It might sound boring and people understand the concept but really you're nothing without Mana, mana is the fuel that burns.. You could be the most intelligent person and have the potential to kill anyone with a single blast but if you can't fuel that potential you're nothing.

If anyone here has ever seen Naruto it's somewhat the same concept in my mind.. Chakra being Mana. You could be super strong, but show very little Chakra (mana) Rock Lee or you could be Sasuke then you might have super agility. Then there is Naruto himself. Fueled with the Chakra of the 9 tailed Demon... Endless amounts of Chakra...  So that's how I see Essence/Mana (If you're a naruto hater, tough. Sorry to the Naruto fans for the not so accurate analogies.)

So saying that and giving the ability to sacrfice you're Essence/Mana to gain other things makes perfect sense... I don't want to lose my Mana for anything, but if there is something of worth out there.... well I might give up just a little bit of my power for it.

I like the way Essence is.

PS. Only other thing I can think of Essence doing other than Mana is being a seperate Mana gauge. Essense would use it's own meter and basically the bonus of using essence is that you don't need a resource to use a certain spell. also Essence meter could regenerate alot slower... Probably been thought of though.

Quoting StevenAus, reply 48

Except that Melee Sovereigns don't have nearly as much need to conserve their essence, and they are still powerful, and don't lose that much power, regardless.  Unless Melee Sovereigns get reduced Strength the more they attack, it's not really worth making Caster Sovereigns weaker just because they choose to take the heavily magic-focussed path in the War of Magic. 

End of StevenAus's quote

And remember, the really powerful spells do cost essence, so this would still hold true for powerful magics... (because, if you use up your essence, you can no longer do much of the world-changing spells...)  I think this is a reasonable enough restriction on the use of powerful magic.

Best regards,
Steven. 

looking beautiful, even though I have only been following this game for a few weeks now, I am enjoying watching it grow into a great game.

Have to agree with someone else's post on the ability to garrison a unit on an enemy's resource to deny them from gaining from it. Additionally it might be fun, that when you move your army in to hold an enemies gold mine (or what have you) that while you do so, you pick up those resources. Kind of the idea that your army moves in, and starts forcing the laborers to work for them, and has the plunder sent home. I think this would be a lot of fun in multi-player, you notice that player A has committed a lot of his resources/units/etc to fending off or attacking player B to the north, so you (player C) move in with your army to lock down and pilfer his resources to the south.

A clearly aggressive act of course.

This promotes another way of being aggressive outside of direct combat. Maybe every time the enemy gets around to sending some units down to try and deal with you grabbing his resources, you just back off to safety, then wait for him to make a different move and then you bring them back in to once again take his hard earned cookies.

Harassment can be so fun.

Since, area control is so key, I was also thinking of having the ability to put down outposts or forts (whatever you want to call them) that would give a small area of control on a more remote resource, this resource would then start providing whatever it is to the nearest city. This would allow an early city with limited area control, to grab more resources and build up a bit quicker.

The catch would be, that a fort would be a somewhat costly investment, and if another players area of control (via city, NOT outpost) expanded into that square, the outpost would be lost to the enemy, and the resource switched to the player with normal city control on the area.

So early game you might end up being forced to decide to invest in a few outposts to speed things up, despite that eventually those forts will likely be made redundant, once you or another player gains normal area of control of the space. Or do you just build slow and steady hoping to not be beaten to the punch. Or do you do a little of both.

Not sure the idea is fully flushed out, just something that crossed my mind.

Hell maybe this ideas already been tossed out.

Lookin good though, cant wait for tomorrow.

yeah, i like the idea of holding an enemy resource hostage.  this could make an engineer unit viable again, of course he wouldn't actually build anything just take control of resources and improvements outside the city walls.

See that is only a choice up until you decide you don't feel like Role playing a channeler, and you realize that you can spend some essence on 1 other champion, and then some farms, and then have your strongest unit ignore every other aspect of magic. 

So no you have your 'caster' that you are hauling about only to level for the ability to buff, and your MELEE sov, who can afford a ton of con that he isn't spending on Essence.

