I'm just gonna keep suggesting that in a new strat round, make losing a battle almost as rewarding as winning one, as long as you show up and fight it. Get rid of all the broken gear, item bombing, nighttimes, EU/NA seperation, slow trickle of gold and crap. Shower anyone who mercs in battles with Strat gold, let people recruit troops without needing "Strat ticks," make individual strat players more powerful by reducing the need of tons of logistical bullshit to equip and field armies.
Reason UIF have so much staying power is they are willing to play like a team not just in game but on Strat, which is great, but the headache of coordinating that many people for most factions is just too much. Instead balance the game around the idea of medium sized "warbands" that individual players can maintain and rebounce from big losses by recruiting and regearing easily, as long as they get rich by doing merc battles or basic trade and crap.
Let UIF players do whatever they want and get plenty of advantages over dysfunctional infighting factions and crap, but take the pressure off strat leaders who are forced to do too much to have fun with the game getting almost anything functional and bouncing back from defeats.
People resent UIF cuz they never seem to break down their teamwork and competence. And in my experience at least most NA players are hilariously inept, prone to afk'ing for months, aloof over depositing troops and gold, immediately become corrupted by any in game wealth and refuse to cooperate if they get more active.
Reward selfish indulgent lazy Strat players by keeping them more competitive with easier and more gold, troops, and a rework of how gear is bought so u don't need an excel spreadsheet of 100s of fiefs and shit to get anything done.
This will solve many problems with Strat's design, a lot of which UIF is unfairly blamed for.