I am kinda new and previously from Aetolia where power wasn't so skewed. Last night I had an awful awful night ie. finding out Gorgulu attacks you if you greet him, having no idea how to influence then realising I needed at least cr2 and divert while being easily beaten, being attacked on the earth plane, which is constantly being raided, while magnagora can't raid the plane of water back because they actually have contrusts *releases breath*.

I don't complain normally, so this will be the first and last time! But has Celest always been so dominant? 5 villages while Glomdoring has none is kinda imbalanced imo.

Please forgive my ignorance as well.

The nations go through cycles, mainly because power tends to attract power. New Celest is rather dominant right now, but (quite?) a while ago Magnagora was the dominant one.

Glomdoring doesn't have villages because they're more trouble than they're worth, and we have little want for one. Besides, we're far too cultural to bother with such petty things as owning a village.

At the outset of the game and then for quite a considerable time thereafter, Magnagora was the dominant body, now Celest is and they like to prove it on a regular basis.

Serenwilde was dominant between Mag and Celest, though that was just before and after the changes so village revolts happened in groups rather than singularly. Celest will probably decline at some point and one of the others will become stronger

Yeah, it all tilts. Serenwilde used to have every village but the Orcish ones some time ago, but now we've only got so much.

Glomdoring just sucks at influence at the present time for a variety of reasons, including smaller population and lower average communerank.

However, in my opinion the current power levels of the orgs in Lusternia are...

Celest > Glomdoring > Magnagora > Serenwilde

... so don't judge how strong a nation is based on how many villages it has.

Orrrr...

Villages are, essentially, worthless?

Villages are fine sources of power and commodities. They're not all that essential though and you can thrive just fine without them since you tend to have to expend a lot of power protecting them. They're just status symbols. They really don't mean much except how many people you had around when that village revolted and to some extent how organized you were. Or how much endurance you have for exceedingly boring tasks.

... huh? They're not worthless at all. They're definitely not that important either though.

Villages aren't worthless at all for a lot of people. Serenwilde can price fruit, vegetables and eggs at very low prices because of having Estelbar for instance. This is good for any cook. Having a mining village means smiths can get better prices on metals, etc.

Those things don't matter much to some people but for others they matter quite a bit.

If you spend time shopping at villages for good prices, you can get a pretty decent stockpile of commodities as well, without having to deal with the headaches of a village. Further, if you guard a village at all, you will generally spend more power on that guard than the village itself gives you (or your guards will die). Sometimes both.

Villages are also not worthless because they give people - especially lowbies - village and comm quests to do. (Very commonly in Glom, you teach people not to do any quests that can strengthen other nations, including comm quests and some village honours quests.) Glom started preaching the "we don't need no villages line" back when it couldn't get any, to keep up morale - and apparently has made a virtue out of necessity.

Hmm. I'm not seeing this at all right now. Our newbies can quest in any village at the moment except for Estelbar and Rockholm (which aren't really all that needed), and are encouraged to look around. Yes, they are told that the quests will strengthen rival nations as well-- but it will also strengthen themselves, and gives them something to do. It's not exactly a horrid trade-off.

Edit: Though there was an issue when Serenwilde owned most of the villages, that is (thankfully) no longer the case. It's also why I spent a large amount of time ensuring that Serenwilde would not get Stewartsville.

I wasn't suggesting it was a horrid trade-off. I just think Glom could do better for itself in this sphere these days, but for some reason it's actually started to believe its own propaganda about villages being worthless.

Well, it's generally stupid to place guards in any villages except the mining ones (IF you have miners) and Acknor-Estelbar for farmers. But even then, 20 guards + statue can still be wiped. I'd rather say -guards- are worthless, not villages because you have to use ressources to protect them.

I'd say we've learned from experience that having a village is more of a pain than having none, assuming that most of the villages are not in Serenwilde's possession.

I've got big issues with that point of view, but at least we've illustrated that having villages is partly a matter of priority and where you choose to expend effort.

I'd be concerned about what kind of message that sends regular folk in the commune. It may be reasonable and rational to say that villages aren't worth going after but then what else are you doing?

You can't fight anyone in either city because of treaties and you don't go after villages, culture is about the only thing that Glomdoring does to compete with anyone. If I were a new player I'd get the message that Glomdoring doesn't care about anything and if I was interested in involving myself in more aspects of the game I'd want to go elsewhere.

Except we do go after villages. It just doesn't matter so much if we don't have one.

The next powerhouse will probably be Glomdoring, if they get a few more players (at least a dozen regulars in addition to the current ones). Magnagora seems to be doing a little better, Serenwilde not so sure - it will really depend on which organization they will align themselves with at this point. Celest is still strong, but from a few rants seen here, some of the guilds seem to be suffering from a shortage of players.