Add to that point 2:  you can remove 5 wisdom, gaining 15 spare points, so your "Melee" sovereign can be a 12str/12agi/15int!/5wis/10cha/12con with 3 books and the Huntsman Class for wild game OR Warlord for the 2 super guards, he can also take organized and as long as he takes insane and inefficient.  SOOO as soon as he get the 2 spells: Imbue champion and create fertile land, anyone that isn't this build may as well either quit, or try to beat him to the master quest. IF you can manage that before turn 150, which is when he will utterly steamroll you with 2-4 10man troop companies(via super pop), a caster(leveled with wandering mobs), oh and a sovereign, that has 15 int... so his spells, are just as strong as any caster sovereign, only less plentiful.  P.S. He would still have 6-9 Essence left. P.S.S. When you saw him, you pooped yourself.

Even if you completely rebalance most of that the point still remains, Essence is NOT a choice for a MELEE sov, because they can either makes some other poor sucker the 'essence beotch' or he just choose to ignore all but basic casting and SUFFER NO REAL PENALTY!

YOU WANNA MAKE IT FAIR? MAKE ESSENCE = MAX HP TOO!  That is balanced. Not really much fun though huh?

The problem that I see with essence being tied to mana is that imbuing a champion is a pointless endeavor. What spells do you think a champion can cast with 1 mana? Zero. It would take the champion 10+ levels before he can cast a spell. I would rather see essence tied to spell power and mana to something else. That way a champion can still cast some spells, but he will be VERY weak with them at first while a sovereign can destroy a battlefield with a single spell. Essence could also limit the level of spells that a unit can cast so that a champion with high a starting stat of whatever will account for mana is barred from casting even level 2 spells until he gains a good number of levels.

I also currently feel that I have to put every single one of my points into essence just to get 2 or 3 extra points of mana so that I can cast that next spell. That wouldn't be bad if not for the fact that an extra 2 or 3 mana would barely help you apart from casting that one spell and since it doesn't even affect mana regen I still have to wait just as long after casting one spell to cast another. It's annoying feeling that you aren't progressing at all because you are forced to put all your points into a stat that doesn't actually make you any stronger. Int makes you a stronger caster. Currently essence only gives you access to a few more spells, but because it gives you such little mana and doesn't make it regen any faster you can't actually cast a higher number of spells in a given amount of time.

I think this is actually a universal problem at the moment in some ways. Currently leveling up doesn't feel like an accomplishment because you only get to improve a single stat by one, which does very little. I imagine you would have to gain 50+ levels to feel like Sauron and hundreds of levels to feel like Morgoth, and the number of turns required to move from one target to another alone makes that impossible.

Yes! With twice the number of spells, the replayability will be in the surprise you get by which spells you get to learn over the course of the game. The MoM approach, with the varying commonalities really is perfect, and with so many more spells in this game, you really would never have the same game twice.

For starting play, you should be able to pick a limited number of spells based on a random group of common spells (and a couple uncommon for higher Int or whatever) according to your spellbooks.

Sorry for the rapid post, but this just annoys me so much. Gonna throw down a few things, sorry if this sounds judgemental, but the way essence works currently is IMPOSSIBLE to balance.

1. Wisdom is neigh useless in its current form because of Essence being the be all end all mana stat. I LOATHE wasted stats.
2. As a point of balance a Bow using sovereign could attack endlessly, at a range.  A casting sovereign can attack Essence/5(assuming 5 is fireball cost) times per battle
3. But it gets worse, the Bow/melee wouldn't have to wait 3-5 turns minimum between hard dungeons.
4. So the melee/bow sov gets ahead on dungeon loot too! Hurray!
5. But the while the melee is boosting Con for HP, the caster has to either raise INT and never get any highend spells, OR Essence in which case his/her damage is the SAME AS IT WAS AT LEVEL 1!
6. And remember there is nothing stopping the bow/melee sov from starting with 15 essence, and shoveling 5 of it to an NPC... Who they can rez... Thereby creating an 'essence pool' at around level 5, that leave them with all the power of a leveled unit... oh, and a spare target/healer

You do make some good points.  The problem with essence at the moment is, it allows Melee or Bow Sovereigns to steam ahead, while it penalises those who chose to make their Elemental Game a "War of Magic".  Plus it's never any good to have stats that are just not useful for anything.

Best regards,
Steven. 

