I agree in the similarities between landmarking and power but I think that the changes made to the system that we know in Lusternia make it more enjoyable to actually get power and certainly less complicated and frustrating. Landmarking got to the point that people hated it because it lacked room to expand and it only came once every so often so it just became monotonous. With power, we have many more options and many more ways of getting power and helping our respective cities and guilds than just killing some people and staying in spot for a set period of time.

I will comment on what I have observed with organization. When the dwarves revolted, I was curoius to see how the cities reacted, so I listened in on the different city channels. Serenwilde was not doing much of anything. Maybe a player who logged in would ask what was happening and someone would mention the dwarves revolted. Magnagora, on the other hand, had literally just a handful of people who were instantly organizing things. Since that small handful took the reigns of directing things, everyone else in the city followed. I think that is a perfect example of why that city does better: they have a good combination of people who enjoy leading and people who enjoy following. (And I don't mean that in a negative way. The follow-the-leader position in politics is much less stressful and ideal for the calm player who wants to do more passive things, like trade, questing, or philosophizing, and would rather keep the mess of inter-city politics for others to deal with.)

What if there were ways to get power that were not condusive to war? For example, gathering items that are not in competition with other cities and not in territories prone to war like the villages and planes. Perhaps there are some items in the sea for Celest to gather that no other city needs, or items in the blighted swamp for Magnagora. Personally I find those sorts of "mailman quests" to be dull, but maybe others have differing opinions.

I don't think a more passive power gathering is a bad idea, per se.

I think messenger quests are dull. Between 'take corpse to X, take commodity raw material to Y' blech.

I worry about this particular example, thinking of those who spent landmarking time spamming 'get lily' even if they were just preventing the other side from getting them...eventually people will get tired of that and someone will start attacking, etc. In other words, I doubt it would be so pleasant as 'lets go out in the swamp and pick some power berries' as I'd expect each side to do what they could to stop the easy power acquisition by the others, if they can spare the personpower.

Just because other cities 'don't need them' doesn't mean we won't still compete to get them, just so THEY can't have them. Just a thought.

What I'd like to see if more use of the Influence skills. I mean, that's what they're here for, right, a way of getting experience without fighting?
How about an Empowered villager will produce slightly more power and slightly more commodities if he's regularly Empowered. And conversely, a Weakened villager would produce less.
That'll mix in village-economics with something to do for people who don't like fighting.
Could be a great thing for novices who wants to get away from the cramped Newton Caves. Get a group going with bromide and mana vials, and go out chanting Laetitia now and then.

In some respects, the difference between the potency of the cities has to do with the will to do things.

Within their current morality, Celest's only response to the slaying of people in their villages is either to defend or kill the undead dwarves. They won't go in and slay villagers devoted to their enemies. I don't think this should necessarily change because it would really devolve into a case where there was no difference between the cities.

However, since their enemies feel no restraint in this area, they can dictate the terms of the conflict. They decide which villages to attack to draw off people from one place to another so they can shift back to the other place. Celest is in a reactive role and that is what leads to some of the frustration and is why 3-4 can lead 10-15 Celestians around by the nose.

Another element certainly is leadership. When defense is organized, I have yet to hear someone from Celest talk about tactics other than Target X first. No one says, you web him, I will do this, you follow up with this ritual and Tom will do that. Everyone sorta flails about hoping to do damage which is probably why 4-5 people fail to take down 1 pretty often.

I admit, i get my butt killed alot because I am trying to save up for some decent armour and have neglected to buy other herbs and elixirs and still am not comfortable with my healing aliases so I am not one to talk.

I think a proactive, focussed plan on Celest's part might aid in alleviating some of the frustration. There is some great organization in some areas like quest completion, so certainly the potential is there.

One of the biggest gripes I have is not with the game, but with the people playing it. Specifically, the people who chose to join New Celest and then want to do nothing but pick herbs, mix potions, and kill rats. They aren't playing for the war and it's very demoralizing to the dozen people or so who are. Go hug a tree, you hippies!

As John Stuart Mill points out in his wonderful writings, greed causes people to get off their behinds and act more than any other force. (As opposed to other human forces that are stronger when causing inaction, staying the hand so to speak.) So when there is no material gain in destroying someone else's quest then people tend not to act hostilely in countering that quest.

