You raise some interesting points and I agree that one of the problems with the players on this server is the need to play alongside 'friends'. Which really doesn't make sense as you wouldn't switch which football team you support because your friend supports another.
However I think you're missing the point that a good player can make decent players out of newer players if they put the effort in. It is possible for an unknown account to lead if they take the time to talk to and nurture the players they recruit. With the addition of the premium features, attack notifications and the app (making it possible to play everywhere) it is easier than ever now for a new player to grow just as fast as a pro, they only lack the knowledge.
I think the reason for the family tribes is because its an easy lazy way to win. It takes a lot less effort to recruit half a world than it does to fight them.
I disagree with this.. As someone who started a new account on uk servers beginning of this year, I went through exactly that.. Check my stats on w25.
I decided to lead a tribe, and started looking for members.. out of everyone that was already not in a tribe there were only a select few who I would consider to be good at the game. It took some time to convince them to join as they were not even planning to stay in the world, the rest of the tribe were rookies/average at best.
In the end after 8 month of fighting together with another tribe, we became sister tribes as its clear as day that we were not going to win the world ourselves as there were only 7-8 players in the tribe who were putting in the effort continuously while the rest just trod along doing next to nothing.
I tried training countless players throughout the 9 month I been in the world, and I can honestly say that only 2-3 players out of everyone we had have managed to get somewhere.. and even then, those players weren't complete beginners.. they just never got the chance to stick around long enough to gain enough experience at how the end game works.
We had many measures to deal with inactives including E-sitter and asking them to merge together, in the end I think we lost over 70 members (Tribe limit is 40) and we been forced to pick up players from fallen tribes just to fill up our ranks.
Playing with friends is easy, because you already worked with them and know what you are capable of, hence why everyone gathers their group of friends with them, to avoid having to deal with deadweight and players quitting after they get hit once. Maybe what TW need to do, is find a way to bring players back so that many strong friend groups can fight against each other.. Rather than set small tribe limits to separate those friends. I hope I dont need to point out how many times in history this happened!
P.S. Not matter how many guides you read and how much you train a player.. experience is the key, most new players dont get the chance to survive long enough to gain the needed experience that only comes mid-late game.
I tried training another guy in w28(here) all I got in the end for this was that he left the tribe, set me as duke and went to ally tribe saying he cannot deal with this level of game play as its too much stress..
EDIT: " With the addition of the premium features, attack notifications and the app (making it possible to play everywhere) " Thats a good advertisement from you, most new players dont even know that there is premium exchange, as its not explained anywhere until you find it yourself.
Push notifications are free on most apps btw.