Right now any new player has to decide if he wants to join a tribe or create one out of nothing by his own.
In the first case, he might be chased off, simply by finding his prefered tribe unused/ nonexistent.
In the second case, he will suffer from the game mechanics, that will kick him in the back after a couple of days.
Both cases might chase some players of.
Also the game suffers from that artificially reduced diversity.

Wouldn't we profit from the abandonment of the minimal requirements of numbers for a tribe?
Who would suffer from tribes inhabited by only one player p.e.?

You can't have a forest with only 1 tree now , can you ?
Medea:
Who would suffer from tribes inhabited by only one player p.e.?
First of all it would be unfair to the bigger tribes that have pulled together a community, 2nd you can't have an army with only one player ( minimum limit is 3 warriors ) , 3rd even if you could have an army with one warrior you won't be able to conquer and expand so there's no real use .

I do not mean to discourage you but those are the games rules and for better or worse we must live by them .

(You are not discouraging me, it's just a proposal.)

I can't see what would be so unfair for any established bigger tribe.
Except that players might leave to claim power over their prefered tribe. But if a tribe is really a community and not just a bunch of players without alternatives, this should not become a big problem.
I have to admit I do not even see why "pulling together a community" should be estimated an acknowledgeable effort of one tribe or a failing of others.

I speak of mere existence, not of giving away 5 provinces for free or anything like that.
A tribe with only one warrior would have all the flaws you mention, but so what?
If you want to conquer more provinces, you will still need a community to be able to do it.
Bigger tribes could decide if they helped the smaller ones out to bypass that flaws or not.

It would be a chance for rp, for diplomacy and many choices for new players instead of lots of unused tribes and the perception to not be able to be succesful here without giving in to other players. And I fear that might chase people away from AE.
Of course it would also be the chance for many small and inactive tribes, but is this really a disadvantage to the system of today?

There are those tribes that consist of more than one warrior, but are still shorthanded.
Time could make them become big tribes themselves, but there are breaking before rise or fall can develop naturally.
For what reason? What is the advantage for AE to have it this way?

A king of a tribe with 1 player will have too much advantage in terms of silver income.

A tribe with 1 player means one less chance for a group of players to establish a proper tribe ... and there is a limited number of castles ...

5 players for a kingdom is OK in my opinion - the number is good balanced ... not too big, not too small ...

Maybe it should be a limit of 3 warriors in same tribe for every new region ... a tribe with 5 players having 5 provinces and a great income of silver is a little too much because right now a tribe growing slow to 17 players will have same maximum number of provinces ... but this is also very hard to balance ...

I think it's not fair because is based on "first come, first serve". As Zmeus pointed out, occupying a castle with one player can be interpreted as blocking the castle.
The game mechanics not kick out of the game the player who occupy a castle, just demote him as king.
Is up to that player to call RL or ingame friends and have 5 warriors in the nation, is up to his leadership skills to build up a tribe, in the same way things worked in RL.
About role-play as king of 1 member tribe, be serious, please! Not only as king you can have a role-play, it's up to everybody imagination and skill, not about having or not a title. I remember that I had my most productive period in RP as simple knight. After that I was too busy to write good stories about my character.

A 3 warrior rule seems OK.....but only on the limit that it must have 5 to expand past the first shire.

The notion of blocking....is a very tempting one if you can use the first knights just to soak up money from 5 shires for themselves.

But at 3 on 1 it is still not best, because the capital makes a lot of money alone.
I think the word is, Farming.
But warriors can already do that.They just can't be big and do it.

This is a situation that is already seen in some places, where only one knight sits at a castle and sets pay to 100% and tax to 0%. (look back in West Africa in KH)

The second part is...the rule has proven to work already at 5.


Overall though....I think since the game builds so slow, it is worth considering a 3 warrior minimum for the games first 50 years. (With the tool that says need 5 warriors to grow past 1 province. And return to 1 province if go back to less than 5 wariors for over 14 days.)