With landmarks, I may not need the lillies, but the lillies are used to convert a landmark I compete for. Thus taking away a lilly keeps the landmark on my side. Thus I have material gain in stealing lillies when measured with oppertunity costs. With Occultism, preventing an Occultist from getting a karmic item does not push something to your side, and so I get no material gain. This is why I think Occultism's item gathering did not cause nearly as much chaos as Landmarking. Plus the target items were spread out thinly across areas that did not lend themselves to conflict.

Of course, gathering for Occultism is exceedingly dull, but the principle behind it I hope makes my point. Something with that principle but not dull...would that be worthwhile?

Honestly, I don't think it would be worthwhile Roark. As it stands, there are peaceful ways to gain power (at least for the Serenwilde). Even if it means nothing more than doing comm quests. A village provides power and comms dependant on it's success, aye?

So if a village (such as Estelbar) is heavily populated by a city/commune performing quests...running chickens, delivering rockeaters, bringing sheep...the village will produce more. It provides a rather peaceful method of helping the commune/city. In addition, it provides personal gain with the gold and experience given for these quests.

Doing this constantly helps weaken the others as well, for taking the cow to -your- village means that they can't take it to theirs. It harms the other organizations, if in a way difficult to measure, strengthens your own and gives you a bonus as well.

Otherwise we're just gathering items when bored. Reminds me of quests like the old ribbon in Shallam (Achaea/Aetolia). You didn't even bother half the time, because there wasn't much point.

I was under the impression that the quests like the comm quests were causing some of the grief. Since taking the cow to my village instead of yours harms you through oppertunity costs, you try to kill me. Am I misunderstanding that? This is in contrast to me taking a cow that you have abosultely no way to gain from, but I gain from.

Don't fight...? In Magnagora, you go and die for your city, or you are killed for not doing so. Seeing as my character is nigh-powerless against those who give the threats, it's not really an option.

It's possible I misunderstood what You were saying. I'm at work and mildly distracted.

However, I have -never- seen someone attacked over having a cow or sheep behind them. Enslaved furrikins yes, but a cow? Not in my experience. Granted, those cows can be rather viscious...

Actually, re-reading the earlier post I did misinterpret. If You could find a way to gather resources or do something for personal material benefit (as opposed to the weakening of another) that wasn't dull, I'd be for it. Though, I can say that I can't picture anything like that.

Meh, most of the threatening goes on ONLY when we can't get anyone at all to help defend our interests - and to be honest, I have never seen it ever go beyond threats. So stop being so thin skinned Ihsahn and just help around the city more

Oh, I'll really kill someone if they do not come to defend Nil.

Well I have a meager amount of lessons invested in fighting skills, and for some reason it just doesn't feel right to me to be called upon by my city to be an expendable walking punching bag. Let's see...in defending Nil, I tapped Shiro's shield twice and was annihilated by Gorgulu.

I'll still help out if the situation is so desperate IC, but OOC I'll never like it.

I am too busy trying to defend the rest of Magnagora's interests most of the time without bothering out how the hell im going to defend Nil, so go ahead and kill me Silvanus - that is if you can catch me Ask Valek - I am EXTREMELY proficient in running from people trying to kill me.

There's always that outcitizen button.

My biggest beef is Serenwilde's leadership. I have no qualm with Nikua, except that he was shrubbed. And yet he stayed as leader of a commune all through the shrubbing period, and was still a leader when he came out. Why? I don't know. Does shrubbing not really mean anything here? Obviously Nikua had to go against the rules of Lusternia for such drastic action to be taken, yet he was allowed to remain as the leader.

To me, that just says, "Sure. Break the rules. Sure, you might be shrubbed for half a week, but there'll be no real long term damages. You can still control a city if you want to."

The issue we had with him was resolved. Whilst we did think long and hard about whether he should be replaced anyway, we decided that we'd leave it up to the city to challenge him if they felt it was necessary.

I think leaving it up to the citizens was a great choice, Auseklis, at least for the first offense. And since the way you put your comment of thinking hard about it, i doubt he'd be so lucky on his second error.. which sounds just about right to me.