we very much would love to get rid of as many bot teams in human divisions as possible. I'm not sure whether we have decided what to do.. part of me wants to just promote everyone up in some way so that there are no bot teams except in the lowest active division. the downside of that is that it sort of makes the playoffs this year meaningless...
You could give meaning to a combination of playoffs and the regular season. Think of it something like the NCAA conference tournaments. If you are 3-15 in league, you have to win the tournament to get a berth. If you are 12-4 (and 20 wins overall) you might get in if you can advance a couple of rounds. If you are first in league, and choke your tournament opener, you might still get in.
Use the playoffs to determine a champion who is guaranteed promotion, and use the rest of the playoffs, including a losers bracket to determine the ranking for additional teams that might promote to replace bots. Base the ranking on the combination of league and tournament wins. A first place team in the regular season will have a win or two starting out, but if they are 0-6 in the playoffs, they'll get passed by other teams.
BTW. if you plan on removing bots by promoting active teams, you
never have to put teams anyplace but the bottom division. You could have started all the USA teams in D.V and let the top 1/4 promote each season and would have a filled D.I after the 14 teams after the fittest rose to the top.
Or you could use the first season of the new countries just to rank and place all teams for the 2nd season. Start the countries out with 4 divisions, and place all the teams in D.IV. Only count wins by the owner, so the teams that sign up early will have 22 games, and those who sign up in the last week only a game or two. At the end of the first season, place the top 16 teams in D.I, the next 64 in D.II and so on. If you like, you can use the playoffs for more games to base the ranking on.