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.

Yes!

Yes!

and Yes!

Great Points!

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'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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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).

Or they could just create Horcruxes (Horcruxi?)

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.. ??