Query about Alliances and Pacts

Hi All, I have a question about the Alliances and Pacts system in game.

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Namely, there is a 50 player limit per alliance (presumably for balancing reasons), but what is the devs standing on having multiple alliances who are effectively a second (or third) branch of the same alliance, working together as a single unit?

To be clear i'm not talking about individual groups creating a pact and working together, i'm talking about an alliance (Lets call them [BIG] alliance, although that is not the actual alliance names) reaching the cap, and then creating [BIG2] to recuit new members, then [BIG3] and so on as they become full.

As it stands [BIG], [BIG2] and [BIG3] are the top 3 alliances in my region and whilst they may not be breaking any specific rules outright, they are definitely using the alliance mechanic in a way thats not intended (otherwise why have a 50 player cap in the first place). They are making no secret of the fact that it is one big alliance, and as the shields have fallen on the first 2 cities they have divied them up, having one each (without any in-fighting between them) for [BIG] and [BIG2].

So what is the developer stance on this? If nothing else they are seriously messing with the health/longevity of that particular server.. since who wants to come play if we're going to get stomped by a group abusing the alliance system, and on a more practical/bottom line level, who wants to spend money on a game where we're getting stomped by what is effectively a 150 person alliance that would (at this point) require the collective efforts of the other 7 alliances in the top 10 to take down?