So who won what villages? I had to go to sleep last night...and I'm at work now and can't go in and see.

I like the idea of all the villages revolting at the same time too. Village influencing was the best at the first time, when all of them didn't belong to anyone.

However, we will have to do something with the city politics then. If the villages rebel at the same time, we'll have to remove the political option of making the villages produce less wares, but having them allied to us longer, or vice versa.

It'd be bad for them all to revolt at once. It would mean that doing things to keep them happy would have very little effect, and keeping villages influenced to you by helping them out is quite a good idea. And I don't see a need to have the influences at the day, because the months shift anyway, so it makes very little difference, in the long run. Just a thought.

I'm with AmajoS on this.. could someone put up the POLITICS screen and let us poor working stiffs see how everyone did?

Estarra, I know You all have a lot of things to do already, but, what about, say... people being able to influence villages to Glomdoring? I mean, I influence players, would be nice to have a village to ourselves. Course, that would mean a comm shop, but hey, having a fourth underdog would make it... interesting.

***********************CURRENT POLITICS IN LUSTERNIA***********************

Stewartsville: The Sovereign Republic of Magnagora
Estelbar: The Forest of Serenwilde
Acknor: The Sovereign Republic of Magnagora
Delport: The Grand Duchy of New Celest
Rockholm: The Sovereign Republic of Magnagora
Southgard: The Sovereign Republic of Magnagora
Angkrag: The Sovereign Republic of Magnagora
Dairuchi: Uninfluenced

For specifics on a city or commune, see POLITICS .
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Today is the 18th of Tzarin, 103 years after the Coming of Estarra. The phase
of the moon is that of the Waning Gibbous.

In your world it is Monday, the 22nd of November, in the year 2004.
In your world, it is 19:59 GMT.

I can't say I like this new influence system at all, I've spent 4 solid hours influencing for Dairuchi and others have spent loads more hours doing this. The first hour was fun, but then it started to get more and more boring and I can see that I'm going to dread village influencing coming along. I miss the fast paced action that we used to have in influencing.

I agree...I remember the days of organizing groups of Landmarkers back on Achaea, when Aetolia was brand new. It was a nightmare...and this is decidedly remniscent of it, save that unlike the landmarks we don't -know- when it is going to end.

Regarding Dairuchi, they are actually leaning towards two organizations. It is not enough to influence the denizens there, but also to make sure that no other organization influences it either. I'm not sure if even under the old system if Dairuchi would be influenced by either side because of the fierce competition for it thus far.

As you are from Magnagora, I will only say that Magnagora got a late start iin Dairuchi and other organizations had made enormous headway. If Magnagora spent 4 solid hours of influencing, and if another organization had already spent 4 solid hours of influencing (just as an example), then basically the village would be stuck between considering Magnagora or the other organization. In other words, if there's serious competition, don't expect a resolution for some time.

I don't at all like the idea of having all of the villages revolt at the same time, they should certainly be staggered like they are now. I can see the desire to have that big huge conflict that results from all of them being in play, but that would negate all of the reason to raid villages and part of the reason to do comm quests.

Actually, it is a fluke that 4 villages went into play at the same time. As time progresses, you'll find them more and more out of sync.

Well, Magnagora, maybe if you didn't kill the poor Dairuchi villagers (so I hear) you would influence them faster. I would guess that the poor people of Dairuchi are still a bit bitter over the massacre you gave them.

I'd rather see the villages not take so long to revolt. It'd be more fun if it was more common and, naturally, didn't take that long to influence.

spent 3 hrs influencing rockholm and it goes to mag, bleh.

I'm with the people that think it was taking a little too long. I DO like the idea that there is real competition, and it isn't just first come, first serve. It is neat in a way, even if disheartening to those who have worked their tails off, that Dairuchi is still up.

