I recall a suggestion made long ago that as a faction grows nobles become
more expensive. I'd like to revive this proposition: it makes the
practice of terrorize 99 much less useful & it makes death in big factions
a little more severe (which would balance it seems to me). It seems to
make sense from a character point of view: a faction is small in Olympia
because the members know & trust each other: as a faction grows too big
anonymity sets in: different nobles may never meet each other, & lack a
basis for trust. The result: corruption sets in, distrust & lies spread:
the dark times (this taken from the first few pages of the novel from the
screenplay for Star Wars).
Put simply: some people seem to have too many nobles. I wouldn't be
surprised if there was a faction with 40 nobles in it.
I'd also like to throw my support to Oleg's suggestion that we make faerie
bigger, although I admit that to do this at this stage of the game will
ruffle many feathers (those poor dudes who already mapped out
faerie--well......).
These two proposals address directly the problem of a too big too powerful
faction which, it seems to me, could conceivably take over Olympia & make
this open-ended game look rather closed.
-Dave