Well, what I conceive as 'alliances' is basically a friendlist and a general SuDe report where the production and market shares are combined and display the total percentage for everyone in one.
The only use this would have is to make companies from the same field to work together in market or production domination. Instead of the usual scores, the 'alliances' would have a share score and a total revenue from both trading and shop.
The field with the highest share is the one that counts, while the rest are ignored. For example, the 'alliance' has a 140% share sum (from both production and market shares) on the textiles field (Fabrics, Down Jackets, Cotton, Wool, etc), and they have a 75% sum of share from the grocery field, the textiles field is taken into account and the grocery field is ignored completely.
Now that the highest share was taken into account. A 'balancing' score is needed, the total revenue from shops and trading is taken into account from the field. (So it isnt easy to get a high score producing simple cheap things like hops or fruit only).
Share score would be the heavy one, and the revenue score the one following.
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This is a very vague idea but this is my general thought as to what 'alliances' are. The high score obtained by the 'alliance' by no means affects the individual player's
****** Edit: - "Give folks a better incentive to product unfinished goods (bauxite,
steel, etc)"
This could be as simple as making certain resources and unfinished products that give little revenue tax free, decrease production costs, raise the base normal price or even make the available price range wider.
****** Edit 2: - "Add a feature that will defeat the auto is king path to victory while
keeping auto as a possible path to victory through a rock-paper-scissors
dynamic."
My suggestion would be to raise the ammout of semi finished goods needed to x2 to make them harder to produce, it would raise the costs and lower the ROI a bit.