IMO, v4 alliance system is not very good one
pillage rule means that, if one has, let`s say, 150 k pop, after the war, it will stay with 90 k. friendly pillages are rare, cause honor is not gained anymore after battles. medicine in alliance researches is too expensive after the first levels to compensate that. wars are also expensive to declare. all that will mean less wars.
the general is useless, since is more profitable for someone to gain a function in another alliance, then stay as a simple member.
the whole alliance system is not correlated with unit prices, which are expensive.
the removal of 6 h rule+the bug which allows for the whole alliances to go in vacation will allow cheaters to flourish. there is another big bug, no alliance ranking.
also, there are no more inactive alliances, from what i know. plus other little things, like most members being unable to see alliance battles
everyone sees only the new functions and the federation thing, and think is smth cool. but it isn`t.
it doesn`t advantage the farmers, the problem with this system is that is very complicated, and hits all game styles. the rules are many and instead of balancing, they produce chaos. pillage rules hits everybody, but farmers first. but the units prices and length of the era stimulates farming. no war income prohibits warrior strategy. no penalty for 3x attacks hit low point strategy. other rules stimulates cheating. actually, if u add benefits and costs, it doesn`t pay to play in a v4 alliance too much. so, whatever the style, the idea to fight wars to have fun is hurt by these changes. the realms become very boring.
it is one of the reasons why i don`t like too much GIO now, after seeing this alliance system in action there... but it is not in all realms, so, if people want to play it, is their choice. that`s why i play in old realms, and i`m not tented to go to new ones
Edit
that`s what`s stated on GIO forum about that
http://www.galacticimperia.org/forums/int/index.php?topic=352.msg2203#msg2203maybe they could change that, but...