I need more mana, what should I do? [beginner]

• choose or create a souvereign with the "Attunement" trait for +2mana/turn
• take over even more shrines
• research "Shard Mastery"" under "Magic -> Shard Harvesting" for the "Temple of Essence", which will increase the Mana produced by a settlement connected to a shard by 3

You will have with the shard mastery an upgrade to your current shard and they will become "greater" thus providing 3 mana/turn instead of 2. Children with attunement can also help if your sovereign have this trait.

Play with Procipinee or create a custom female Sovereign with Attunement. (marry a Farmer for maximum bloodline benefits) Get lucky and get female kids (my last game with Procipinee, she had 4 babygirls!! ) and when they grow up, all of them have clone talents of the Sovereign (that includes Attunement) while sons inherit whatever the father has. Male sons give extra food (if you married a farmer) and daughters mana. Oh, you won't be marrying your daughters though. If you created custom female Sovereign, pick Green Thumb to produce 2 extra Food, which will be replicated by each of your daughters.

 why female better male sovereign and all your male kids will get attunment the girls you can marry

1. Better male Champions (and more male farmers than female ones). There are some awesome female Champions like Rilis, but cannot really compare. Also, Janusk is always male so even if you don't get Champions soon, you can use him as emergency boytoy.
2. Marrying daughters makes you lose kids (by the benefit of later getting more options to marry one of your descendants with one of theirs... too much, too long, for little benefits), plus if you only get girls (like me last time), say goodbye.
3. Enemy factions get free spouses but they suck which means that their daughters aren't going to be good or have any ability at all (and gone are the days of Sword of Wrath Daughters In Law ), their only benefit being to have more kids to marry those of the daughters you married off. A very long term benefit in which meanwhile you have given a useful daughter to the enemy. (you can thank that currently the AI cannot really use them well though)

If you plan to play a very long game, maybe you want to marry some daughters (if you get any) so you can end with a huge bloodline (as long as getting lucky with the sex of the kids) but for normal games, and considering the current AI, I see no reason to drag the game in such fashion.

Agree with all of the above.  Two items of explanation that is implied, but not explicitly 'explained' in the above.

1) male children inherit the attributes of the father.  female children inherit the attributes of the mother.  (Their genetics operate differently than they do on Terra.)

2) When you marry off a daughter, she always goes to her husbands faction, and becomes a totally loyal member of it.  When you marry off a son, he remains yours, AND his wife joins your faction and becomes totally loyal.

By 'loyal', I mean YOU can give her orders, and she obeys.  (also unlike life on Terra!)  Hope this helps.

I've had rotten luck with this system, whenever i do marry off my children, their spouse inevitably dies so i get no grandchildren sigh....

There is also a couple buildings which give mana per turn, I think one is the essence temple or something. i forgot their names.

I've had rotten luck with this system, whenever i do marry off my children, their spouse inevitably dies so i get no grandchildren sigh....

I hear you.  Whats even worse, I married off a daughter, once, and then the SOV declared war on me (or I him, I forget).  Anyway, was i shocked, when i entered a tactical battle and saw my daughter taking the field against me.  She was with the enemy forces, and i had to kill her to win the battle.

The only thing yo can do is keep some of your family tucked away someplace safe.

Also do the math and dispel any spells you don't need including imbue champion, and city enchantments that are no longer provinding you benefit.  Like dispel the food producing enchantment when you get your next farm, and dispel arcane weapon when you're away from enemies, prestige spell if your cities have hit their pop cap, movement if your units are resting or part of a slower stack...

Wow, we got a little off topic.

So the options are...

1) have female children with appropriate traits

2) upgrade the shard crystal shrines

3) build an "essence temple" when it becomes available.

Thanks.

In fact, the shrine will upgrade tehmselve automaticly, it's just that when you research shard mastery, you get the "greater shrine" bonus AND you'll be able to build the temple of essence. That one, you build it manually.

I will add this info to the beginner guide i'm doing.