For the idol shields you could add a system like this:
If two village idols are too close to each other make them both enter into a "tribal war state" so that they lose their shield power everyday until:
1.Both lawspeakers get an option to "consume/connect" their territories to stop the war and start regaining shields which also makes one of the village idols disappear and all the villagers will join the second idol automatically, while lawspeakers get to choose which one of them lose their special privilege and become a villager.
2.Give an option for villages to fight for territory, part of it or whole. There could be a thing also for villages to surrender their claim which either (chosen by won side) exiles all of them and gives copies of keys to every gate to the winners or makes them all part of their conqueror. Also to reduce abusing that either make it so that the villages which are too far from your idol are harder to conquer (give bonus to stats while near enemy villager on your idol claim for example) or just allow us to create invisible for non-villagers traps that work only on our enemies.
3.In case of draining the whole shield, give lawspeakers ability to instantly consume the other village and regain small part of your shield so that the others can't do same to you.
There are endless possibilities to make that happen and make that happen even better (yay upgraded version of an idea!)