I don't know. These threads usually either come from the "raiding is too hard" or "raiding is too easy" viewpoints without really accounting for the existence of the opposite half of the argument. I definitely don't envy Estarra the job of balancing those things so that Person A's fun level raiding is maintained without diminishing Person B's level not being raided too badly, and vice versa.

But I think her point is that more of the raiding should be in villages because that would take away from the raiding inside your own city thing that people are complaining about. Maybe she wants people to feel mostly safe in their cities and to divert the prime raiding to villages because going to a village is less "obligatory", or because the level of defenses provided to villages in code is more what was intended to be the counters available to raids, or just because she doesn't like the idea of people coming in to kill city tutors and loyals just to annoy people.

If the reason village raids are rare is that they don't have enough impact, then one wonders why city raids aren't rarer since they have even less impact. My thinking was if Estarra could answer that question it might help her make things better.

I am in the camp that raiding is good - I've loudly touted that it's one of the only significant or satisfyingly noticeable ways to hurt an org on the surface. However, I do not make such wild claims without also understanding the level of damage it does to a playing experience, that is could be easy or hard, or stale, or meaningless. I definitely try to look at the bigger picture, but I'm not really comfortable with ever proposing that we as mortals/players advocate the removal of the ability to raid. I don't think people realize what a big hole it fills, however inadequately.

City prime raids cost the victim gold from guards and statues, plus experience from defender death - all of these things are attacks on invested time and resources. You spend time to arrange guards or make statues, time to bash up experience.

Do attacks on villages cost gold to replace guards? To replace statues? Do they make such an obvious and mass quantity amount of damage against the resource of invested time? It may sound like it's less severe, but in truth, raiding cities is much more damaging on a deeper level of understanding than on the surface. I'm sure you realize this, though, which is why I'm sure you've made the same observation as I. You can put guards in villages, or statues - but that's a waste of time. In fact, if I've read right, some orgs don't even bother putting them in villages on PURPOSE.

In fact, I agree wholeheartedly that if you make villages as damaging or more damaging, it COULD detract from city prime raids.

But it needs to be time-consuming or slightly difficult, so raiding villages isn't a one-two punch deal, where you mop that up in ten minutes and then go wipe the floor with the city itself and provide a double dose of pain. I don't know, maybe I'm listing reasoning that other don't agree with.. maybe we need other raiders to step up and explain why it is they ACTUALLY raid - if people complain and they're complaining truthfully, what's the point of raiding if it doesn't do much?

Why do raiders here.. well.. raid? I've already said I do it for fun, and I do it because it's a noticeable blow to an org. What about the rest of them? Perhaps there's a common thread that can lead to an the answer you think the Admins should be led to.