This thread seems to be a bunch of rambling... Here is the thing... From experience I can tell you that tribes that start out strong and war a lot of others fizzle in the end... Maybe their name stays (not a lot get this pleasure) in place but the true tribe is gone...
See until the world gets in the mils per player, you can never know who will stay or go. your best player will end up your worst, and you worst end up your best. All depends on who has burned their selves out. Another key factor I have noticed, is if yo do not get the sitting game started early on, the members fizzle out faster... There are a ton of other variables that can be noted in who was a top tribe to contend with at one point.
But fact stands, that the ones in the end are the ones with the people who can put more time, effort, and patience into the game. The others either could not keep up due to time constraints, or they just got bored.
I can contest to the being bored part. The thing that hit me, was I had 90% of control over my tribe and it's dealings. That burned me out. I had no time for other things, which made me fall behind in rl. And well that was my mess up... I should have had more faith in others to help me run the tribe properly, which would have kept her alive even when I was not able to maintain my duties. But instead my tribe fell at it's seems due to me not being able to be around.
So here is my list... Which is based off of things that happened in the world...
1.Axe love them or hate them, they have stuck through it since they emerged from Ez and (hell cant remember your old tribe's name Jaffe) taken part in a lot of big wars...
2. TSoH Even though at one point they seemed to be a n00b tribe nobody even saw as a threat. They did make a name for themselves.
3.-?- even I hated them... but you have to admit, they controlled the world for the better part of the first year...
4. Godly not much I can say except I was wrong in assuming they were merely rim n00bs, I think others found that out too
5. TH a tribe I thought would die out, but have come against the odds that were placed on them..
6.(~SP~) Yeah I had to put my old tribe up... Regardless of what happened at the end due to leadership f-ups... (~SP~) had a good run, we stuck with the ideals of few allies, many enemies... Which did take it's toll on all of us... but we stayed and fought against multiple tribes and stayed in the top of the OD ranks...
There are other tribes that deserve the pleasure of being mentioned, but I am sticking with my top 6...