sacred kernel
I think it would be interesting if you could add an option to make all free cities a cultural copycat of the factions with rulers in the game.
For example:
Humans in this world are all Feudal, they don't follow the one human feudal ruler, but they're more likely to be aligned with him and the're all the same culture.
Goblins are all** dark **culture because they all take after the dark goblin ruler present in the map. Same culture, same species, but not loyal to that species' ruler. not yet.
And so on and so forth.
So, in a map where you do that, all orc free cities would gravitate towards allying with the** orc faction**, and tend to be less friendly towards any other faction.
In the same way, if you start executing **orcs **from an enemy ruler, you'll find that all **orc **free cities start becoming a lot more hostile towards you because even if they aren't aligned with that ruler, you're still killing "their people."