If someone gets the drop on your leader, you're dead.  I'm not necessarily opposed to the game ending if your channeler dies, I just feel that it may be too easy to accomplish that.

Okay. 

Seems like this thread has found a really big basic question for the game. How does using a channeler's fundamental essence to expand usable map territory relate to siezing rival territory through force? Is the fundamental limit what your channeler can personallly sustain, or what your channeler's subservient units can defend?

The way I see it, the player should definitely lose if his avatar dies (and in online games, human players will get a popup telling them they've lost). The problem is what to do with the AI to keep their cities from magically disappearing. I propose having their cities still function at normal capacity, but with no magical help that would have beem given by their rulers. So that way you still have to go back through and take over their cities and powerful units a la the last chapter of Lord of the Rings where they kick Sauruman out of the Shire, but your task will be a lot easier, and there will be no way that that faction can win after that. (But they might just put up enough resistance to allow another empire to surpass you.)

The enemy kingdom/empire that just lost his channeler should, depending of the conditions of the current game:

-Remain neutral. They don't expand but continue building their armies and cities. They have lost their leader but they won't bow down to anyone else and will defend what it's theirs.

-Surrender to the enemy that defeat their channeler. If the other channeler could kill theirs, maybe they will be safer with him, right?

-Join another kingdom/empire different from the one who actually did the killing. Having lost their powerful leader, they decide to join the cause of friendly/trustfull friends/allies to continue the fight (or don't have their cities so easily conquered by their now sworn enemy).

In any case, the channeler dies and there is no successor to him. He failed to fullfill his destiny and now his people pays the price of his failure.

I see necromancy.

but, while we're at it. I played a somewhat similar game called lords of magic. pretty unbalanced, but you do nice things. here is what happened.

normally, if your main character died, it meant game over. thus, you were careful where you sent him. for me, it also meant a fair bit of save/ load. but it made you care about that character.

there was also the possibility of getting an heir. with that, even if your original character died, someone else could still take the place. as such, a succession system sounds interesting. requires essence, more than your standard hero/ champion, but he'd be able to do the same stuff as your starting channeler, only weaker.

if you killed another party, all their troops would not only go neutral, but also go on a quest of vengence. they left their cities and encampments and went straight to your lands to fight you. most of the time they fought hilarious odds, but the idea is nice. if you kill an enemy channeler, then his empire will forever hate you and fight you. they won't have their master's guidance or essence, but they'd still be trouble and prevent you from claiming the lands immediately.

an interesting point of course could be that the sentiment you get after you dispose of a channeler depends on how he treated his people, provided there are such options available. if he was a tyrann and slave master, maybe some cities gladly welcome you as their savior, while they would equally persue you into hell itself, in case you killed their good, just king. just an idea.

Well I think the point is that you can't try and defend your kingdom, you're dead, and you have no kingdom.

I always thought of those things like: the avatar is your window into the world, when the window is closed you have no access any longer. And, as someone else pointed out, the channeler is responsible for the life in the land, upon their death, the land begins to die, your forces have no chance.

I know it sounds spiffy and novel to have the game end when the channeler dies, but I think this will be fatal to the game.  The biggest problem with the original Age of Wonders is the ease of which the game promptly ended.  You would walk into a dungeon or take a wrong turn and be up to your nose in enemies, even if you were proceeding with relative caution.  From the sounds of it, channelers are expected to be proactive when plunging dungeons or attacking opponents.  If this is the case, they will have to succeed in pretty much every battle or the game will be over.  I'm the kind of person that doesn't load his game when I lose a battle or unfortunate things happen, so I would be having to start a new game every other time I sent my channeler to a dungeon (and I don't a game should revolve around loading).  On the same token, I don't want to have to send my channeler to a distant corner of the map to keep him safe while my opponents rake in masses of power with their own channelers.

