I do not believe that this is the real concern.
Map size VS player base seems to be the real problem.
Some people prefer to be in a smaller realm where their influence will have more weight, while others may be happy to be part of "the herd" and follow the direction of others.
This will always be the case.
We already have an island where there is only large realms. The war island.
As we all know, this island will see a "winner" sooner or later and need to restart.
On this island, I feel that I am only a follower and that is OK, because that is what I have come to expect from this island (and larger realms in general).
I quit the war island once or twice in previous versions for exactly that reason, I felt my input was limited to following orders.
This island has also shown that you may limit the ability to form alliances, but anyone who thinks that there are absolutely no alliances on war island is just fooling themselves.
Their armies may not be able to work together, but survival dictates that their realms will work together.
Large realms can only lead to two possibilities, a "winner" or smaller realms breaking off to form new (smaller) realms.
Lets look at the larger realms on other islands (from the viewpoint of an outsider).
BT - Obia'Syela
- 30+ nobles buried in the far south of BT with no neighbors.
- As far as I know, the only real interaction there is fighting rogues, expanding to realm density, and chatting religion with their realm mates.
- future prospects include fighting more rogues, chatting more religion, and expanding to the point where they max density or decide to split off into smaller realms.
DWI - Westgard
- 30+ nobles in the NW of Dwilight with only one bordering neighbor who is an ally.
- Main goal here is to fight rogues while expanding until density max is reached and that is how they like it.
- future prospects include more of the same unless someone comes close enough to bother/interfere with them again (Tol).
- likely to split off a new realm once their density is reached.
EC - Perleone
- 30+ nobles in the south of EC. Was pretty exciting in the building of the realm, swallowing up and coercing surrounding smaller realms.
- formed/allowed smaller realm of Sydgard to exist now sitting neutral in the great (and mostly stagnated) north vs south war.
- future prospects include picking a side in the NvsS war. They could certainly turn the tides either way in the conflict, or any action by them may blow up in their faces and have both north and south join together to face them. who knows where this will go.
The above is just my quick thoughts on how I see these larger realms from the point of view of a player that prefers smaller to mid-sized realms.
When you look at the EC, it is actually two larger alliances fighting while a third "realm" sits neutral watching for a reason to act. (similar to War Island?)
So, now we have several large realms committed (by game mechanics) to being large realms unless they can convince half of their nobles to group together to form a new realm.
They are "stuck" with what they have unless they commit to long distance wars.
Now lets look at the other end of the scale, small realms.
There are so many smaller realms, that I will not give breakdowns like above with the larger realms.
Smaller realms have less people and therefore have less room for inter-realm communications.
They do not have enough nobles to properly wage war on their neighbors, unless they join with other realms.
With the density mechanic in place there is no room to expand any larger than most of them already are.
Most smaller realms are at their max density and this restricts most to barely surviving.
They need more nobles to expand, but most nobles will avoid joining a realm that appears stagnated (most smaller realms qualify for this description).
So, what is the answer? I don't really know, but as a player that has been around for many years now, I am pretty sure that more restrictions is not the answer.
It seems that we keep getting more and more restrictions that seem only to add to the problems that they are trying to fix.
In a perfect world where we could have the player base of years ago, the current "configuration" of the game would probably be great.
In a perfect world where we could have a large group of devs dedicated to building the game to its current needs, I would suggest new maps that were designed to meet the needs of the current player base.
The current maps were designed to be played by a much larger player base, while designing smaller maps to accommodate the current player base is just not feasible for the small (though dedicated) group of volunteer devs that we currently have.
Thank you to all the devs that donate their time and energy into keeping the game up and running while trying to make it a fun place for all of us players that remain.
I am sure that there are days that you feel unappreciated for all the work that you do put into the game.
