Basically a locked-in part of the tutorial / nation creation that displays all of the top 30 (allowing alliances to opt out of the list) and forces a new player to apply to one before continuing.
This would only be for newly created nations moving forward.
Also lock alliance creation behind nation age of 30 days. This barrier is so small yet it prevents brand new players from coming in to create a nano-sized 1 man AA then quit thinking the game is so mean and "they raided me and destro