It's quite common for any single faction's population to be very unevenly distributed. Very often I see small populations for a given faction on two continents, but domination on the third (it varies a lot over time though - interesting!) This should be discouraged by giving reduced xp rewards for empires over, say, 35% population on a given continent. So: xp bonuses for global underpopulations; xp penalties for continental overpopulations. This, I think, would drive more interesting conflicts. Neither empty base hacking nor being totally overwhelmed are exciting gameplay scenarios.
I'd like to, but each link says: You do not have permission to view this page or perform this action.
Make it so the more territory you control, the longer the respawn timer is. Consequently, the less territory you control, the faster you respawn. Speeds up the territory tug-of-war but maybe it would make continent locking harder...
