So its my first play through on Legendary Heroes (I've played FE more than a few times).

The game improves a lot of things, I wont go into the details of that here, but i'm generally very happy with the overall product. 

I am however rather frustrated when it comes to city essence, which apparently is almost entirely missing from my world.  My starting city got 2 essence, and of the other 5 cities I now have their is a total of 0 essence. 

Even the enemy cities I've seen appear to be devoid of any essence. Was this reduced massivly in LH? Have i had some horrid run of bad luck, and most importantly is there a creation option i can select so I can play a game with cities that actually have essence.