Taking the 20% or so in the 70 too many nations and merging them wont impact their main customers meanwhile opening the door to the 20% or so to stop shrinking and expand a little.
I wanted to start a discussion on this topic, but unfortunately it was labelled as a suggestion and thus moved to the trashcan (suggestions-board).
I think the game would be sustainable with like two dozen nations, wiping out the other countries would only affect like 10% of the users.
I myself would not like to play in a big nation, as I am used the non-existing difficulty and adapting to a more challenging way to play the game would be a tough pill to swallow. But on the other hand, countries with less than a full Div II are boring as hell.
So maybe removing the micronations with less than 50 users AND changing the league structure for smaller countries to a 1-2-4-8, or even 1-1-2-4 (DIV I, 2, 3, 4) pyramid, could help too.
Größter Knecht aller Zeiten aka His Excellency aka President for Life aka Field Marshal Al Hadji aka Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas aka aka Conqueror of the Buzzerbeater Empire in Europe in General and Austria in Particular