Oh, come on. When was Arcaea ever likely to get destroyed? Even if the south had managed to push right up into Arcaean territory, they'd never have been able to fully destroy Arcaea. Without the glacier cutting down the map, I doubt that the Empire would have been able to push all the way down into the southern extremities of the island to totally destroy the south either. Or if you had, it would probably have taken a year or two in RL time scale.
Considering a northern coalition successfully destroyed Soliferum with a much, much less overwhelming advantage previously, I don't think it's that hard to believe that the Empire would win this round with a much, much better command structure and stronger position, even pre-glacier.
No, there are wars. But we're learning to limit them to a smaller scale than "Pile on! World war!" so nobody gets wiped out.
You do realize that one of the primary goals of the Empire (at least of Jenred's original vision of how this would work, which I understand Velax has moved somewhat away from) was to put Imperial might behind what are essentially duels between realms, yes?
The much bigger map helps in this too, and even if a realm looks like it's going to be wiped out its much easier to move it somewhere else than in BM. People have quit because of losing wars, but that's part of what the change in culture is trying to address.
To this day, I think the single most awesomely de-stabilizing and far-reaching act I have ever seen on the Far East was the destruction of Sartania. That destruction and the subsequent Sartanian exodus either directly led to or strongly influenced: The wars between Arcaea and Arcachon the ultimately led to the destruction of Arcachon and the founding of Coralynth; NeoSartania, and all the wars it had with C'thonia and other realms in the south; all kinds of craziness in the Ohnar/Papania region that eventually led to Sorraine; a huge shift in how Cathay (temporarily), Soliferum, Coralynth, and to a lesser extent Arcaea were governed; my personal favourite trio of Jenred working closely with Thain and Selene while trying to keep them from killing each other which caused all kinds of conflict that appears to have now escalated into all kinds of issues with the Order of the Elders; and countless other events which fell in a cascade from all of these.
What I generally find is the opposite: Keeping the same realms around for ages results in stagnation, especially if their power structure doesn't change, just downsize.
Now, admittedly, a lot of that happened because the Sartanians had places to go. I might suggest to Velax that a large group of nobles that don't want to live in the Empire might make an excellent vanguard for a post-unification idea we discussed, if or when that day ever comes.
But there is a difference between leaving a way out where surrendering forces might march with dignity, and handing them back bloodily won land for purely OOC reasons. The first any halfway decent Ruler strives for, the latter tends to lead to your back getting stabbed as soon as another threat rises.
