Quote Originally Posted by topsy's revenge View Post
If people started trying to compete and some simple balance features were made, then the game would flow a lot better and more organically.
This too.

A big mistake this age is that almost every kingdom elected to stay at 400 acres oop, which is really a bad move for almost every kingdom in the game - ghetto, growth, warring alike. The only kingdoms that benefit from staying at 400 acres are those kingdoms that know they will be hyperactive and that can bait another kingdom that stalled @ 400 acres to war.
The impressionable ghettos bought into the line that war kingdoms like to sell, which basically guarantees that those impressionable ghettos will auto-lose to established war kingdoms every time. Those established war kingdoms would probably win if the warkingdom explored, but since the war kingdoms live off griefing ghettos and making friendships with the top, there is no reason for them to do so.

More acres in the game, in the long term, affects the ecology of the server. There is no reason why a kingdom can explore and fort oop, and wind up in top 10 nw - this despite taking two waves in the first week, and many players mismanaging their oop in so many ways. The ghetto I started with was trying hard to not be big, but due to the stupidity that permeates the game that is what happened.

Right now the game mechanics do (to a degree) encourage growth, and they have encouraged growth ever since easy exploration was a thing. There are still way too many flaws and most kingdoms will never survive in the top echelons, but in general it is better to grow out and get farmed than it is to stay small all age - unless you are one of the hyperactive warring kingdoms that will auto-win at 400 acres and make cfs with other established kingdoms, which happens often due to the incestuous nature of the utopian community.