Having many territories is a huge benefit. It also needs to have some downsides. Let us divide these challenges into internal and external challenges.
Internal challenges of controlling huge swaths of land
- Upkeep cost of territories
- Other things. In general, the internal downsides has to do with organization. A super well organized guild will mitigate these downsides
External challenges of controlling huge swaths of land
- Due to the guild’s size, more guilds might be interested in the land. They will therefore have to fight more GvG’s (and/or contest more sieges when those are implemented)
- Due to the above, they will also have to have more GvG teams, since one GvG team can’t defend a new territory 10 maps away from the first territory they defended (this is one of the counters to a big guild)
The thing I am talking about is the (2). If (1) was the only downside, then in theory, one GvG team can defend a whole lot of land if they spread their timers out properly.
When the lockout and fake attacks are in the game, the guilds controlling a ton of land have to have several functioning GvG teams. This in itself makes it easier to take their land and increases the possibility that the guild controlling a lot of land will implode under its own weight.
Don’t get me wrong. I think sending fake attacks (and attacks in general) should be much more expensive.
And I also think that a GvG team should be able to fight more GvG’s in the same area. Right now they can only “jump” 1 time. If they could jump 2 or 3 times during one lockout, it would make it possible for one GvG team to defend a bit more territory, and it’d make the lockout/fake attacks less punishing.
But removing the possibility of fake attacking altogether, or to remove the GvG lockout, would move the game is a bad direction. We need a system in place that promotes smaller guilds by making it harder to control huge swaths of land.