Faction takeover

my idea was not to make these hubs another infinite resource, but to make it something to compete over, yes really small alliances will miss out, but they'd grow, and the idea was that middle sized alliances would be forced to use diplomacy to control hubs ie

Aliance A is bugger than alliance B and C     B is in the middle and is getting crushed but sometimes beats C  C wants total control over hubs on that side, therefore tells B that if B stopps attacking then C will re-inforce against A

 

Limiting the hubs controled by population missess the point as the large alliances would gain that many and revert back to the lathargy that already exists

Then the newer alliances lose out.  The faction hubs would be snatched away by all the big alliances, and the smaller alliances would be unable to get a piece of the action.  A better idea would be to let alliances create their own trade hubs to compete with each other and the NPCs.  These hubs would be able to be besieged by both other alliances and NPC factions.  An alliance would gain a hub in much the way a player gains a city.  After a certain populations is reached, a new hub is available.  Settlers are used for making a new hub.