You really should read more, then. I complain about a lot of things and that's not even the majority of them.

But there's something to what you say; it's just not what you think it is. Thinking there is too much of something is exactly not the same as thinking that there should be none of something. If I say there's too much of something more than once, what's wrong with that? I'd call that consistency. When there isn't too much of it, I'll complain about something else, if there's something else to complain about. So, did you have a point here?

I think everyone's just looking to dodge the question and play games with definitions of words like "impossible". Inasmuch as there was an answer, it seems to be, "there is no conflict in Lusternia apart from village influencing". Which is immediately followed by all the "except for" provisos, for all the conflicting power quests from Faethorn to the Inner Sea stuff, the raiding that only happens when certain people aren't looking, the semi-random attacks on people on the Astral Plane, the fighting over the gorgog rift, the protecting of the Catacombs, and the conflicts over quests. I don't know... if you want conflict, I don't know why you're having a hard time finding it. I never look for it because if I never look for it, I get just about the right amount on a good day, and more than that on a bad day. (Note that "the right amount" is not none.)

Again, all that is talking about is how much conflict there is, and whether it's too much or not enough. Maybe it's too much for one person and not enough for another, I don't know, and I don't care, because it is entirely immaterial to my point. However much conflict there is today, however much there will be tomorrow, that doesn't change the question of what proportion of that total is driven by PVP combat. If there's a lot, and it's mostly PVP combat, then it's mostly PVP combat. If there's only a little, and it's mostly PVP combat, it's still mostly PVP combat. See? Proportions. Fractions, percentages, ratios.

All I'm suggesting is that the proportion of conflict that is driven by PVP combat should not be 100%. Please stop saying "but there's not enough conflict for my tastes" and then acting as if that actually has anything to do with this point.

Granted I missed the event, but I was told that glomdoring was able to get the last village because of focussed influencing, and while other people were counting lost heads, glomdoring was counting converted souls...

If this is true, then it sounds like all that needs to be done is to fix some bugs and loopholes that exist in the influence arena.


However, I see nothing wrong with seeing some sort of cool thing where the time of year affects peace in the basin or not. (seperate from influencing)

Credit where credit is due, Glomdoring did do quite well and did not have as much backing from Magnagora as they usually do.

......

Any Mag that was in the realms was there and they were backed with a geodemense.

Glomdoring has NEVER taken a village without Magnagora. Not knocking it. Just stating for the record. Hell, they even asked for our help in going after a village.

Ixchilgal, why shouldn't demesnes be scaled down a bit? Do you need 200 rooms to fight? Taint up to 1000 rooms, if you wish. The effects should only work in the room you're in and the ones adjacent. I'm dreaming, of course. I know.

Even 10-20 rooms would be pretty good, and wouldn't hurt mages more than they need. Hell, a mage and (insert other archetype) should still be able to beat any combination of two others simply because they have a demesne that hits both people instead of just one.

I think you miss the point of my post.

I'm not saying glomdoring rocks, I'm suggesting that glomdoring was able to win the village without focusing on fighting other people. Granted I could be wrong since my info is only IC and ICly I (as a player)expect good news rather than truthfull news.

I didn't miss the point of your post, I ignored it. The Magnagorans that were there were doing your fighting for you, that's why you didn't have to fight. I was just saying that less Mags than usual were there an your influencing was done better than I've seen Glomdoring do before, that is all.

I try to give a compliment and no one will accept it, sheesh.

Hmmm, ok, point taken.... How does influencing work when all four groups are actually trying to influence the people instead of the usual MO of two groups fighting and a third or forth acting as a violent diversion?

********SPOILER ALERT******

Quidgyboo, your compliment seemed to send Malicia on some sort of tangent, so I was trying to bring the thread back on topic, but it was appreciated by me atleast.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already...

But I think the middle ground in influencing is good. Have some be violent, and some not be. I mean... maybe some villages are more impressed by the show of military strength, while others are completely and utterly disgusted by the bloodshed spilled. Just like some of us love to fight others, and others are more peaceful and like to keep to themselves...

I was pondering this all day at work today (ignoring my duties of course), and had a similar type idea.

Make the villages half and half...

