hold on, let him cook....
I think implementing this would be really interesting -- at least, maybe just in the form of lessening the amt of settlements like what was said in the post, and then the amount of towns a Nation can have. Idk how good jamming every single racial nation into one tile would be, neutral on that. So here's an alternative idea, not racial tiles, but limiting how many of these settlements can be made.
It's good to give players choice, but if that means leaving dozens of inactive towns around the map because every Baron wants to have their little settlement, they need ... less of one?? that sounds bad, but hear me out.
It could work with something like:
Each nation has a certain amount of slots depending on player count. i.e., old Oren empire would have a fair few (like 3-5 town slots) because they had like.. what, 30% activity?
Meanwhile nations that are less active might only get the base 1.
It'll make people work harder irp and ooc to show that their certain house, guild, etc is active and wanting to create events. It'll draw new players into organizing with other players and build more community than 'I make gigantic town that no one lives in because the land was cheap'.
There doesn't need to be activity checks per se, just 'Is this nation consistently filled with people (i.e. by using playercount at peak times in each timezone)', 'is this nation hosting events and fun things to do?', etc. If they don't have many people OR events, then they just need to focus on making themselves bigger BEFORE creating new towns.
It may be a bit RPG-esque or something like that, but I feel like it'd prevent a lot of these issues.
(ALSO, I think lairs are at a good state rn... ish? From what I've seen they're being given to groups that need them, such as the Djinn, necros, mystics, etc etc. There have been a few that were simply wonky like someone getting a lair accepted for their broken-down Oren family, but those seem far and few.)