Even if this has ALWAYS happened ever since utopia was created i find this top kd solution to free acres to be in detriment of the game itself as it pushes away the new blood. Ofc old players will troll around that ghettos are ghettos , and their gods who are at the top and people should stop whining and not be salty when their bottom feed . But matter and fact is that were around 3k players atm, and while the game mechanics have always been like this it's not a welcoming ground for people who want to try the game .
Then again , if there's no care about the smaller kingdoms (ghettos) we will end up in 5-10 ages to play with maybe half of the amount of the players we got today .

Solutions as our kingdom has acted so far Gronski against the top20 kingdoms is Top Feeding against it . Then again u said you dont have the firepower to do that. So maybe just pump some offense with ur guys , and when they hit u again , you hit back . They will have more to lose than you since their aiming at ranks .

Sad to see that although the game is dying the meta still allows top tier kd's to bully beginners , there for pushing people away and lose interest from the get go .