Well, it would certainly add an interesting question to game strategy.  Should you try to spearhead an assassination attempt before whittling down your opponent's Empire, or should you take out his entire powerbase before finishing off the enemy Channeler.

Other factors that could influence your decision (in regards to fallen factions joining other factions) would include:

-are you already at war with your opponent's ally (who I assume would inherit the assassinted Channeler's cities) = if you kill the Channeler, even though you'd end up fighting the same # of cities, you would only have 1 Channeler opposing you

-Perhaps you can manipulate/manuever one of your allies/opponent's enemies into killing them = you might have a shot at inhereting the defeated faction's empire.

Still, I would prefer it if defeated factions became neutral with a grudge towards the side that beat them.

Well, it seems like we are all agreed on the fact that we all would like to see the game end when the channeler dies, but that there must be an abundance of opportunities for the channeler to have recourse.  As for what happens after the channeler dies, I somewhat like the city conversion idea, but with a few ammendments.  Personally, I don't see how city conversion to an arbitrary ally really makes all that much sense.

If most of the cities were built by the channeler and were not simply conquered, they should sustain a nation of their own with a new non-magical leader.  If they were loyal to the recently passed channeler, then they maintain a grudge and perhaps some of his/her more loyal heroes lead armies on a campaign of "vengeance" against you, breaking away from their former faction and razing whatever cities of yours that they come across until their bloodlust is satiated.  If they were not loyal to their previous faction and perhaps were the aggressors in the war (forced to do battle with you by their tyrannical channeler) then maybe they might hastily sign a peace treaty.

Cities that were conquered by the deceased channeler would more than likely launch revolts in an effort to reunite with their former faction or declare independance for themselves alltogether.

Here's another suggestion to chew on.

If a Channeler kills another Channeler in direct combat, the victorious Channeler should get a tiny fraction of the defeated Channeler's essence.  Just a little something that might encourage (reward) people to take a chance on leader versus leader combat.

Yes!

Yes!

and Yes!

Great Points!

Yep making this an option would solve one of the games biggest controversies!

As an option would be nice.

I'm more curious as to what happens to a players (AI or human) empire when their avatar dies. Do all mines/cities/roads etc just vanish? Do the cities turn uncontrolled neutral, to be conquered or made into allies?

I know in a few RTS games have the option to change victory conditions between "destroy all buildings" and "destroy all buildings AND units" before a player is removed from the game.  It isn't unreasable to think we could have several options for what counts as a player's "death" as well as the results of what happens when that occurs.

I know I'd be interested in a game type that allowed me to capture the master wizard tower and gain control of all said wizard's territory.

I'd rather see something like the banishment system from the RTS Sacrifice. Once destroyed the channeler would return after a number of terms determined by a several factors. In order to completely destroy the channeler some ritual would have to be performed before the channeler reappears in the world (although in a weakened state: low health, low mana). The channeler would have to reappear at the place where the ritual needs to be performed so that if the channeler reappears the enemy would be able to quickly destroy him unless a large army of reinforcements has been summoned to protect the channeler.

I don't know why nobody suggested this already, but here is a neat idea for allowing Channelers to return from death BUT with a penalty.

As with Master of Magic, allow a 'Spell of Return' to be cast to return a Channeler to life.

However, instead of Mana, the 'Spell of Return' costs ESSENSE!!!!  It even makes sense that the Channeler would use up some of his life force to return from the dead, right?

I don't want there to be any ways to posthumously resurrect your channeler. There should be measures that can be taken by your channeler ahead of time to guard against an untimely demise, but it should have to be done before death. These can include using simulacra, or casting a spell to automatically teleport your channeler out of harm if his health falls too low. Or he could pull a Sauron and imbue an object with part of his soul, so that if he is killed he will slowly regenerate. All of these methods should require essence.

But I really don't want to see ways of resurrecting your channeler after he has already died. If your channeler dies and you haven't already taken countermeasures, you lose.

Channeler death should equal "game over man, GAME OVER!!". I personally wouldn't have my Channeler enter the field of battle unless...

