I don't think this is possible in city-rp. If Harhold drums up 20 players when Longsae only has 2, I can't tell 18 of the others to go offline again. In the system however, I think the Casus Belli System imparts a level of artificial fairness. As a general trend, bullies who use overbearing numbers will get less troops from their mayors and aldermen than an outnumbered individual who is fighting to defend his land from being annexed. The system balances itself. I also place subtle brainwashing in groups to limit stonewalling by dropping hints to them in Discord that they shouldn't aid a side that is already overpowered.

Harder attitude. I don't know what it's referring to but I'm less concerned about keeping everyone on board now.

I don't know. Can hardly pressure people to take culture seriously when a modern globalizing world makes culture in itself a novelty. I'm dealing with the cards given, not looking at a family and telling them to read 3 books and watch 3 netflix series to roleplay characters better. I'm not in the business of openly chastising others for not roleplaying out a role realistically when they are already doing their best.

Everyone is essentially currently on the same playing field. Theoretically if XYZ new Dwarf noble family plays the CB clauses well, they could end up having a larger mobilized army than house Yaotl. The system is completely equal now. There are no number sheets declaring superiority of one party over the other, and most titles are flavor (if you discount Imperial protocol which is important for maintaining good relations with the Court).

I am. You're banned from the RP Discord for that very reason. We're taking a harsher stance against people who just troll others or cause shitty situations.

I think that's a matter that cannot properly be solved, unless I actively went out of my way to tell friends they aren't allowed to ally one another. What I did do, is put people who I know are OOC friends in each other's expansion hemisphere. I know for example that du Pont and Yaotl are pals with Harhold (and no surprise there, they all frequent the same discord), so I put Harhold and du Pont lands in the natural expansion sphere of House Yaotl, similar arrangements exist in the colonies and in the Elven lands. That's probably as far as I can go, minus some court protocols that reduce someone's respect value if they sit in iron clad alliances. I think trying to solve OOC alliances is completely pointless. You think Krupp didn't do it, I know Krupp did, because they took orders from Teamspeak, where I was in too. You also constantly shored up your activities with your discord pals, and it's like a circle of never ending fun. Even people who work together for the first time end up gravitating to the same discord and then become solid allies who never betray each other.

We can't function in an environment like old country where political process is inserting a scheming rat into another discord and having them mole all their information from within in an OOC method. Friends will always favor each other or at the very least not back motions against their friends, and even if the first time they don't do it with a stranger, that stranger becomes their friend anyway and it becomes much of the same. There is no structural fairness in friends joining up together, so trying to solve it, or pretending that one is above this, seems like a really pointless endeavor.

As the person who managed the system, I have never ever met a person who has never at any point in time allowed their decisions and conduct get influenced based on the social circles they surrounded themselves with. It's probably more practical as such to simply embrace this behavior as fact instead of trying to chastise everyone and working really hard to find a way to work around it, instead of just going with the flow and reducing the impact of it.

We never needed to before, or more specifically, we never could before. I used soft cap support for Anahera/Lo when politics were swaying against them, using Kade weight to make the playing field more "fair", but ultimately DM investment is kind of new. It's only been since the last 2 years or so that the nobles have really started leaning towards a referee role being present and expressing a sort of "Okay enough is enough" attitude to problem makers. Still, this has to be attached to rules and processes so it doesn't just come swinging out the air.