If you farm in such a large radius as me and a lot of other players, and you only leave three villages in such a large area, then obviously you'll be quite spread out. Later on when you have maybe an ally on one side and tribemates taking villages on your other sides then you'll have less room to expand, seeing as how you have a bunch of these inactive, low point villages in your area. Also, it'll take longer to get defense from your villages. Then your options are take the low pointed villages, or take the risky option of noble training to a less-cramped area where you'll have to fight morale with only one village in that area.
Usually depends on your location I suppose, but that's the common scenario later in the game.