Since strat 2.0, i am strongly for more colors on the map. I dislike these large blobs of combined clans in one strategus factions(not the clans itself just the hugeness of it and the threat they implicate by it)
With the Cold Front Alliance in northern EU map, i tried something different this round, having only smaller factions within. Factions with more then 40 players would be asked to leave the CFA. atm largest faction has around 30 players.
Mostly i see it as sandbox for small and new strategus factions to learn about strategus. Everyone gets tasks and when they mastered those, they get more tasks and more responsibilities.
For organizational purposes the smaller factions start as vassal, they are excluded but informed of diplomatic results.
When they reach around 20-25 members, they become full alliance members and i ask them about diplomacy if they would be ok with a general direction the CFA is taking. Then again the CFA, as "full" alliance has been founded to deal with UIF, at a time that goal would be reached, the CFA would fall back into a Defensive Alliance (Circle of Peace), which within them they all can goto war with whomever they want, that would go sofar that outsite of the CoP claims, they could stand on opposite sites. At a time but the core claims would get attacked all are called to arms, to secure the entity and make sure that every faction still has a roof above its head the next day.
I do see the advantages of having a single faction, the Wolves have had alone in their clan in strategus 3, upto 110 players(not all in strategus though), plus a scouting clan of 25 players, which for several reasons weren't in the wolves, they btw were called Hayenas
They were single players, spreaded over the borders of the former Desert Alliance. From the wolves active players at tops there had been around 40-50, on one server max what i have seen around 30. The amount of effort for organizing such a clan was mind boggling, that together with Alliance management was a full time job. Having smaller factions, with their own structure is much more time effective. They have their own structure and therefor organize themselves the way they want to and that is good on many levels. We are hierachical based beings, most of us need someone whom they can ask what to do, which also must not be a bad thing aslong we can accept that as a fact and act accordingly. This btw has nothing todo with the concept of freedom in my book. So back to MEga Factions, you have there then around 5-7 guys who are rolling the show and all of them could have a fulltime job in terms of strategus and clan organization, when you but do it as a patchwork alliance/kingdom/whatever you want to call it, then you have still 5-7 dudes on top who discuss things, but within their designated clans, they have also another 2-5 guys who are helping with organization. So teh workload is spreaded more evenly. That besides the colors, i found out in this strategus is one of the advantages of having small factions in strat who are working very closely together ... in my opinion. Also smaller factions are more agile and often more hungry and often have also a higher amount of active players to the overall count.
So out of my perspective there are many reasons to go patchwork family in strategus
But you really need to learn to share, giving fiefs is surly about trust, and it can happen that people fuck you over, seen with i believe in NA this round already(Kutt/Teutonics? no judgment overall as it spices the game up too and i don't know all the details^^), still you empower smalelr factions, and it can be that they fuck shit up, either buy going against you in the worst case or just not being able to handle shit, f.e. trade is the base of this game atm, if factions aren't able to generate money through trade they are dead man walking. In terms of an alliance of small factions, this can include that not all are doing trade, but then specialize on patrols, or equipment runs or other things.
I hope those 5cents of me, can help to get some of you to reconsider the major faction option.
I don't say it is 100% easier to go patchwork, but it is definetly fun and challenging!
