main reasons FCC didn't come back for this strat was lack of active players within the cRPG FCC faction, lack of interest among those who led FCC in previous strats and the hope that if we were willing to go it alone as a small new faction then others would do the same as they couldn't use the excuse of "OMG FCC!" to form or maintain mega alliances. FCC grew so big in strat 4 in response to our fear of a LCO/SS/Hosp/LL/Astralis/MB/CHAOS alliance/cooperative but the flip side was that those clans probably worked together more closely than they otherwise would have due to fear of (initially) VE and (later) FCC.
I haven't paid much attention this strat so I don't know how its going in terms of mega-alliances and so on but it seems like there is some opportunity for new and interesting wars and such though it has been slow so far and it may well end up being just 2 or 3 mega alliances duking it out by the end but maybe not?