First off I'd like to say I'm very impressed with 1.1 so far; a lot of steps in the right direction. There are of course obvious drawbacks, as to be expected however. One thing I was interested in was the Global mana, or Empire/Kingdom mana. This was a brilliant idea, however in my opinion this could go further: here's a suggestion.

A split between Global and Personal spells. This is actually very simple and not complicated.

Strategic Spells:

Global spells will remain the same: Your intellect level will determine whether or not you can cast a spell; if you can then you must have the amount of Global mana for the spell to be excecuted.

Tactical spells:

Your intellect is converted into mana points when entering tactical combat. In effect it's essentially old-school essence. You regenerate 1 mana per turn (this could be modified in the future with a certain amount of intellect [ie. 1 mana regeneration per 15 intellect] or by items) and your maximum mana is equal to your intellect. Tactical spells require no intellect level to be able to cast, just the energy pool from your intellect points; similar to the old system.

What advantages would this have?

Using this system, their becomes a noticeable split in Strategic spells and Tactical spells. In tactical combat, it will feel more fast-paced and more as if you're in control. Before you could regenerate mana and keep magic combat going; now you can't. Sure if you've got a large mana pool you can blow it consistently in combat. But once you're done thats it, no more mana until after the battle. With a change in Tactical spell-casting, if your opponent is out of mana he is still a threat. If left unchecked, overtime he could further contribute to the battle at hand. Also, your Strategic side won't hurt if you run into a rough tactical situation. I like the Global mana system, I just feel if there was a split between the two things would be much smoother.

What do you guys think?

If this has been mentioned before I apologize