In a world with extremely low friction the energy flows to the winners on the top.

When there's more friction it can create different pockets of smaller winners.

More variation leads to more diversity; more adaptability and resilience in the ecosystem.

One empire can spread throughout a vast plain; mountainous terrain often has fractal chiefdoms.

Somewhat surprisingly, low friction leads to hyper optimization leads to centralization leads to hollowness and fragility of the system.

The system is overfit.