A. I had no choice in the matter.

or 

B. I thought it was safe enough.

If I was foolish enough to throw my Channeler up against an enemy Channeler + a Dragon + an entire army I deserve to lose the game. If I was foolish enough to have my Channeler wander out deep into enemy territory all by his lonesome and he gets killed I had it coming. I do however agree nations that have been broken should be able to ally with other nations or be absorbed by the attacker. 

Going on what Pigeonpigeon said, the Channeler could use some of his Essence to make a 'return to life portal' in case he dies somewhere along the way.

The balance here is:

Choice 1: Your Channeler will sacrifice a bit of his essence to make this 'get out of death free' card.

OR

Choice 2: Keep the Essense and make his Channeler a bit stronger (and a bit less likely to die) instead....but if he dies = game over!

I would like to be able to spend resources, in preperation not at death, to do some magic that allows you to return, weakened, from death- but only once.  And a good bit of resouces/magic/w/e

In the origional Master of Magic as long as you had another city you got a chance to come back. I remember killing some of the ai's and them coming back in like 10 turns and sometimes turning the tables on me and I almost lose. I surely don't think they should ruin this game right off by copying Triumphs pos game that if you kill the wizard the entire race loses. That was the most rediculous thing Triumph introduced. Once again I hope Stardock isn't that stupid. People want to conquer the ENTIRE race not just some wizard. I want to fight it out to the last burning city of mine or theirs.

For the love of grace at least MAKE IT AN OPTION for onboard or offboard wizards like AOW1 did it if you're going to implement this stupid idea of the wizard is ALL things great in this game. Personally I won't buy it if that's the way it works because I hated AOW:SM and AOW:II because of it.

I think most of us prefer the idea of the Channeler being on the map and an actual unit!  Considering the game concept, I don't think it would be possible for the Channeler to not actually be present on the map.

Personally, I would like to be able to defeat an enemy Channeler without having to destroy every single last city of his.As for what should happen with the defeated Channeler's leftover cities and units, there are still discussions presently going on.

Personally, I would like to see the cities go neutral and have to be conquered.  Before a battle starts, maybe attacking players who are the same 'race' as the neutral city can get an option to buy out the garrison (like Age of Wonders).

Left over units should become neutral and can attack any forces that come into their range...except same race players can move by them unmolested (similar to Age of Wonders)

No way that is the most stupid idea ever and that is why AOW series suks since AOW:II and why there is no AOW:III the series suks the game failed and everyone started playing something else.

I implore stardock developers do not ruin this game as Triumph did making the wizard the central tactical feature of the game. It narrows the strategy choices down to just diplomatically make peace with the race you want to conquer. March 3 or more full stacks up to the enemy castle and then declare war and kill the wizard and destroy the entire race. The AI can just not play against this strategy and therefore it is what ruined the solo element of AOW:II and AOW:SM. All you have to do is go read the AOW forums on the worst thing about AOW and it's the AI as the number one reason. It just cannot defense with it's wizard the prime target. At least in MOM you had to conquer most all of the enemy property. On the other hand if you are going to implement this stupid idea at least make it where the AI wizard can come back to another castle/city after so many turns until ALL of his castles/cities are gone. That I can live with.

Well that's pretty stupid because in AOW1 that was the OPTION every player had whether to have the channeler onboard or offboard. This way it gave everyone the choice they wanted. Either to conquer the entire map or just go kill the AI wizard and get all fuzzy cause they just beat the AI in 3 turns. lmfao.

Sorry, which idea was the 'most stupid idea ever'?  Hehe. As you can see, I touched on a few things in my post.  I was hoping you could enlighten us all on what would make this the best game ever.

***PLEASE READ THIS DEVS***

As far as the 'use diplomacy-march troops next to enemy leader-delcare war = win!' strategy you spelled out, there is one important difference with Elemental.  Elemental will have actual Empire borders....marching your troops into an opponents territory might instantly end your peace treaty (although this might still be a strategic weakness for the AI if you can get them to become ALLIES).

Also, Elemental could have a faction 'reputation' that will influence how the AI sees you.  If you break a treaty and/or kill an opponent within a couple of turns of breaking the peace, the AI could be programmed to never make peace/alliance treaties with you again.

