The ability to create an additional faction would be great.  If I understand the code correctly there are 4 different factions, Kingdom, Empire, Monsters, and Wildlands.  I am not sure if there are or are not sub factions underneath Monsters and Wildlands.

The number of allegiances is hardcoded. The allegiance either Kingdom or Empire, and that determines whether you use life or death shards (and a few other prerequisite items, but falls among those lines). You can change environment spread and that will switch whether you get life shard or death shards, so it is appropriate that kingdom spread grassland, and empire spread deadlands. If they include more environments than the 3 they currently have, it is conceivable to create a more unique look to each of these empires. But I do believe they do not do this from a hardcoded standpoint as well as a memory standpoint.

I don't know if you can just switch

<FactionAllegiance>MYEMPIREOFAWESOME</FactionAllegiance>

and build things from that point of view. Where your EMPIRE OF AWESOME spreads a barren waste across the map as it expands. This might work to define a new allegiance, or it might not. But we have a lot of control to make a faction unique (just allegiance can't really be changed much)

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Not that this is proof or anything, but I suspect if there was such a tag (known), then Heavenfall would have used it in CoS.  As it stands, all the new races appear in the faction creator with text stating that custom factions based on those races is unsupported.  FWIW.

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I think they're all interchangeable in the sovereign creator.

I wish that new races had the option to be Kingdom only or Empire only, even if the pre-made races were unable to be changed.  It seems a shame that new races don't seem to be able to choose the option for Kingdom only or Empire only.

Is there anyway to make a champion so that it cannot equip items and cannot ride a mount?

You could however create your own model type and set up what items and equipment that the unit can use. See my female henchmen mod, or my militia mod for more details.

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Guys am I missing something here.... i'm trying to give a trainable unit (not a champion) the ability to cause criticals, gave them an ability that has this.....

<GameModifier>
  <ModType>Unit</ModType>
  <Attribute>AdjustUnitStat</Attribute>
  <StrVal>UnitStat_ChanceToCrit</StrVal>
  <Value>100</Value>
  <Provides>+100 Critical Chance</Provides>
</GameModifier>

Shouldn't this make the unit cause a crit on pretty much every attack?  It doesn't seem to do anything.... I feel like i'm missing something obvious here.

I'm inclined to doubt it. Making a way for the AI to decide which champions/sovereigns get to buy and use them may be more headache then they thought worth it.

Hmmm bugger, well that certainly seems to be the case from what I have found.  

Thanks.