Alts, multi-accting and botting are rampant. Evony does next to nothing about it. Maybe they are overwhelmed in dealing with the problem. Maybe they dont know how to deal with the problem. Maybe they dont really care about it. I dont know - but I do know that next to nothing is being done about it.

Bottom line - you can no longer compete effectively without employing some level of cheating. The new standard is players essentially wielding the power of a 50 or 100 city account, with massive resources and troop count numbers. Botting allows the mass of cities to gather resources easily and build enormous troop numbers, as well as fundamentally changing game play (auto-heal, auto-comfort, auto-trading, alarms when attacked, so that alliance can then account sit for offline player, etc..).

That is the reality. Rules not enforced cease being rules.