[Suggestion] Refresh Essence

from Elemental Forums

Essence, from what I know, is supposed to be required for certain spells, and to make cities. It also is only capable of being raised by leveling up.

From most all other RPGs, levelling up would probably be harder and harder as the game goes on. As well as later in the game, the fighting gets more dangerous, so you might now want to put your soverign in danger. And, thus, essence is a super rare valuable resource, that is hard to get more of.

I, as a player, HATE THAT. I see that, unless I want to risk my soverign and an instant game over, I can never get more. And as a turn based game, games tend to last a long time. So what's my initial instinct? To hoard all of the essence, and never ever spend any of it. Which, of course, means that some cool spells I'd never actually get to use except in the first five minutes when I'm assured to win.

My suggestion: Implement some way to use a renewable resource(mana, time, or both) to create essence. It doesn't have to be particularly effective, just as long as there's a way, avaliable middle of the game or so at the longest. That would help the hoarding reflex a lot.

Alternatively, simply have it an 'investment' that you can take back at any time. Investing into an item which you can take back(though, maybe needing to destroy the actual item to take it back), taking your power back out of the land causing it to slowly revert, your essence coming back when one of your champions die/you choose to retake it. Similar to concept to units in RTS games taking up 'command points', except with powerful ongoing spells and items. By having the choice to get your essence back to remove an effect(even if it requires you to go kill something), the hoarding reflex is gone.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

essence is only required to make cities on hostile terrain. it is very hard to see with current graphics, but once you start a city it will convert deadlands into good lands which you can then build cities on for free.

Essence is meant to be the be all end all, it is what makes you live 800 years, it is what must be used to restore the land, and it can only be gained in level up.

the vast majority of spells will not use essence.

so far essence is used for:

1. creating a city on deadlands.

2. imbuing a (commander) unit with the ability to cast magic. (requires a spell + research project)

3. Your max mana = your essence score.

other uses are intended to all be pretty damn epic.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting taltamir, reply 1
essence is only required to make cities on hostile terrain. it is very hard to see with current graphics, but once you start a city it will convert deadlands into good lands which you can then build cities on for free.

Essence is meant to be the be all end all, it is what makes you live 800 years, it is what must be used to restore the land, and it can only be gained in level up.

the vast majority of spells will not use essence.

so far essence is used for:

1. creating a city on deadlands.

2. imbuing a (commander) unit with the ability to cast magic. (requires a spell + research project)

3. Your max mana = your essence score.

other uses are intended to all be pretty damn epic.

Yes, that's all well and great. Except that...

1. Why would I want to do that, if the first city slowly spreads habitable lands? I could spend essence to have the city NOW, or I could wait some time until my lands spread. Time is a renewable resource in the game, so...

2. Imbuing a unit with essence means that unit can STILL DIE. Which means wasted essence. Which means hoarding reflex means I won't want to spend the essence on it.

3. Okay so... I can spend my permanent essence which I never get any more of(without levels) to do something powerful and good once.... or I could keep it to be able to cast more spells all the time. That doesn't help people want to actually spend it.

Not saying that essence isn't balanced the way it is, on levelups only. I'm just suggesting that the use of it is encouraged by making it refreshable somehow. Even if, again, you're better off making more units or building up your cities rather than refreshing it, as long as there's a way.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm very interested to know what we're looking at here in terms of income and expenditure of essence. How much essence does your sovereign gain, and how much is that relative to the costs of expenditure? Is it that you needs be extremely frugal, or is it something approaching plenty or abundance?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

In all honesty you get a lot of essence. You get 15 at start, and each city costs 5. Every time you gain a level you can get 10. You gain levels pretty quickly, or at least in my experience.

3 cities is a huge production base.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Most spells don't cost essence. In fact almost none of them do. In actually playing the game I don't feel a need to keep more than 5 points at any given time, and freely cast regular magic quite regularly. Once I have my initial city base, I usually allow the natural spread of healing to make more without even needing to use essence.