There needs to be a better way of communicating, if they go the path of forcing one to join an empire.
I got a group of people from a forum I'm a part of, and we played together quite well in Haven and Hearth. We tried for Hazeron, and communication was a big challenge for everyone. Too many chat tabs, and no easy way of communicating if you are in a different sector. There are ways, yes (tabs for alliance)...but everyone except me and someone else, knew how it worked. And even then, they kept going to wrong chat tabs. With haven and hearth, it was much easier.
Maybe it is the UI itself, and not the communication. Maybe both go hand in hand.
If they don't change that, then I would very highly disagree that people are forced to join an alliance.
Also, I don't want to join some random alliance I don't want to be a part of at all. And griefing would be extremely rampant (I can already imagine how easy it would be to grief people). I want to pick and choose who I am with, not be aligned with some random people.
On the plus side, it could open the way for much bigger conflicts...less empires...but bigger empires. Still, empires seem like "guilds"...and if I played an MMO where I was forced to choose between a few guilds and nothing else...I just wouldn't play it.
One could do what MMOs do with guilds (that have a minimum amount of people required to make it)...if an empire doesn't have a certain amount of people, it can't be made. That wouldn't work currently, cause people would just make new accounts...but if you had to actually pay for the game or/and subscription, it would work a lot better.