it's a catch-22 clash of design requirements, it has to be.

[shukra]

hypothesis: each subsequent age stresses the game design to the point that design requirements start to condradict.

to fix the situation they increased base hit points ... and it's kind of awkward, a different feeling severely provoking the community.
perhaps cwa stressed the design too much, and the final age comporting to the original vision was atomic.

this is inevitable because the basic game isn't an orthogonal scenario like chess or GO, it's fragile because it's thematically more interesting.
each new age demands design changes to relieve the strain on current assumptions; so the real blame is on the designers of CWA.

the rebalance is practically lowering my interest not because of any drama, but that the game doesn't do it's job of smoothly holding my attention.
there is a good history of successful strategy/arcade game fusions ... when i was a child it was ARCHON, it's a known good idea.
it's possible to get this right but it's a moving target, and i suspect the design team really did fumble, and the community is correct.

 

[oddin]

you are way too advanced for me mate. Didn't understand a word you are saying

 

[Manifesto]

you are way too advanced for me mate. Didn't understand a word you are saying

Lol.
Shukra, you might be correct, but why was the solution something that affected the whole community?
It can't be described as a simple fumble, a knee-jerk reaction to something that was badly implemented. At least, that could be forgiven. The fact that these changes were carefully thought out and released over 5 stages suggests a deeper, long term strategy. ie: P2Play mentality.
As a CW player, l would've accepted if some of my attacking power was curtailed, if they really wanted to correct a fumble that inadvertently favoured CW players.
The ''rebalance'' is something much more.
And maybe the new museum addition for WW is their way of throwing us a bone? Except it's a badly organised lottery that won't benefit the greater community, but no doubt they'll use it as their 'white knight' battle cry.
Wars too hard? Get an advantage with new WW artifacts!
It might placate their guilt (if they had any) but as we know, only a small percentage of players will get anything worthwhile.

 

[Cannibals]

An additional design challenge is that as new features are added, abandoned bases become relatively weaker. I suspect that was a big factor in the magnitude of the rebalance.

 

[Manifesto]

Cannibals , they should not have doubled defender stats, everything else l could live with.
Abandoned bases deserve their lower stats.