• First of all, what the heck is a sovereign--leader of the realm and only with the ability to "channel"--doing running about in a dangerous land where they could get themselves killed? There should be far more reasons for them to hang back at the city and imbue a couple of heroes to cast spells.
• Second: They are super unique, of a very rare few who can channel, right? What the heck do they channel? If they are channelers, then:
  • They simply invest a point of essence in order to make a particular hero a conduit of their own magic. This let's them sit back in safety and cast spells through that retainer.
  • They channel the energy all around them to gain their mana and augment their essence (mana=gasoline; essence=engine size).
    • The Light channels the power of life. This will slowly and steadily increase in bits as they revive the land.
    • The Dark channels the power of death and destruction. They will quickly gain a surge of power when they destroy life (kill citizens; corrupt the earth).
    • Both sides channel the power of the crystals. All types of crystals provide both mana and augment essence.
  • They can channel better at home, but can also cast better at certain places of power throughout the world (such as crystals).
  • What else do they channel, guys and gals?
• Therefore: Sovereigns should have a starting "base" essence (casting potential) and mana pool (the fuel inside themselves) based on their starting stats, but all sovereigns should have the potential to increase these based on shaping the world in their own predilection.
• How will we have an Elemental War of Magic if you sovereigns do not focus on using magic? Encourage them to pull the strings from home: Enchant a retainer to become that war machine you always wanted.
• Finally, essence, if something that is spent (which I think could be a good idea), should work as a temporary investment of your magical tasking ability.
  
  • If you imbue your retainer with your essence so that he is a conduit of your power, you must continue to maintain that spell.
  • Therefore, it is only logical that your overall potential would be reduced--how can you cast a really complex spell when you're also busy maintaining five minor spells at the same time? Either get a bigger essence or cancel some of those spells that are eating up your essence.
  • That means there would need to be a screen in the magic menu where you could see what is eating up your essence and have the open to cancel.

NO! No picking and choosing at the start this is what was a major problem with MOM as you found spells you liked better than others and then one began picking those same ones every game. Don't give us a choice let NATURE make the choice, let FATE make the choice for us. The more RANDOM in the game START the better. Or at least make this OPTIONAL for those that don't want to have to be put in the position to choose what spells to start with.

An example from MOM was playing Death Magic and being able to choose GHOULS from the start. GHOULS were very powerful in the opening of the game and if you didn't take them you were gimping yourself. But, if I hadn't of had a choice I would have played a lot more games without them and learned other ways to win with opening spells of a different nature.

This is why BLIND research is an important feature I'd like to see in this game (like Alpha Centauri had) I just want to pick a PATH of research NOT the ACTUAL SPELL.

Why couldn't the players pick different spells themselves? Were the other spells pure crap by comparison? I never played MoM so I don't know - but it would seem that would be a balance issue if ghouls were the only worthwhile start for death players?

Optional (or a randomize button) would please both (after all, some might say the same thing about purely random spells as you do about spell picking), but if the choice is that obvious to where only one spell/research path is worth picking up or the only viable path, I would think that's the problem, not the ability to pick.

In my opinion the best and most fun thing essence could do is to allow more powerful spells. For example casting a small firebolt might require 2 essence to cast (It don't consume any essence), that way you can make small armies of people who can cast some basic combat spells good with high caster stats or you can have one guy who is able to level mountains and summon armies.

Also then no essence = no spells at all. You could also tie up the amount of summons and enchants to the amount of essence you have.

This also solves the problem with low level casters since they wont have the essence to cast the biggest spells or summon large amounts of units.

When you emphasize everything, nothing is really emphasized. Just a heads up.

Personally, I like being able to pick and choose because I hate clutter. If I'm not going to use it, I don't want it. Simple as.

As an aside, I might be thinking of the wrong spell, but I never found ghouls all that useful. They could make undead, but needed overwhelming numbers or lots of help to do so. Given that they could only be produced at the circle, they tended to be a waste of time. Just make some cavalry or something.

Honestly, it sounds like you just found a spell that caters to your playstyle, which is a good thing? Picking spells certainly wasnt a balance issue (particularly with a spell so easy to research). This is the first time I've ever heard that feature cited as a 'problem'. Maybe you should just say you don't like the idea and leave it at that.

I must admit that I didn't follow how Essence works and all those discussions (game mechanisms are changing so fast, I let others delve into them).

