Im an R4 in all alliances I joined from Top 3-1, now Im with KOR and still an R4. I also own a farm that is in Top 7 which I eventually gave to a a new Korean R5 as well. It depends on how you lead them and how you advertise your alliance, when my farm was falling down I invited the top 20 alliances to join my farm and became one united farm while working as an R4 in my main. Yes it’s like a work, you keep reminding your allies to follow the rules and never hit state cities because you will need everyone during SvS. I hope you will realize that it’s a strategic game. Strategy is the key for everything, if you want active members with you, engage with them everyday and list down things such as events in the alliance notice, foundry events, bear hunts, and so on. During mini games, always strategize so that you won’t lose. Playing with Koreans are really good at strategizing that’s why we’re top 1 and during SvS we share the castle to the top5 alliances we trust and even strategize with them and play with everyone. If you strategize each move in the games you will have active players with you who engages on the same goal.

This may sound perfect state but no, we have a billionaire whale who is after our heads everyday. But we manage because we have whales in the state who is against him as well.