but still then you must travel across them, and they block you from taking the next realms regions for your own
it is more than number of regions, it is also size and shape of map
You now have to choose carefully on what regions to own. You can only take 1 region for every 1.7 nobles you have. As for shape, not sure how many really care about the shape. People would rather take rich regions over a region that will make their realm look pretty on the map.