I think it makes more sense in a thematic way. Let' say you're building a Warlord/Warrior Sovereign and you put a heavy focus on your Strength I think that a small bonus to Warfare would be nice because in a thematic way it shows your Sovereigns dedication to "Way of the Warrior". 

Eh, give them a warlord trait that helps with Warfare research then, but for everyone else it should not.

To quote an earlier poster:
Why wasn't essence kept as a cap on how much mana can be spent by a unit during a single battle? Kinda like the casting points in Age of Wonders.

I'm curious about this, as well. The problem is that, without a per turn limit, there is no feeling of relative power. What fun is it to have my newly-imbued champion channeling the same amount of mana per turn as my sovreign? It's not.

Barring a cap, what about a %mana increase for imbued champions to represent inefficiency that scales down based on INT? I'm also not thrilled about the dodge to attack ratio, and that there are random distributions on the damage rolls, but I'll reserve final judgment until I actually play.

I completely agree. I don't think sov stats should directly affect research, as it it make no sense. I can understand the idea of wanting to add some kind of thematic flavor to the game, but this would probably be better attached to classes instead of skills. So then the thief character gets a bonus to researching adventure because it makes sense thematically, but not simply because my sovereign has a dex of 30.

I am not sure why some people are unhappy with removing essence in general. It was a fairly arbitrary limitation on the power of the sovereign, and was a fairly OP stat as far as pre 1.1 is concerned. I mean why would anyone want to put points into anything else. Since none of us have actually played the new version, nor seen exactly how global mana works, I think it is safe to say that any outrage over the removal of essence is probably veiled outrage over the devs ignoring some small community conversation about how these players saw the future of the stat.

So far a lot of the OP sounds like it is moving in the right direction. Though I think think that tactical combat should be expanded even further, I think the changes above will make combat feel a lot more balanced. This sounds like a good first step towards a more interesting game.

It is more the fact that it will not matter who casts a spell, the only diffrence between one hero and the next (when it comes to spell) will be what spell they will have access to.

If the most expensive spell in the game only costs 20 mana (like now) then you don't really need a mana-per-turn limit as you are never going to get into multi-turn casting. If you can afford to cast ten 20 mana spells in one turn then you probably deserve to be able to.

On the other hand if the game is to become more like MOM and have epic-level spells, then multi-turn casting and a per-turn limit will probably inevitably evolve into Elemental.

Note that some spells will have scale with the caster's intelligence. Based on how things are now, I'd imagine that this "some" actually means "every single one where that could possibly be the case".

oh, okay. That's a very elegant solution.

Yes... until you research a more powerful spell. If the game can reach a point where that doesn't happen, then that's a problem, but it's not a problem with this particular system. And we've seen no indication that that problem exists. If you decide, "okay, this champion can use this powerful spell, that's good enough" and then invest in other attributes, then that's a decision you're making, and it should be valid, but it doesn't detract from the ability to not do that.

Also note that the fact that Intelligence buffs many spells is also relevant here.

i am really hoping that we can make heroes much more varied.  i worry with this system that all of my heroes will be spell casters.  i would like to create heroes that are good in different things.  would it not be good that heroes gain essence with each level and that essence would be spent on spells and abilities?  i would like to purchase a spinning attack for my awesome warrior hero, or buy a new spell for my wizard hero.

You must have missed that conversation, intelligence is only for the spells you will be able to cast.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/399192/page/6

Currently there is a max level of 10 for spells as there are none above that. Yes they could go above that, but what is bigger than the Spell of Making that makes you all powerful and win the game? Thus after level 10 (if you are going all INT) there will be no reason to invest in INT, the only magic stat in the game.

I did indeed miss that, thank you. However, the OP of this thread explicitly states that Intelligence "boosts some spells", so even if intelligence was planned to have no such effect half a month ago, it is clear that it is planned to do at least something of that nature now. The cited reason for removing it is to decrease confusion. Lots of games do something like specify a constant damage value and add a stat modifier to it. That would be accurate to both the anti-confusion goal, and the new information in this thread, and is what I suspect that they're doing.

see

In other words, a champion either has essence, and thus can use magic, or does not, and thus can not. Sovereigns always have essence, and champions must be imbued, which apparently had a mana upkeep now. So far as I know, nobody's talked about where heirs fit in.

Why do you have to remove wisdom completely... why can't you just ignore it and keep it invisible to the player?  Who knows there might come a reason you want it back.

Overall this looks good, but also I wanted to say I'm less than enthused by one more popup slapping me in the face.  Between idle cities and caravans I'll barely be able to see the game.  Can't we have a different system for these kinds of alerts, like icons off to the side?