whaever

One thing about war in Illy (and similar games) that really does bother me is the ability of a larger player to simply zero out a smaller one. But I think the controls on that need to be an organic part of the game. I think the open-endedness of Illy (no endgame) is really positive in that regard because it cuts out some of the motivation for getting rid of a potential rival. But there could be more structure in place. For example, military campaigns often crush the economy of the combatants. So maybe setting up a siege could crush the resource production of the aggressor, making it difficult to sustain the siege and resulting in the player launching the siege losing ground against the community baseline. Of course, that might relegate sieges to the very few largest players with the resources and willingness (bitterness?) to deal with price.

Tough balance to strike.

If the "zones" were scattered throughout Illy, this could work.  If the "zones" were limited to the periphery or one particular area, there would be problems for folks like Ryelle who want to be able to help the newbs -- although these problems might be resolved by Trade v2

The biggest problem I see is getting the "warriors" who already inhabit those zones to agree to move -- what would motivate them.

As an alternative, perhaps the devs could implement a "peace" flag (simple graphic with no underlying function) to indicate to folks that it was a peacenik.  Another alternative would be a hard-coded "peace" status that would make a player immune from attack but also unable to take certain actions -- as either a permanent or very long-term status.  I'm not convinced hard-coding is the right answer, though.