Independent Single-Town Factions

[Third_Of_Five]

When playing Rimworld, you usually only have one town, or at least you center your focus on one central town. Managing multiple self-sustaining settlements is impractical and clearly not the intended purpose of the game (not to mention very laggy).
So why aren't there other factions in your world that are like this? In a setting so lawless, all factions seem to have no trouble whatsoever controlling and managing a network of towns spanning the entire planet, while you, the player, are essentially just one town.
Wouldn't it make sense for there to be some independent, single-town NPC factions? After all, there is no official government on rimworlds, so there's really nothing stopping a group of people from just settling down somewhere and declaring themselves an independent faction.

I think there would be a number of upsides to adding in this kind of feature:
1. It makes sense and fits the lore, as described above.
2. It could make trading more interesting, as independent towns would likely be poorer and more reliant on trade, making them eager trading partners.
3. Faction relations would become more interesting, as nearby independent town factions might start wars with each other, which you might have to deal with if you are allied with one or more of them. Independent towns would also be a big target for raiders, meaning nearby independent towns might ask you for assistance from time to time to help protect them, just as allies will sometimes come to help you if you are being raided. TL;DR, diplomacy with these factions would be much more complicated but also more interesting.
4. Speaking of which, raiding would be more fun, as you will have the option to raid independent towns, giving you plenty of targets without the consequences of pissing off a major faction. (There could still be downsides though, like making yourself look bad to other factions)

Thoughts? I just came up with this out of the blue, so maybe there's something about it that I haven't thought of that might change my mind on it. Would you guys like to see something like this implemented, or would it just clutter up the factions tab with too many names?

[Icarus]

Honestly I'd much more prefer if you could control unloaded zones and subjugate factions more, planet would get really boring without vehicles if the closest settlement was 500 tiles away.

[grrizo]

In the faction system, I would like to see factions ruling certain territories (as they were proto-countries), the implementation of banners/flags with faction colors and other things, but your idea is very good too.

[Third_Of_Five]

In the faction system, I would like to see factions ruling certain territories (as they were proto-countries), the implementation of banners/flags with faction colors and other things, but your idea is very good too.

I do like the idea of adding faction flags and such. Has that been suggested before?

[grrizo]

In the faction system, I would like to see factions ruling certain territories (as they were proto-countries), the implementation of banners/flags with faction colors and other things, but your idea is very good too.

I do like the idea of adding faction flags and such. Has that been suggested before?

I don't think so, no that I remember.
Maybe someone should group all those ideas in a single topic.

[patoka]

most of these suggestions have been suggested already and definitely been either noted by the devs or acknowledged and dismissed.

one thing that has not specifically been suggested to my knowledge is just having overall more and smaller factions. 5 factions are really few, so maybe having 10 would make things more interesting because you'd have to possibly invest more time and money to keep these alliances up (or to even start them, if you begin the game with lots of enemies)

but i guess this is yet another balance issue, i am sure... :/