For example, the more warlike villages
All the dwarves, Ankrag, Acknor, Krokani, and toss in a few human ones

And the more peaceful ones
Estelbar, The hippy Dairuchians, Aslarans, and the remaining human ones


In the Warlike ones (the people who don't abhor violence), make it the same as it has always been with influencing. While in the peaceful villages, it gets a bit more complicated.

Lets say, I, as a Magnagoran walk in and see Malicia standing there and kill her (this would never happen in reality, so I'm saying it here!). The village would recognize me as Magnagoran and immediately tack on a certain number (in the code)to the influencing...lets say 3 to start a fight and 6 for a kill. When you reach a certain amount of violence (set number), the village will declare they have no desire to follow your city and are no longer influencable by your group. That way if I run in and start killing folks, the village in the end is getting farther and farther from our grip. You could restrain it to fit within the village limits, and let people run around then. Stuff like debating would still work fine, but any attack would hurt your cause.

Minor note but if something like that went in the attacking-ness of certain things could be looked at. Do demesnes count as attacking multiple people, or just one? Is there like a "double declare" thing? What about my astrology buffs?

If spliting specific villages into peacefull or violent, you will have to make sure there are an equal amount of villages devoted to the various commotdies on both side of that fence.

I think village influencing should be about influencing, entirely. If you want to attack, fine, but its going to cost your nation because it's having a negative effect on the villagers. Leave combat for the combat-based activities, not village influencing which is competition based on gathering support. Maybe Lusternia needs more hardcoded combat-based competitions (but not hardcoded conflicts which are critical to the nation - ie faethorn).

What is left then? Fighting for what...village defense only?

That's going to be a problem with any way you go with influencing really. If you make certain villages peaceful influencing, it comes down to numbers which will probably result in Magnagora losing. Although we win a lot of the combat ones, we usually don't have a lot of people around. So in the end, some city, be it us or the others are going to get screwed by a change to influencing in the end.

It's just a matter of screwing the least number of people, and keeping the majority happy. That's why I think a happy medium needs to be found that helps ALL People, not just evening up towards the Celest/Seren side. A few changes here and there will do it, and you don't have to screw mages or anyone else to achieve that.

That's why I like the idea I reproduced (sorry forgotten author!); it allows fighters and non-fighters to do their thing.

You know, after skipping through all the junk in this thread so far, and actually reading probably the only two posts that count, Estarras and Roarks, i'd say that the idea Roark had about having Eroee in conjuct with the sun, and effecting how the village is to be influenced would rock. Though you could also add in, when Aapek is in conjuct with the sun, demesnes can only be made 20 rooms and such. When Tarox is in conjuct it will be a all out bloodbath, regardless if Eroee is in conjuct or not. This would add more meaning to having Astrology, besides getting the spheres, since you know, if you knew the way the planets transversed the belt, well the dates, you could predict what type you'll need to focus on, fighting or influencing.

Well, I did say...

To me, it seems like there are already a lot of combat-based organizational-affective activity out there: Astral linking, Faethorn ownership, Gorgog quest, Catacombs quests, village raiding, totem/statue destruction (questionable), avatar raiding (and minor entity quests), and pretty much all player-driven conflict.

As I said, maybe there needs to be more, or what is already there needs to be tweaked to be as advantageous and obtainable as villages, as well as being equally peripheral to the nation.

Alternatively, consider the uses of influence in affecting your organization: empowering guards, village influencing. (The latter is of course a deceptively large one, even if it doesn't actually rely on the skill of Influence at all, and I'm quite willing to accept I could have missed something.)

Ok, that sounds reasonable - more emphasis on combat as there should be, but influencers get a chance to contribute and compete in their own right by way of village influencing. Except that at the moment village influence by and large is at least equally dependent on combat as influence, if not more so. That leaves influence, well, rather incidental. At least for anything other than mindless levelling.

Let's not forget debating is a form of combat. I don't think anyone would suggest that should be discouraged in open villages.

Some of us did not take up Astrology because, while we believed it is a well-built and an amazing skill, we did not want to have to deal with the memorization of dates, symbols, etc. Please don't force it on us. It's a good idea, but it incites complications that, and I am sure others will agree, we just don't want to have to deal with.

Speaking as an Astrologer who took the skill not only because complications to a certain extent are interesting but because healing sucks and I needed something better: Yes, I whole-heartedly agree. It doesn't need thousands of little clauses, especially time-based ones.