It's ok, Narsrim. I make mistakes with demesne layouts too.

Guess we can't all be correct 100% of the time, eh?

I would look but pictures drawn like that confuse me Can someone come up with a functional diagram using only blocks and lines?

Very basic zmud map. Even if the mauve square is included in either demesne, it can be removed safely.



If this is a smaller demesne that doesn't include east/west squares, the room below the pool is unbreakable. The same happens for an east/west demesne. However, you can't extend a second demesne across the other two arms without leaving those two east/west squares breakable, because the first demesne completely cuts off both sections.

Can the Pool of Stars be part of the demesne? If it can, then the room below it would become unbreakable.

Right, but that's actually a better situation than the other equivalents, even if you could tank the guards/defenders long enough to meld there.

Demesning through the Megalith or the Moonhart can make the nexus rooms themselves unbreakable, because there are two exits at each which means a demesne can be looped through it. The Pool has only one exit, so the nexus room will -always- be breakable.

The room below the Pool would be unbreakable only until the Pool itself was broken.

Edit: Actually, no, I'm wrong there about Nil (having just checked the map). That only holds true for the Moonhart... you could break at the Megalith always. The two rooms adjacent to the Megalith form a triangle with themselves, so that removing the megalith won't cut off any part of the demesne.

Urge to watch taped episodes of Star Trek rising....
They're talking about geos not aquas, you'll never have a geomancer demensing the pool, and if you would they wouldn't be able to stick around to defend it, they'd get enemied, and someone would break it without resistance. Similarly an Aqua demense with an end at the pool wouldn't be very big and/or would be easily broken. Either way it's not much of an issue.

*Cackles* I generated more than 200 power with two and a half hours of influence time.

Really? Woah, that's like, ten times what we can do with fae

Don't feel bad about it, i'm just really stubborn when it comes to influencing.

I get that for 25 minutes of hunting astral

We skewed it high on purpose. Remember that cities don't have passive power generated by totems.

Except that Elemental can produce insane ammounts of power...

I would much rather have a more reliable, constant way of getting actual essence instead of the simple power generation of Totems. Sure, we might be getting power, but that doesn't help if we need essence for any number of things.

Agreed. Fae are a really annoying and unreliable method of getting essence, which is far more useful than simple power.

That makes no sense. The passive power generation is much more reliable and constant than questing to get power.

Let's put it this way. If you influenced the angels or demons 24/7, you would generate 1/2 the power that totems generate. Now, how likely do you really think they'll be influenced 24/7?

The totems have always given a slight edge to the communes in terms of power generation, and I think this offers a balancing factor.

They're not that annoying, but if we have a major need to bring them in for the spawns to get a bit of essence, it's most likely impossible to bring them in at all.


We're not caring so much about the power, but about what we can do with essence (or can't do if we don't have it).

Primarily, if the Avatars are killed, we need essence to bring them back. Without the Avatars, we can't bring in Fae to leave their ethereal creatures spawn when they leave that we can kill for essence. Ethereal creatures, unlike Elemental ones, don't appear on their own.

We also have other uses for essence that pop up now and then. Nintoba's spear, if it would be needed, and recently people were talking about giving essence to the fae architect to help with Charune's temple. There may or may not be other things essence is needed for, but I'd certainly expect it to be a need in the future for those reasons and possibly others that come into being.

Well, if you have... 3 demesnes on Celestia, THEN you're screwed

Yes we know that.

Trying to clarify the issue at hand...

Cities have higher access to places with manifestations, Cities have higher access (almost exclusive) to places with essence. Cities essence Lords are easier to kill.(or were before the ethereal change). Cities have no totems.

Communes have lower access to places with manifestations, Communes have lower access (almost none) to places with essence. Communes essence Aspects are harder to kill(or were before the ethereal change). Communes have totems.

Commune members on the forums actually seem to be taking an odd stance recently, in the light of an influence change that appears to even out cosmic being influence with fae influence thus tilting what cities can do to help over what communes can do to help again, the reason given was that 'communes have totems'.

Delving into the causes of why...

I've always stated that the main difference between cities and communes is that communes take a less aggressive approach towards many things, and have the leniency to do that. Whereas the cities, if they wish to excel beyond all others must be very proactive in their approach(it goes along with higher gain, higher risk, and fits in nicely with Lusternia's back story)

Some other examples are:

Totems Vs. Statues: Cities could have their whole city protected, or could be attacked and slowly have nothing protected, communes totems are safe once grown, but only have a limited number actually actively bonded.

Avatars Vs. cosmic beings: Cities could keep theirs alive, and try to murder the other side's collecting the 'glob essence?' and essence from the converted beings attacking the pool/megalith or they could be the subject of said attacks. Communes have less power potential lost, and no gain in this area.

The former political system: Cities could freely select high power and high commodities, and have their villages revolt faster, they could conceivably gain many villages and have those villages produce a lot, or they could lose them because of it and have none. Communes were stuck at the 'commune' political style where villages produced smaller amounts but the communes only had to win revolts with them every so often

Note, these are not imbalances, they are simply different sets of events which have different potential rewards and demands. My arguments do not apply to guild skill sets, and I make no claims thereof, I am simply speaking of national based options..

I can only surmise that commune members posting here on the forums wish to have more options open to them as they feel the cities do, even knowing that would sacrifice a constant passive power generation.

In short, cities have appeared to have either high gain or no gain in all things due solely on their own actions and activity levels, whereas communes seem stuck at moderate gain no matter their player interaction.

-These are of course my own views on the matter and I do not claim to speak for "communes in general" or "Serenwilde in general"

Edit:Neither am I asking for anything to be done in this posting, I'm simply stating my views on the matter.