I think a major issue could be fixed if the victory conditions were lessened for those villages where there isn't significant level of conflict. Bricriu, myself, and a couple others (Zhaine, Furloch...) worked Acknor over for HOURS, even though there was no one else influencing, no one fighting us. I don't think it makes much sense that a village that only is approached, really, by one city takes just as long as a village that is approached by many cities.

I know (hope?) this is a simplification of the process, but imagine for the sake of argument:

Current system: max 100 influence 'points' per city per hour, minimum 500 required to sway village, must also have 100 point lead over next best.

New system: As above, except village can be swayed at 300 points if there is a 200 point margin between the first and second place influencers.

What about making it so that the more times you've influenecd a village, the less work you have to do again when the next time comes around(up to a certina amount obviously). This way, Celest doesn't have to work forever to get Delport back, and Magnagora doesn't have to work forever for Ankrag or Acknor. Likewise, if the Seren manage to get a village, and hold it for a couple rounds, it would be way easier for them to influence it back under their control than Celest of Magnagora.

And I liked the proposed idea of having them revolt on day marks, and not just month. Add more randomness to it, and forces cities to be better prepared for influencing. With the month way, a small mnumber of people in a city can get really good at it, and thus, always be prpared to influence, for they're always able to be on to do it. But if changes durring the day marks, it forces the city as a whole to be good at influencing, or risk loosing a village because only a small number are good with it.

The only reason Acknor took you a few hours is because Serenwilde had been influencing it unchallenged for a few beforehand, whilst you were focusing on the other villages. I do actually like the length of the new influencing. It makes being despotic a tougher choice.

There ought to be some way to see - roughly - how close you are to winning. Perhaps talking to the village leader could reveal it.

The only bad thing I will say about the village influence system (because I quite like the way its set up) is that Serenwilde is at a huge inherent disadvantage merely becuase of not having rituals.

The fact that we have no way to directly assist one another essentially means that no matter how many people we have, its the efforts of individuals rather than groups like the cities.

Yes we have sun totem, but its small compared to the fact you can have several groups of 4-5 newbies doing about 15 times more.

The rest of us just stand around doing nothing / guarding

I don't think it should be easy, but there are some pretty annoying things about influencing right now that make it hard in ways that are unrelated to the time, and are very, very stupid.

People influencing and then killing people shouldn't work. If you kill a villager, you should lose any benefit that villager gave your city, and not be able to influence him/her again.

Also, statues in villages, remarkably stupid. People are just going to put all manner of defenses in villages and no one will ever be able to take them away again. If it arbitrarily isn't allowed on planes, where they're -never- going to switch hands and such, we should be allowed to do it in villages, because we actually -can't- say for sure that they're still going to be on our side in a year or two?

Villagers act like morons right now. "Dur,you've been killing me for years and now you're spontaneously going to help me? Sounds sincere to me!".

And, even though I said hard is good before, I'm going to turn right around and say, it's approaching the absurd right now. It took like, a thousand years for anyone to get Dairuchi, and in Delport, it's been like 4 or 5 hours or something and we had like 2 or 3 hours there were we had the place sewed up with no competition and we still don't have it. I'm tired, bored, and surly. Hard is fine, this is monotonous.

What is even MORE ridiculous is I spent hours preparing that village for a political upheavel and our retarded statues didn't even work. We had Vesar block an entire area just to compensate for the lack of firepower we had to defend while influencing.

I am very upset at the administration, gods, whatever. They fix the statue bug right after Magnagora puts all their own special happy totems in Delport to take advantage of the bug while they go about killing our statues and defences.

You know what Delport is ours and we deserve the bloody thing. Too much disappointment and a real lack of foresight when fixing that stupid statue bug.

I don't know about you but Delport is the most heavily quested village yet they will go to Magnagora because obviously they have done so much good to them.

While all our fighters are sleeping I suspect Delport will be gone in the morning and my life will be le suck of suck.

Edit: Okay I withdraw less than half of what I just said after speaking with Valek.