Hate. took their first village a month and nine days before THx did over 2 years ago. Hate. always ran with about 40 members, Time did the same up until recently, THx was almost always pushing the max as they ran a family tribe, we'll call it 55-60 members. We started around the same time, had the same opportunities, with more players, you had more nobles at your disposal, as we only made 4 per day per person max back then. (generally around 2.5-3.0).
All things being equal, THx due to how they ran their operation as a family, with over 100 members at one point had a potential to be much farther ahead than Time.
Yes at the instant Time was created, we may have been larger, but that was only because we've been a warring tribe since day 1, and hit players who built our villages up for us, instead of hitting smaller barbs.
The point of the date of inception was that despite it, we still have 2 1/2 times your ODA. We've burned 2 1/2 times the resources you guys have in building new troops to replace the ones we burned, and we've taken near double the active targets. We constantly challenged our members, warred the tribes around us, and kept everyone on their toes, taking down the threats quickly, before they could rise up against us. Time was always ready for the world to declare on us, unfortunately we didn't get that challenge, and we had to lay down a gauntlet on the remaining tribes before there was nothing left to challenge us.
We've played this world from day 1 in a way I believe to be the spirit of the game... Aggressive, Strong, Bold... We let our troops do the talking.... A tribe, it's members, need to be constantly challenged, need to be constantly entertained, if you want them to stick around until the end. The real reason why Time is still here, and still on top, is because the tribes around were soft from the start, and didn't have a strong fighting spirit, sure there were individuals, and small groups out there that had it, but no one to pull all those strong individuals under one banner, to stand up to Time. In the end, I believe our fighting spirit would have pulled us through anything this world had to throw at us.