>>Well, maybe not officially allied.<<
There's the problem. I pointed out that there is an unspoken alliance between Special Ed and the Squids. Now we have the Marauders and the Squids... there was a merc contract, nothing more. Acre and the Marauders went to war with one another. That war produced two battles, and one was a fluke. It ended in 24 hours, and in the Marauders thread, the Squids are claiming that the Marauders made peace, but the Squids hadn't. The Squids weren't at war, so why would they have to? Ah, because the merc contract was actually a full fledged alliance, that's why.
Now look at the actions of Special Ed. They're jumping on any small army, small trader they see. They're technically at war with Acre, but no major battle has happened yet. Why is that? It's not from a lack of resources on either side.
Even if Special Education and Squids and maybe also Marauders are allied, they can still be hurt big times by other factions.
That alone makes NA better than EU, because over there literally nothing can harm UIF. The only way UIF could actually be harmed would be for the whole rest of EU to unite and attack them together. That is not possible, no matter how much you turn and twist it. It is about as easy as uniting the whole of NA to invade EU (Even if there was no ping disadvantage which obviously puts some people off). It would still never happen.
The lack of battles is purely a result of factions not wanting to lose troops or gear.
Any battle against UIF results in totall annihilation of the Anti-UIF side (Shogunate is the best example, not bad gear but no chance whatsoever)
>>Edit: Of course I know that EU has more fiefs in total, but that doesn't change that UIF owns half of the map, each one of them, Greys, Druzhina and Kapis own a territory that large that they don't need anyone else to trade with. They can simply trade from one end of their territory to the other end. No faction in NA can do that while actually making a decent amount of profit. (Distance bonus would not be good enough pretty much)<<
I think Special Ed can do it. They have fiefs at either end of the desert. KBW lands are quite extensive, and Occitan has Tadsamesh/Caraf Castle. The Squids can do it too now I believe.
Special Education can definitely do it. But they don't own the desert. They own parts of it. They have to travel through unclaimed lands, or more importantly, unguarded.
While Druzhina literally has control over their whole desert, Special Ed has to send caravans to the other side, taking the risk of hostile parties raiding them where they have no fiefs/armies. And that would definitely be the case if someone was to declare war on them and actually invading their territory.
Try entering Druzhina lands with a decent army if you are hostile, or even if you just aren't friendly. Good luck.
Squids definitely cannot do it. The distance bonus would either be 0, or even negative. (If GoW or Legs belong to them, same problem as Special Ed.
Occitans, maybe, but its the same problem as Special Ed. Unguarded lands, taking the risk of raids.
Keyboard Warriors also same thing. The fiefs are just too mixed up, no faction actually has one huge blob of territory. Purely distance wise quite a few clans are capable of trading with themselves. But in times of war this would prove itself as a very very difficult thing to do. (Provided the attackers know what they are doing)