That's true, and we're trying to find a solution to this.
As a possible solution think as base a diplomatic system,
implement relations as factions agree to see they have to each other and would confirm that within strategus.
Then you can work on that terms of balancing.
for exampleNeutral Factions if in trade, need to pay more gold or loose a percentage of what they trade, say they loose 50% of what has been traded.
Those who have NAPs only 40%
Those who have Defensiv Alliance 30%
Full Alliance 20%
At the time clans would use that you will then know which clans intend to work closely together and can calculate their overall members.
In that way you can implement a second negativ multiplier which perhaps comes into effect when you reach a member count of f.e.
- Defence allaince of say 100 members over all in all clans included
- Full alliance with say f.e 70 Members over all
again
1. You make it profitable to establish confirmed relations(which most in the community know anyway)
2. You have the actual count of members in all factions included who intend to work together closely and
to what extend they intend to work closely together
3. you now can regulate on that base a curve to what maximum number of players working together should be most profitable and
when it becomes less and less profitable, therefor making huge amounts of players in one faction or in one kind of diplomatic relation
unprofitable.
...
solved
