Well, I've skipped the last 2 pages because I think I have come up with a good idea...
Well, since people like Gwilifar and such have said that they want to be able to influence, without getting smacked by combatants, and combatants want to be able to have an effect on village influence, I have thought of a way to possibly balance both out...
Okay, so when a village goes up for grabs, give people an option to have "an aura of innocence" where as long as they perform no aggressive action, they cannot be killed. Then, have the village leader hide in his little castle or whatever, guarded by Village guards, that will attack anyone who attempts to go up to the leader... Then, you can either win over the village by influencing its people, or forcing the leaders hand... (maybe make it so you need to do both?) This will lead to having people run around influenceing, and those who wan't combat, duking it out, trying to make their way to the village leader... I dunno, I'm rather proud of myself for this idea

That's not a great idea because it just further makes raiding impossible. Its already extremely risky to go into enemy territory, with guards/distort/defenders and all that and now we wanna penalise anyone who raids their enemies territory by making it -impossible- for them to influence? All this is help out the people who hate PVP even more by helping them win a village with even -less- effort.

And as for the other extreme of doing quest to give you greater power, also stupid, only people who can do the comm quest and stuff really are A.) The owners of the village or B.) People not enemied, A obviously favors the person holding the village which enough of that is done as it is. And B is hardly an option at all since anyone whos of any significance is enemied to the other City/Commune even if they didnt raid.

Hey, thanks for mentioning me, though I would like to point out that nearly all the time I spent in sanctuary was because I was lagging insanely. I even got disconnected, and when I got back in, the NPC I was debating (in a non-sanctuaried area) had defeated me, my ego was shattered, and I was a soul. Woo.

The shattered ego was worse than the soul bit, by the way. Grrr.

Actually, I'd probably be one of those fighting in this scenario. A bunch of us have proposed things like this, the most fully developed one being done by Cwin, in which sanctuary/crusade are replaced with diplomat/soldier. I added on to that an idea which allowed shattered egos to be part of the interaction across the two groups.

I still say take Sanctuary and Crusade and make them personal campaign styles, not Room wide styles.

Village revolts. I goto the Nexus for SW and I campaign Sanctuary. This costs me 5 power and I am unable to do anything more aggressive than Influence or Debate. However I am fully safe from Physical harm and while I can be debated out, I cannot be killed.

If I wish to be a fighter, I would Campaign Crusade for the same power cost, I am now considered fair game for anyone else Crusading. My Influence is double effectiveness, but the drawback is Daevos may come and kill me anytime.

Trying to say "we don't want pk flags" is pointless as there is already pk flags, you just choose to call them something else and hope nobody notices.

which means what for people who are neither in sanctuary or crusdading?

People who are not in Sanctuary or Crusading are not benefitting from anything anyways other than Conglute when they get killed for running around in a village they shouldn't have been in if they can't help by either Sanctuary or Crusade.

They don't get double influence, but aren't graced either. Same as now, I figure.

They should gain some ranks in their city?

Thats not same as now... one person can Sanc or Crusade a room, and everyone in it is affected...

And sometimes you don't wnat certain people to be GR3 just GR2

With Gregori's changes I think it would be a matter of using either Sanc or Crusade with no choice of neither if you are going to get involved. At least that is how it seems it should be.

EDIT:

What does CR3 give besides sanc/crusade that CR2 doesn't?

If someone can sanctuary or crusade, odds are they're going to be the ones doing the influencing. (Even in the case of charisma things. CR affects more than charisma does when it comes to influencing the mobs in revolted villages.)

So it doesn't really matter. It's a very small issue.

Well Crusading the room will mean nothing as, fighting with Crusade up in a room, or fighting with no Crusade or Sanctuary in a room = the exact same.

If people are just hanging out in Sanctuary though because they can't do anything else then they shouldn't be there to begin with. If they are fighting, they don't need to be sitting in Sanctuary as they are... fighting. If they want to run to safety they can always leave the village for a moment, it is just as effective.

hrmmm, is crusade a skill in influencing?

No, it's a CR3 Commune/City priv.

Oi, time to get to work...

I think this is one of the main problems, when you look at demesnes as a whole. The problem is city alliances.

It is not very difficult to set up a demense and figure...hey...I might have some Celestians or Serenwilders breaking it. But, if the game functioned as individual cities, you wouldn't have massive demenses as all 4 groups would be trying to destroy each others demesnes, which would probably result in little pockets of demesnes over the village proper.

When we broke it down into two groups, we now have a problem if one side has decent numbers compared to the other.

I like Gregori's idea, a lot.

Check out Cwin's post from a few weeks back -- it's the same thing only more fully developed. Search on diplomat and soldier.

Ah that's the idea I have been spewing up and apologising for not remember who's it was!