I'm not averse to the idea of a channeler being mortal and killable, but I think there needs to be plenty of safe guards.  Perhaps at the beginning of the game, channelers are as vulenerable as any hero unit but, as time goes on, the channeler can develop spells or abilities that allow them to participate in warfare directly but have robust contingency plans that would make the casual death of a channeler in a basic battle almost impossible.  For instance, you could develop an incantation avatar spell that allows your channeler to create a single magical avatar of himself (albiet, weaker) who can participate in specific battles while he remains safely in his tower.  What's more, if an incantation avatar is killed, it could inflict XP damange on the channeler.  There could be virtually a dozen means by which a channeler could have recourse if things didn't go well and, if an opposing channeler is whilly enough, can penetrate those safeguards and defeat their opponent.   

If a channeler can be struck down by a couple of lucky lightening bolts or misteps, 2/3rds of your opponents will be dead before you even meet them (not to mention, you will have loaded your game 100 times by the time you reach midgame).  For any of you that played MoM on a harder difficulty level, recall how difficult it was to keep a hero alive throughout the entire game without either loading your game after every other dungeon or customizing your wizard with nothing but life magic to gain a ressurection spell. 

Also, I think that even if a non-player channeler is killed, their empire should continue expanding with a mundane monarch, but without the awesome advantage of having a channeler.  Otherwise, the player will always, with almost no exception, plunge straight toward the "head of the snake" in every conflict to the neglect of other strategies.  That's not even considering the fact that the AI will almost certainly not play cautiously with his channeler and give players an abundance of "cheap shot" opportunities to bring him down.  How dull will the game be if almost every war ends with 1 channeler vs channeler battle, winner takes all?

Frog, I implore you to reconsider.  

Eh. I've never played the original Age of Wonders, but I have played AoW:SM. From your post I get the impression that wizards in the original were more combat-worthy than in Shadow Magic, but I think Stardock has something more in mind. Channelers are supposed to, if you hoard their power, be godlike and capable of single-handedly besting even entire armies. I don't think you'll have many opportunities to lose your channeler in the early game unless you really try to. And even afterwards I don't think it'll be so easy and I'm sure you'll be able to take countermeasures, like the ability to teleport out of danger, or use simulacra, or sauron-like measures like imbuing an item with essence in order to preserve your channeler even in the event of death.

Basically, if you focus on making your channeler powerful rather than making him more of a general support for your kingdom, your channeler will probably pretty safe if you're at all cautious. I'm very much in favor of the game ending when your channeler dies, but I'm kind of assuming that that implies channelers aren't going to be falling left and right.

That's exactly what I don't want to see: Channelers that have such flagrantly powerful abilities on the battlefield that you lose out heftily if you don't have them constantly on the war path, leading your best armies.  I think a lot of people are stuck on the single epic scene of the blood soaked demi-god channeler wading through the ranks of paltry enemy soldiers and aren't really seeing the full ramifications.  And I think one of the reasons why most people aren't averse to the idea of "Channelers die = lose game" is because they'll just haphazardly send their channelers into every battle that they think they might remotely win and load their game if he/she dies (and in some cases, try the same battle over and over again until they eek out a victory).  This will result in an artificially powerful channeler for the player because of all the narrow battles turned to victories vs the opponent's channeler who must play conservatively. 

What's worse is the way in which people will be able to exploit enemy channelers.  An AI will always have shortcomings, and regardless of how brilliant the development team is, there will be plenty of cheap opportunities to kill an opponent's channeler due to AI shortsightedness and abruptly end an otherwise gripping war. 

On the other hand, if you make it too easy for a channeler to ressurect or reconstitue after being killed in the field, than pretty much every battle you commit to will be in the shadow of your all-powerful channeler.

This matter will have to be dealt with tenderly.

By all means, if the devs can make 'channeler dies = game over' an on/off menu option = WIN!  It would also be a nice option for multiplayer (assassination attempts would be loads of fun AND would shorten the game).

But having some type of spell or tech to bring your channeler back to life (with penalties) would also be great.

I could go with defeated factions become a neutral force with a grudge against you....but to have them join another faction afterwards!?!?  That would be unbalanced as hell. 

Killing an opponent would often simply result in losing the game as one of your opponents would suddenly increase in power.