Oh, and while I loved AOW, I also hated AOW:II (everything epic and fun about the first one was somehow lost in the second one).  So we are agreed on that much.

Ahh good then you ain't half bad afterall. AOW:II and AOW:SM were a sham and a waste of good programming time. Now about that RANDOM MAP GENERATOR for EWoM??? Don't do what Triumph did and leave it out until the 3rd remake. EWoM MUST HAVE a RANDOM CAMPAIGN MAP GENERATOR and random starting points just like MOM. Lol I must sound like the spoilt brat that I was growing up cause I was the last child of the family and got everything I wanted. You should have heard my oldest brother scream when I got a GO-KART lol.

I'd still prefer a succession system of some sort, but if we can't have that, I'm also still basically for dead channler=game over.

But I really like the idea of making an exception for channelers who want to do something in advance (i.e. make some at least moderately long-term investments) to give themselves a possible exception to this general rule.

My pre-beta hope for the game is that channelers will face an ongoing, competing set of goals that entail demands for both mana and spell-casting time. In a fantasy game, Trying to Avoid Death No Matter What seems to be a reasonable goal. But work towards that goal should divert mana and casting time from other magical efforts. And if you're talking about Preparing to Avoid Death, I'd expect a per-turn 'preparedness' cost of some sort.

You(Ya) and some others want but not everybody agrees. The effects of conquering the civilization by killing the wizard or by conquering all the cities are the same: You destroy them from the game as opponents. The only difference is that killing the channeler, his civilization is still there and what to do with it must be decided, which could end with them joining other forces, being indendant force,... In any case, just avoid killing the enemy channeler while you destroy his cities.

And if Stardock uses this system of "death = game over", they wouldn't be stupid. Like they weren't stupid for not having multiplayer for Gal Civ II.

I'd vote for a toggle in skirmish so people can play it as they want but not for campaign. In the campaign you die you lose (would make sense based on the story after all). But for skirmish if should be an option like may other ideas that are being considered.

Then we can talk, as it has been already talked, about ways a channeler has to prevent his demise. And how he deserves to lose the game if he didn't take the measures to prevent death and/or he was a fool doing foolish things (we are going to suppose that it's not possible to have a random death by weaker creatures or something, that would be cheap).

Well we don't know anything yet, but I tend to agree most with Swicord. I too, loved the discussions about a succession system but I think there are many ways to go about it also. Such as during artifact creation, a Channeler could imbue it with a decent amount of essence and give it to a hero. Upon the untimely death of said Channeler, the hero could then take that artifact to a specific area on the map... say the Fires of Seyrdris (See Elemental Suggestions/Ideas Post) and reincarnate him/her. However, no matter which ways its done, there are always going to be disagreements.

As for what would happen if an enemy Channeler were to be killed, I personal would like to see the game continue. Maybe the nation's cities could go neutral. However, I think it would be interesting that if the Channeler did not prepare for death either by way of a successor or imbued artifact, the nation would remain the same, but the lands in which his country resided would fade and slowly return to wasteland (thus unable to worked and hunger and death would ensue) as his essence which he imbued in the lands would leave the realm to follow him. And this would also start happening if the hero took too long to reincarnate the Channeler even if he had imbued an artifact. Idk, that kind of thing interests me but I don't know if it could work in a game

Just my two cents. Thanks for listening

Or they could just create Horcruxes (Horcruxi?)

My 2 cents:

Assassination: Kill the enemy Channeler.

Supremacy: Kill the Channeler, all cities, and all Champions.

Annihilation: Kill everything.

Sandbox: Never ends.

I just applied the SupCom settings.

Hey, whatever works great idea by Rowling if you ask me, tho it shouldn't be an entirely evil thing to do... But maybe if you incorporated a sanity level of your channeler that I think Luckmann mentiioned in passing somewhere before.. ??

Yes I think the game should end and that faction eliminated when their channeler dies.  This is a more forgiving victory condition, if you are behind. Because you always have the chance to win if you could just get to the channeler, even if out numbered.

that alone is a strong enough incentive to keep playing and keep fighting.