Disclaimer
Last few days there has been much debate on the the "Kingdom Member Limit" topic. To avoid any blame of hiding my bias on the topic I should declare that I'm in the camp that supports a Member Limitation to Kingdoms. However, to the extent that you believe me, I want to state that I have tried to stay unbiased when both gathering and presenting the data in this post. My intention of this post is not to shame anyone, nor is it an attempt to add leverage for my opinion in the debate on "Kingdom Member Limit". The intent of this Post is to describe as clearly as possible the state of the game in 2018, and to analyze the implications of the current game rules and mechanics.
Also, please leave a like on the post if you liked it. If there is interest I may find the effort to go back in time, digging up and presenting some data from 2017 and 2016.
Data
The presented graphs in this post are based on collected data from GT archives for 2018. In total there were 15 servers that ended during this year. Each server was played under the Kingdom Union system. For each server data was gathered for the top 6 kingdoms (ranked by Victory Points). Recorded Victory Points are excluding the Wonder of the World bonus.
In the Average: The Member Count - Victory Point relationship
For aspiring new players to this game you may want to know what other successful kingdoms are doing in order to reach the top 6 ranks of a given server. This information may be useful if you are interested in creating your own team, or simply if you want to avoid getting crushed in the mid game repeatedly. As a first taste of what the 2018 data tells us it's always good to look at averages. In total there were 15 Kingdoms reaching Rank 1, 15 Kingdoms reaching Rank 2, ... and so on. The following graph shows you the Average Member Count and Victory Points in each Rank-Bracket for 2018. The yellow and white down-pointing arrows with associated [- %] numbers display how much lower in % a given Rank Bracket is in average as compared to the Rank 1 bracket.
Key Observations:
1. On average, a Rank 1 kingdom had 107 members in the end game.
2. On average, a Rank 1 kingdom had 11.4 Million Victory Points in the end game (before WW Bonus was applied).
3. There is a near perfect correlation between end game Member Count and Victory Points in the averages.
4. End game Victory Points seem to fall linearly and to an almost exact proposition to falling member count.
5. One may derive a model for the Expected Kingdom end game Victory Point via the Member Count in the following way: Expected VP = Expected Member Count * 100 000. That is the same as saying that each member of a kingdom is on average worth 100 000 VP.
Applying our Model - Studding each Kingdom in 2018
Although averages may give us a model in the expectation, no model can describe a data set perfectly. Let's now apply our model to each individual observation we have of a Kingdom ending up in a top 6 Rank during 2018. In the figure below you see a scatter plot describing each Kingdoms member count (x-axis) and before WW bonus VP (y-axis). Our model for the expected VP is added as well (orange line).
Key Observations:
1. The model of predicting a Kingdoms end game VP using only the kingdoms member count seems scary accurate!
2. A few noteworthy outliers are the 2 for Kingdom BM, and the worst one for Kingdom Stars. It should be said that the 2 servers BM played in 2018 did not have any of the 150 member kingdoms we saw on the other server. In fact BM was the largest team about about 60 members in both the servers they played. As for Stars, their low outlier was on a server where EMC with about 140 members had a complete hegemony, it might have been they case that Stars (just as any other kingdoms on that server) had no chance to compete despite their 62 members.
3. It appears as if the teams that are above the 100 member threshold are the ones that a) have an open discord server and engage in active recruitment, b) are the ones that we see surviving and occurring on more than one server. Teams below the 50 member threshold appear to either be temporary in-game constructions, or have in many cases died off as pre-made teams.
Server Balance - The Kingdom Member distribution on a server basis
Having looked at the data in averages, and on a Kingdom specific basis, it may be insightful to also look how the VP - Kingdom Member Count relationship have appeared on a server to server basis. In the figure presented below you will see each of the 15 servers with an end date in 2018 along the x-axis. The y-axis displays the a Kingdoms end game VP. Each Kingdom (Rank 1 to 6) of a given server is depicted as a bubble, which width shows the Kingdoms Member count.
Key Observations:
1. We can again see the relationship between member count and VP as the bubbles generally are larger in size the further up the VP y-axis we go. The relationship is not perfect as we saw in the previous section, but we can clearly see a clear tendency that Rank 3 - 6 Kingdoms having a completely irrelevant position on most servers.
2. A common scenario on a few servers is the Rank 1 vs. Rank 2 Kingdom situation.
3. One some servers the Rank 1 kingdom is so far ahead that WW bonus will not matter.
4. There is a HUGE variance in terms of server style. In some servers you see the 150 man teams, some times in hegemony position, and some times battling another 150 man team. On other servers there are no 150 man teams, on which Rank 1 - Rank 4 appears to have roughly similar member counts, yet one team coming out on top (in 2 cases its the Kingdom BM contribution to this more rare situation). The distinct randomness by it self is a noteworthy observation though.
Ending words:
I do not want to add my own conclusion from the data presented in this post. I simply hope this can inspire some good and constructive debate below. I do however want to add a few recommendation to new players coming to the game in order to at least attempt them to not become discouraged form experiencing crushing defeats in their first and second server. My recommendations to new players goes as follows:
a) If you are a solo player coming to the game, try to seek out one of the kingdoms whom often seem to be able to mass 150 man Kingdoms. As a member of these you will be able to play a complete round without fear and stress. Often you can also get good help on how to improve your individual game play in these Kingdoms.
b) If you aspire to build a Kingdom out of curiosity or due to being unwanted by one (or all?) 150 man capable teams, then try to make sure you are able to reach that >100 member threshold as fast as possible. The data suggest this being important as many of the Kingdoms below this threshold appears only once in the data.. while the 150 man capable teams appear to survive and even grow across servers!
c) Be very very careful which server you decide to play. If you are new and not yet part of a 150 man capable team, then you had best odds on a server where one of these 150 man capable teams do not join. Jumping in blindly and joining the first best kingdom you find, then you may soon find yourself getting obliterated for staying loyal to your king by your 150 man Kingdom next door. In essence, joining a random kingdom will be a more fun and fair experience on servers where you do not see the 150 man capable teams.
That is all for this post! Hope you find some interesting and fun facts here! 
so the endgame numbers are not a true reflection of 5-6 months of battle) 
