Before I start: I know this may or may not really be 100% cannon, but it often accured that factions conquered eachothers lands in wars (Minas Morgul belonged to Gondor once, etc...) so I wanted to suggest this. I know you have a lot of work to do, so I don't expect to see this anytime in the near future if you even consider this idea, because you probably have priorities on what you want to add next anyway.

The suggestion:

I'd like to suggest a mechanic that would allow players of certain factions to progress in the hostilities their faction has with another faction. In other words: If a player is aligned with Gondor, that they could help Gondor to fight Mordor by taking some small regions (not 100% cannon). I could imagine this to work the following way: If a player takes over every single mob-spawning structure of a region by placing a gold block and the banner of the faction they are fighting for (every taken-over structure should have the banner of the same faction placed on a gold block), then they can claim these lands and add them to their faction (as a seperate new region) and the enemy's mobs spawn less frequently there. However the invasions become a lot more frequent and aim at destroying those banners (I know that hostile mobs couldn't break blocks in the "bannered" area, but maybe if the land belonged to their faction once an exception could be made?) because the hostile faction would probably try to reclaim their land from the player's faction.

Conclusion: So to sum up, this may be an interesting mechanic as it would give the player a reason to travel into hostile lands (that is not to farm alignment).

Alternative:

Also if that can't be implemented, an alternative would be to mark the "bannered" areas on the map, which would also show the player the progression of their skirmishes into hostile territory without requireing as much time and effort as the suggestion above but still reaching a simmilar effect.

Thank you for reading this post, I do really appreaciate it :D