I wouldn't be opposed although some of these seem rather weak. The +1 X from Enchanted Hammers or Nature's Bounty seems spot on to me though with regards to opportunity cost.

I would love to hear what seems weak.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Hm, I guess we just don't agree on the matter, the benefit from both Avarice, Meditation, and Inspiration is really powerful, at the moment these are the spells I most frequently use due to the powerbase, two of these can even run with high taxes due to unrest not penalizing gold income and mana income.
Inspiration is way too important in the current game to progress research and is one of the reasons that building a city in a zero essence square is worthless, you gain huge amounts of research from inspiration, that is why I think a +1 research per turn is a good balance due to it being affected by all the different benefits in the Conclave city selection, but also any bonus to research will set you in front of the other players not using the same benefit, take a look at the current system, in what city is a +1 bonus to research a marginal bonus?

That said, I respect your opinion, and I will welcome the ideas.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I think the system is working fine, we just need to balance the numbers. Growth is way too high in the game right now. Generally about 50% comes from Sov's Call and 45% comes from Prestige. Towns are not doing enough growth, Sov's Call is doing too much. So cut Sov's call down to +.5 Growth per Essence. Inspiration could be fine as +1 per Essence as long as the new enchantments can outclass that spell. Technology should give us better enchantments than the ones we start with. We should be canceling weak early game spells in favor of new ones. Currently the best spell is Enchanted Hammers. It can give you crazy amounts of Production. It needs to be Earth 2. There should be a new enchantment in the tech tree for a production boost. Grain bonuses are a good upgrade most of the time. It forces you to lose an early game enchantment in order to level up that city. I also like that Pariden can specialize in not needing to choose. Works well as a faction power. The major problem with balance is that Essence increases in power by building a faction building and leveling a city. Grain and Materials upgrade by research. The two methods will never really be balanced until Essence begins to also rely on technology. 

I have to say I personally think a material is fucking great even compared to a point of essence. If there's a forest nearby, and a river, even better. Of course, essence grows exponentially in power - so a city with 2 essence gains 4 times as much from essence as a city with 1 essence does. So any city with 2 essence, or any conclave, always take the essence.

I think essence just needs to be more common and usable to all the factions, thus making Pariden's faction building good but not godly.  That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.  Things like Tower of Dominion could give essence.  Or so could Temples of Essence.  Oracle could be bumped to +2 essence on city level up. 

So it's not as godly.  You're not doomed if your second city has 1 or 0. 

True materials are slightly important too, I usually look for a 3 material spot with as much essence as possible, ignoring grain or further materials. 3 tends to be enough to get proper troop production, leftover essence tends to boost units trained exponentially...
or economy so I can have more troops

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I try to bring up these subjects about the city enchant spells to bring a sense of balance into the game, so agree with Sean here.

That said, yes I can win without essence too, but that have nothing to do with balance, but something to do with a confused AI.

I just found hard too easy, using a trog faction, and a 2 essence city as my unit producing city, (+4 initiative to all the Trog troops).
Its just not a challenge when I can take advantage of a silly balance, and the AI plays the game as the game is supposed to feel.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

The random start generator seems a bit buggy at times - one game it started me in a desert with no tiles to settle at all. On other occasions I'll get just 2 or 3 tiles to settle on. This is not a failing of essence it is the map generator not balancing player starts well.

But normally if I don't get essence I'll get something else to compensate. I find for every 5 or 6 city sites 1 will have two essence, which is fine as that becomes my conclave/fortress. Essence is supposed to be good but it's not decisive. I think inspiration as a starting spell is too strong though so they should make it available in the 2nd column of the magic tree. Essence will be fine then.

Some of you seem too keen to call for the nerf hammer when it's not really necessary

its not a nerf hammer for 1 essence cities, its a hope to rebalance the essence system so low essence is still worth as much as high essence, jeeses chill out, I get that you don't like the idea, I cannot understand why.

The game is lacking balance so much, that is what being in beta means... (ok not exactly, but balance have not been a main focus so far), and you have to nerf some things, and boost other things to get a really well-balanced game, and honestly I have tried games before, and left them due to balance making them almost unplayable for more than just looking at the concept.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

@ Kongdej

I'm chilled, but I think it would be better to train the AI to use the present system, plus make it really hard to get multipliers beyond 3. Also maybe some tweaking needs to be done to the random start generator.

That might work but the difference between spots with 1 and 2 essence would still be huge, and the occasional spot with 3 would still be ridiculous. You could still make city enchantments increase with each essence on a city but instead have a base and a small multiple instead of 1 huge multiple.

I also like the idea of city enchantments multiplying existing resources instead of adding to and replacing them. Where X is the amount of essence.

Inspiration could be +1 Research + (10*X)% to Research.

That way enchantments don't replace buildings simply improve them.