There's been effort on the devs part to discourage micro-kingdoms. I believe this is based in the manner in which notorious micros played more than a threat to antisocial kingdom strats.
After spending time alone in a kingdom shell, last age in a functional micro and part of this age in a dysfunctional micro, I can attest to the potential effectiveness of the 5 division system employed here. What is dysfunctional you might ask? It's what happens when you invite unfamiliar players into a tight nit group. However, my experiments in these micro kingdoms weren't intended as a recruitment base they were simply employed to study the teamwork capacity.
The actual concept of the divisional system is based in a 5 lower tier kingdom distillation. Consider this: most kingdoms in the lower tier are comprised of casual and serious players. The concept is for each kingdom to move its 5 best players to one 25 player contender. "Best" is relative to active team players who like their home kingdom but want a taste of the competitive server.
We can't build super kingdoms from old players who already reside in the top tier. They might even see it wise to disrupt this system. What we can do is gravitate players of known origin to create a contender with no relation to current whoring icons. It's not that I don't respect the whoring entities, it's that they have loyalties that are alien to the roots of the lower tier.
The relationship is essential to origin kingdoms to create a defacto alliance. We also want to enjoy the benefit of interchangeability for players who weary of competitive play. Sadly, we must consider measures to screen players deemed questionable in loyalty because completive play can be a dirty business.
To grasp what's going on in this division concept is to understand why the game is littered with apathetic drones who are simply addicted to play. We want to offer the virtue of action to these players by invoking 5 independently functioning limbs. It goes without saying, but I'm saying it, the players should have a feel for how the game is played. That is that I might stink at math but I know when my enemy is desperate, I know when to suppress net worth zones, when to chain and when to throw in the towel. I get micro, and this is the aim of this system in design.
Besides design the basis of the collaboration between every race and every personality in The Virtual Kingdom is based in pageantry and culture. We double down on culture because deep culture is the single most powerful human concept. Culture surpasses empires and shuns capital in the interest of endurance. In the real world counter cultures attempt to infiltrate through the lure of gain, be it money or power. In Utopia it is known certain top kingdom might move spies into kingdoms of interest. Thus, culture must be higher gradient than projected ability. This gets us back to why we want the players we want. They must perform within the given culture to match and defeat kingdoms built on pure meta.
The cultural double down is based in the concept of big city boroughs. We have players from 5 different kingdoms and we keep those players together in 5 separate divisions in The Virtual Kingdom. We also have a kingdom design based in the full breadth of race and personality in the game. This is a nod to the devs and a nod to cities with the charm of Chinatown and Little Italy. Cities with these pockets of diversity tend to have trackable longevity; not so with nations. Cities are where wars become even in the street to street fighting as one will furiously defend ones home. So to understand these divisions is to understand micro and the path to lock horns with big picture meta. - Additionally, the spread appears as a ghetto on the kingdom page which speaks to its unassuming character.
Originally Posted by Bishop
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