It does seem that there will be inevitably a "seven day" burnout to the game, due to the mechanics of it.
New players get seven days of protection from attack in which they can build, upgrade, research, and improve. But once you reach a certain point in that seven day period, if you spend any amount of time with the game at all, you've reached the point where it takes hours to upgrade/research/build.
Waiting for something to happen creates a very immediate and usually permanent lack of interest. This creates a substantial number of "abandoned" player cities, where the player reached the point where waiting was overriding their interest in the game, so they simply quit and left their fledgling city sitting where it was, resources intact.
For example...I am still in the seven day protection period, at my third day, but I already feel the need to upgrade my town hall to level 5, which will immediately revoke the protected status, making me vulnerable to attack. I don't have a military force to speak of because I've been working on increasing my population and resource levels. I am not in an alliance because I am rather "organized-entity-phobic" (meaning I don't play well with others, I guess). I would easily be trounced by any attacker with a force of moderate worth. Once this happens, I will likely not have an interest in attempting to reacquire my former town's "value" because of the excessive amount of time involved in waiting for it to happen. At that point, I've played the game less than seven days and am no longer interested in it and will move on to something else that will occupy my time, hopefully with less of a time-sink and "waiting downtime."
It appears this game is designed for "uber" players...those with absolutely nothing to do but sit in front of their computer and build/upgrade/improve. Yes, there is an immediate draw to new players, but that fades quickly and irrevocably once the protected status is withdrawn, if the player is not among the "elite" alliances or very well fortified against attack.
Eventually, and it won't be a very long "eventually" from they way it seems to be going, all that will be left are the highest ranking alliances, and they will be left with nothing to conquer. Thus their own boredom with the game will arise and they, too, will depart for other entertainment.
It's unfortunate, because it is an interesting game and has a lot of potential.




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