not a bad idea, i think it could be more flexible. there should be other criteria besides the amount of recruits a crew may have, such as: activity, time in, square blockage, builds… i think to be considered a city for instance, one must build a city. a country/kingdom could have one or more cities, empires would have the most people/countries/cities… and could there not be city-states? i live on a large continent, and i don’t have too many neighbors and lots of space i am familiar with that i consider to be my “country”, i claim it as my country. i am literally building a small country and expanding. i like your idea. and i like the idea of having a certain amount of crew members per rank. i think we can add more detail. like drawing actual lines on the map, naming continents/land masses/countries…