But what you say makes much sense and more: it screams Age of Wonders II.

At the beginning, your Sovereign had to roam the land with whatever little army he could get, and his casting zone of influence was very limited. But as soon as you could build a Wizard Tower in a city, it was clearly best to let your Sovereign there. Not only could he support all armies attacked in a greater ZOI but he could also

- support armies out of ZOI but with a caster-hero (here in EWoM, that would be an imbued champion, making him valuable even with only little essence/mana. It's like a modern commander able to call air support during battle!!)

- augment his casting power while in the city if he had built some special additional building to his tower

It seems very similar to the situation here: do you want a melee/archer Sovereign leading a powerful army but unable to protect the rest of his domain or do you prefer the magic way which then becomes very valuable?

Yea, a non-exploitable & polished tech trading system should be added later on.

So you've got some spells that are wildly imbalanced and let you dominate the game if you get them early, and your solution to the problem is the random number generator?

Random number generators don't make a good serious strategy game. They're a lazy way around not fixing the problem: having stuff that's too powerful available too early. ie: balance problems. The paragraph about ghouls in particular is a prototypical balance problem. Ghouls are too powerful for when you can get them, so you take them every time or you're gimping yourself.

That's pretty much the textbook definition of a balance problem. You don't fix that by throwing RNG at it, you fix it by balancing the cost or power of the spell so that it lines up better.

Except, playing General Carrodus in 3A was so much easier than Lady Procipinee it wasn't funny.  By going out early and completing quests, taking down other players and gathering resources for town and city construction, you are (currently) protecting your entire empire anyway.    Being the head of one of the only powerful armies on the map can have a powerful protective effect too - you get so far ahead that Caster Sovereigns can't make up for the slow start.

Best regards,
Steven. 

Will diplomacy ever have something in the lines of SoaSE with "enemies" giving you missions and offering a reward for its achievement? Not at the same level than in SoaSE where you had them constantly, but more from a time to time (and according to circumstances).

Except there's several problems with that:

1. Melee sovereigns can spend a bunch of essence and it really doesn't affect them. They still have enough to cast what they need and support enchantments. Every time a caster sovereign uses essence, he gets weaker as a caster. This will be even worse in tactical combat most likely, because dropping my mana cap reduces the spells I can cast during one fight and significantly weakens me. The melee guy's sword doesn't run out of mana.

2. Even more importantly, it's not fun. Gameplay wise, giving people a limited use stat and saying "here's all the cool things you can spend it on, go nuts!" is fun. Saying "hoard this because you completely gimp yourself as a powerful spell caster if you use it" is not fun. Using cool things is fun. Hoarding is not.

Fun is one of the things Elemental doesn't have a ton of right now, and this is one of the easiest areas to get a lot of fun for not a lot of changes. Let players spend it. The decision should be what fun thing do I choose to empower with it. It's fun to sit down and decide if I want to spend some essence on a new champion, on some farms (and bigger cities), on whipping up a hurricane, or on empowering the currently dormant artifact runeblade Azurewrath that I just stumbled on at the end of a quest.

It's NOT fun to say "if you do any of those fun things, you can now only cast one fireball in tactical combat instead of two."

Really? It has been my experance that it is the other way. The players cheat the AI. Anyway I would love to see tech trading in the game but please don't allow us to cheat the AI. Also there should be an option to turn this off if you want.

One last thing, if tech trading is put in the game allow it to also work between AI's too.

No you should still need tech to create some of the different types of swoards and such. I would hate it if all you needed was the resource and that is it. You could do it like CIV4, only show the resources on the map when you have acheived a certain tech. For example: Research Tron forging (or what ever name you want to call it) to open up the Iron resources on the map etc.

I agree with number 1 however not so much with number 2.  I think that there should be a random spell list generated for each Sovereign depending on the type of spells he has access to. And from that list he picks the spells he wants to start with. Of coarse thier should be a limit on how many he/she gets.

I would like to see Divine magic in the game that is based off Wisdom much like in D&D. And of coarse they would have thier own unique spells and some cross over spells. So we would have Arcane and Divine Magic. And if you wanted to put in Psionics into the mix you could based this off of another stat ( I know this is usally Int. but we can always use another stat for this.)