With home continents an empire has a very specific goal to defend.
They priorise them - they need them secure to be able to expand on to other continents.
With the way continents are linked via warpgates typically they are being contested by only two empires at a time.
The self-balancing in this is that when a dominant population threatens the other two empires they tend to stop fighting each.
This means the two weaker factions now start to focus on a single target. Who become outnumbered over two fronts.
This check and balance meant that the dominant population might hold more of the 11 continents but there were front lines being contested and a few solid battles underway.
My long term solution to PS2 balance requires a few more continents, well structured warpgate links. Which we aren't getting any time soon.
Otherwise population imbalance as a result of positive feedback loop to the most numerous empire means the constant meatgrinder 3 way has to stop.
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