Starting Essence Amounts

I kind of assumed the Channeler creation was going to be very similar to an RPG with all of the Channeler's abilities being derived from stats. I hope there is a stat for Essence that will force the player to choose what type of Channeler he wants to be. This would create a good system of checks and balances for Channeler creation. 

I would hold off on considering essence levels until we knew more about if and how it will come back.

It sounds like it would be an easy option to program and you ceertainly don't have to use it if you want a "fair and square"game.  I like the idea-why not? 

Depending on creation interaction, I wouldn't mind it at all. After all, those with less mana would get something else. As long as it's not random.

Agreed. We don't really know what it does, how it works, how you get more, if it regenerates, or just how much of an impact using it has.

Good points.

I can see holding off on specific levels of essence since we don't know the scale but we do know a few things about essence. 

1. Is important to the channeler for imbuing objects / entities 

2. Is used in some spells 

3. Determines the Channeler's power level when used in conjunction with other potential stats. 

4. Doesn't serve the same purpose as mana.

5. Is expected to be nonrenewable or semi-renewable. 

There is more than enough data for general speculation on essence levels dealing in percentages but any actual numbers (EX: 5 miles of land needs 34 essence to be restored, etc) is impossible to estimate at this point. 

I agree with you about speculating. Many 4x games (and RTS games too) have caps that you can put on while playing multiplayer. It's a fair and good way to improve chances of "less experienced" players vs more mature ones.

This cap can be made not only in essence, but on resource income, or army stats reductions, like Ynglaur mentioned.

I believe having this kind of options enhances re-playability and creates "levels" of challenge for players that already mastered the game. I see no point not having it on.

Greets,

Kata

I don't know about using it as a handicap, as a decision in character creation, sure..

Could also help to stregnthen the AI to make the game more challenging on the most difficult levels instead of giving them some of that free stuff (see above).

How'd you get #3 on your list? Did I miss a dev post or did you catch something in IRC?

Yeah, did somebody let something slip? I never heard about this.....

I came to the conclusion for 3 using an aggregate representation of Channeler power.

 [QUOTE=Frogboy] Player A may have a huge army ready to steamroll but Player B may have an incredibly powerful sovereign who can wipe out vast armies and Player C may have built up an incredible well of mana that can be used to decimate vast swaths of the world and all three of these things could come together at once based on which path players take….  [/QUOTE]

 In the quote above Brad mentions that a Player could have a huge army, an extremely powerful Channeler, or huge reserves of mana. This implies that the Channeler with the highest combat prowess doesn’t need/have that much mana. If this is true where else can his power come from but essence or some combination of essence and other stats? Obviously I don’t know exactly how this will work but since essence seems to be a Channeler only energy and its role is separate from mana it isn’t that hard to conclude one should factor it in a quantified Channeler power level. 

The reasoning works for me; hope it applies to the built game as well. Thanks.

Hmm, one-shot wonder Channelers who aren't necessarily glass cannons.  I like it...

The idea of having different Chanellers at the begining of the game does make sense to me.

They are all powerful all in their own way. It would make the game a lot more interesting to say the least.

As long as it was balanced in some way, of course.