constant life force to gain a (possibly temporary) special thing.  Once it is spent, it is gone forever.  Every game, each player stats with the same amount of it.  For that to work, it has to equally benefit a sovereign that focuses on casting spells, swinging swords, building civilization, or whatever else.  For this reason, essence=mana cap does not work for the "swinging sword" variety. (you can say, it lets him use enchantments to do this better, but that makes him a spellcaster hybrid, which is not the theme i want for him.)

90% of the time, you spend essence to distribute your power to the rest of your faction.  Imbuing specific land(to make it be more fertile, or to transform the ore in a mountain to mithral), building(to make a barracks spawn troops from thin air, to make a library give some sort of research bonus, or make a smelting factory conjure its own metal), area(spreading fertile land, tactical purposes such as reduced enemy defence/movement, all Allys receive X enchantment while in this area, the imfamous "enchant roads" from MOM), creatures(a nest of magic hounds that you can now build or a graveyard that now produces/lets you produce skeletons), hero(for spell-casting power with mana pool based on wisdom), item(an artifact of immense power; possibly upgrade an existing item to artifact status), individual creature(for a supercharged mythical beast which must be comparable to an imbued hero for this to be balanced)

Maybe include other uses of essence, such as the game-ending spell, or a super fireball-that-destroys-entire-armys(STRONG maybe), or a charm spell on independent factions(forget what those groups are called), or reshaping the world by making your civilization's landmass an island(in one casting. not over 25 castings of a make ocean spell)

Many of these powers would have a variable essence cost depending on how much awesome you are getting out of the power.

Unspent Essence.  This pool gives a constant bonus to your base stats in some capacity.  My preliminary function would be 1 to 1, as in 10 remaining essence =+10 to each stat.  This stat-bonus needs to be so great, that losing even one essence is noticeable and a tough decision.  If my suggestion of +1 to all/essence, then only give stat bonuses to the highest 2-3 stats.  This bonus should be automatic and not require the player to do anything, but should be aparent with a enchantment tooltip or something.  It should basically act as a non-magical constant enchantment.

Through the above stat-boosting, a sovereign that wants to hoard his power will be powerful, whether at casting spells, or being tough.  On the other side, a sovereign who pours all of his essence into his empire will be weak and avoid battle.  To make this work, the starting stats of sovereigns may have to be reduced to 5's instead of 10's, so they are not initially overpowered, but can become very weak.

Wisdom:

I see Wisdom as how many magic things you can do at once.  Mana cap= function of wisdom. Enchantment slots = function of wisdom.  For imbued heroes, their mana pool is function of wisdom.  Seems ridiculously simple to me.

Comments:

I think it would be really cool for a sovereign to "pour himself" into a weapon, which weakens him too much to use the weapon effectively.  Then he could pass the weapon down through his dynasty.

Many of these essence uses give you something you could have got anyway if you spent more time on it.  its sort of like a short cut.  you could search out a resource, or weaken yourself to conjure it.  you could focus on building a defensive army, or use essence to make enemies less effective at attacking you.

I sort of compare spending essence to opening a game-editor and cheating a little.

Few if any of these essence powers should require research in case you aren't a researching hero. the sovereign starts with the spell "Imbue" which can be used on units/land/buildings/nothing(to make an item out of thin air) most anything in his nation to turn it more awesome.

I am very curious about how the rest of you feel about my suggestions on wisdom, intelligence, and essence.  If i have overlooked something that one of these stats does, let me know and i will adapt my argument.