The 10-suspect limit and guard auto-declare makes prolonged raiding, and thus any real large-scale war, impossible.

Observe.

-A Celestian group goes into Serenwilde and starts chopping trees while waiting for Seren defenders to come and fight.
-The Celestians have, say, 3 suspects each (a low estimate, I usually have more).
-A group of 8 Seren (not at all unreasonable) go to defend.
-The Celestians wait for the Seren to attack so as not to have to declare and have the Serens gain suspect.
-These 8 Seren bring some guards along with them.
-The Celestians fight and kill the Seren, and then kill the guards.
-By attacking the guards, the Celestians auto-declared the entire Serenwilde commune, which means that if they kill any more Seren, those Seren get suspect.
-The group of 8 Seren return for a second round, and the Celestians kill them again. However, because the Celestians attacked the guards, they declared all the Serens by default, and thus the Serens get suspect on them.
-Because the Celestians already had 3 suspects, these additional 8 push them over the 10-suspect cap. A member of Serenwilde gains vengeance on them all.
-The Celestians are all attacked by the Avenger, killed, and peaced.

As you can see, the 10-suspect limit and the guard auto-declare make raiding impossible provided the defending group brings guards. Either the attacking group kills the guards and gets suspect on the defenders and then gets hit by the Avenger if there were a significant number of defenders, or the attackers run away when guards come. In either case, prolonged raiding on prime is impossible.

If either the auto-declare on attacking guards/loyals or the 10 suspect limit was removed (if there was no auto-declare you could just wait for the defenders to attack, if there was no suspect limit you could just live with the suspect status), raiding would be possible; unfortunately, as-is, there's no real way to do serious large raids.

You can't defend guards. Why should I have to declare to attack you if you're in my home killing our guards?

Also, on the topic of declaring, defiling a shrine is supposed to declare the order, isn't it? Because it's not, and we're going to start getting vengeanced if we do anything but sit and watch on Prime, which is retarded.

the worst part of this that i have found is that even if you dont attack the serens but someone else kills them you still gain suspect on them due to the guards auto decalre so technically you attack guards in estelbar someone else kills nejii in shanthmark nejii gets vengeance of you when you were actually not involved and on the other side of the basin

edit: yes this was acting as if you already have 10 suspects otherwise nejii would just have suspect status rather then vengeance..

That's kind of silly.

You DON'T have to declare. You're a defender. And since you're a defender, we don't get suspect on you if you kill us.

Oh. I haven't done this in a while, I'm rusty.

That's weird, but it only lasts five minutes or so.

During which time the other group can DEFINITELY mount a counter-attack.

Also, if you attack the guards BEFORE you attack the defenders, you've auto-declared them before even the first fight happens and they'll all get suspect on you.

If you killed a Seren in Serenwilde, while enemied, you should have gotten suspect for that, even before attacking the guards.

You don't if they attack you first. And you shouldn't, that'd just be stupid.

It doesn't actually work like that, Sham. They declare you again if they attack you in enemy territory. That system hasn't ever worked properly. For you to gain suspect on them, they either have to die without fighting back or wait until you leave enemy territory to engage you.

Edit: Nevermind, misread!

So someone defending their territory should gain suspect on you if you are raiding? If I raided Celest..just wandering around first until someone attacked me to ignore suspect, that would be stupid.

They also don't gain suspect if you kill them in enemy territory.

xavius your wrong here, we attack guards serens come, serens attack us, we kill serens we gain suspect on them give them vengeance or whatever

What are you talking about? My post was about them getting suspect on me, not me getting suspect on them. I know I shouldn't get suspect on them if they kill me and I'm not protesting that I don't. I'm protesting how they get suspect on me when I kill them after I attack guards.

Ok, I'm late for work, but no. It only works if they attack you after you run. Maybe our favorite mod can Shiri-bot up the last post I made on it. It's pretty detailed.

How many times has this situation actually happened? A big group of X being peaced through raiding against group Y?

I don't believe the fact it might or could happen would stop it from happening, people aren't smart enough for that. It would atleast happen a few times first, and I've never heard of a group of Celeste's 8 fighters being peaced.

Hypotheticals are great but unless it's happening then why cause the fuss?

This situation basically could have happened the other day. We were raiding Northern Serenwilde and a group of around 10 Seren showed up with 6 centaur guards tagging along. We ran away, but if we'd stuck around and fought, had we attacked the guards we would have then got suspect on all those Seren.

Solution? Kill Seren, kill guards, leave, come back 5 minutes later.

Ranting belongs to the Idiots forum. One day, Malicia attacked me in the Inner Sea, and I wasn't able to hit back without declaring. Do I whine about it? No.

EDIT: Also, your signature looks funny when compared to the post, where you admitted to "pointless raiding".