Even if there was the possibility to merge all kingdoms into 25 province ones, there still would be low competition because there'll be too few kingdoms. The whole reason for reducing kingdomsize is to create more kingdoms.
Having said that, once kingdom sizes are reduced, i'm all for the possibility to merge. Like last age, this age again my kingdom got omaced (partially deleted) and once again, all that's left to do for the kingdom is enjoy being not competitive at all, filled with non committed randoms. But it's not only in the best interest of omaced kingdoms to create as many filled kingdoms as possible. It's also in the best interest of the game as such. Especially when trying to attract new players it's no good to have them land in half empty ghetto's. Does anyone really think people will stay if they first end up in a kingdom with less than 10 non green provs that claims to be disbanding and that says "defect or we kill you", then after defecting ending up in a kingdom with 12 players without any sign of leadership and then, after another defection in a kingdom with 1(!!) non green province and 11 green ones coming oop??? (true story, sadly) A new player should land in a nearly filled kingdom, so his first taste of the game is a positive one. (And no, the recruitment forum doesn't help. For every noob that uses it, i'm pretty sure at least 5 others that just create an account and get the worst first impression possible). The devs realy must do the utmost to keep kingdoms filled, having these near empty kingdoms in the game is killing. (From comports9 numbers there are now 29 kingdoms with 14 or less players, the way account creation and defection seems to work, a new player has a huge chance to land into one of them. I'd much prefer if these 29 kingdoms were put together. I don't belief a 10 or less prov kingdom has any solid intra kingdom ties (left) to make it impossible for it to be merged with another kingdom)
Another thing i'm reading here is that top kingdoms are oh so happy to accept new players. It's only half of the truth. When my kd disbanded a few ages ago i was indeed asked to join some top kds, and some of our players did. I didn't. I wanted to play more relaxed, not wanting to set my alarm to attack in the dead of night. During these ages I've had three invitations from top kd's in my in game pm box, i always answered i'd be happy to join but would not set my alarm to attack. Needless to say, i was rejected by all of them. What this clearly shows is that the current top kd scene is an elite group, if they know you, they might want you. But if they don't you have no chance to join them unless you're willing to make utopia a way of live. And this is simply not the way the better part of the player-base wants to play utopia. For casual players i'm pretty sure having a 20 player kingdom is currently a luxury and having 25 nothing but an unreachable dream. The casual players simply don't have the ingame connections to attract new players. My kingdom moved some players in, true, but they were all players from kd's we warred against that switched sides. Good for us, but as a whole, not helping the game at all.
