Do you not understand that perception of a threat can be just as effective at shutting down action as a real threat?
At this late date I can't remember the details, but I remember quite clearly that when I, as ruler of Riombara, talked to other rulers on BT about doing things during the period before the wars against Enweil, at least two of them straight-out said that they didn't want to do anything that might risk the wrath of Enweil.
It's the same principle as the Inalienable Rights. It doesn't matter if you don't include an explicit threat of a ban when you talk about how much you hate people who don't log in at least twice a day within 15 minutes of the turn changes: if you're in a position of power, the fact that you can inflict negative consequences on people who just want to play at their own pace is enough.
Similarly, it doesn't matter if Enweil explicitly said anything threatening to the realms in question. The fact that a) Enweil was a monstrous powerhouse of a realm, and b) we had all seen Enweil go to war fairly recently to force other realms to change their government type told us all that Enweil was a realm that would happily throw around its weight to make the entire continent behave exactly the way it wanted them to.
To be clear, I don't think that "large realms are inherently evil." Nor do I think that we need to have code in place that prevents realms from ever getting large.
What I do think is that the type of restrictions we have, and have had, on large realms are good in principle, and where they prove to be counterproductive in practice, we should change them to be better balanced and achieve the overall goal of the most fun for all.
