There should be several tiers of totems, each having a different price and allowing different number of people to participate in a battle on the side of attacker. Say, a battle totem that allows you to bring only 10 people needs a log, 3 gold ignots, 3 steel ignots, and 15 positive preparations. But a totem for 20 people would need 8 gold/steel ignots and 40 preparations. I've just invented the numbers but you get the idea. The price progression should be non-linear, and having a small army should be more cost-efficient.
The same goes for siege totems.
What, in my opinion, this would achieve:
- more battles and sieges between small guilds that simply cannot afford to start a siege now
- smaller guilds will be less likely to have to face 1 to 5 battles that turn into a massacre.
- will allow to drop some of the current restrictions on PvP
- more realistic war mechanics where maintaining a small army is much more efficient than maintaining a horde