You will hate me, Andy, I have been thinking....
And while thinking pretty hard how to make all this, including our previous discussions on the subject, come together, it occurred to me rather simple, radical, and hopefully effective and interesting solution. It is based on the assumption how faction leader's attribute "Authority" works in the game. Let me present it:

Originally Posted by
Incomitatus
Authority
For the faction leader: Increases all generals' loyalty;
For the faction leader: Decreases chance that captains will turn rebel (or accept bribes?);
For the faction leader: Decreases chance of rebels and brigands appearing;
For the faction leader: Might affect diplomacy (I have seen nothing conclusive, I think there is a good chance that it doesn't, and some people just assume it does because it did in the original Medieval Total War);
For family members: When it comes time to select a new heir, the family member with the highest authority (which is a hidden trait for everyone but the king) is selected.
Based on this we can make a system, which could work for all tribal societies, namely for Aedui, Arverni, Pritanoi, Boii, Lusos as well as Arevaci, and which would in essence contain just these options (further minor faction-specific tweaks are still of course possible):
- Allied State - we already have this, anyone can build this anywhere and it does provide pretty restricted building options and limited local recruitment. It also comes in two flavours, one centered on elites (cavalry and other high tier-units plus peasant rabble), the other on the middle-class (primarily mid-tier infantry).
- Military Occupation - our usual faction-specific government building's precursor: no recruitment, very limited building options, buildable everywhere.
- Protectorate - buildable everywhere, yields some economic benefits, unrest is negated by high law bonus, but allows no recruitment and needs to be garrisoned and protected by troops drawn from other regions.
- Migration - buildable in regions where European Tribal culture (rel_e) is less than 50%, provides conversion bonus slowly raising rel_e percentage in the region and as this rel_e level rises it allows rising, yet still very limited, recruitment of low-level factional troops. Causes high unrest. Suitable for regions outside "Celtic" world that one chooses to eventually settle with his own people and incorporate fully into the faction.
- Confederation - highest level factional government, buildable only in regions where European Tribal culture is already dominant (rel_e is more than 50%), allows full construction options as well as full factional (and in case it is far from "homeland" also some local) recruitment. I.e. the powerhouse of the faction. Yet, here is a twist!!! For each such gov building constructed (besides the original starting one) within a faction, the faction leader's Authority attribute is decreased by one point.
The reasoning is that the larger a confederacy, the more tribes and polities it includes, the more difficult is to maintain central control and to prevent fracturing. Because the Authority attribute can have values from 1-10 there is a soft cap on how many these co-equal tribes a player chooses to establish. He really has to balance the trade-offs and take suitable strategic decision because with each new Confederate he gains manpower and long-term economic benefits, but also higher risk of rebellion.
I think this is actually pretty historical: small empires are internally cohesive, but vulnerable to outside threats, while large empires are plagued with challenges from within.
If a player chooses to preserve his faction leader's authority and does not accept new regions as co-equal confederates, he will be forced to garrison and defend and expand his realm only with troops drawn from his core region and from Allied States, both of which will eventually expend the recruitment pools and he will end up with forces spread thin and little to no reserves to cope with emergencies and invasions.
Conversely, if a player chooses to expand his base and accept newly conquered regions as co-equal confederates, his faction leader' would be just a primus inter pares with low comparative authority over his powerful confederates and his realm, while capable of fielding large and powerful armies would increasingly face the risk of rebellions, defections, etc. This effect might be restricted to be human-player-only.
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