I have a suggestion that might need some consideration, and it may not necessarily solve all issues, but it's worth exploring for sure.
Looking at other casual servers, German, Polish, Italian many of them seem to have a much higher barb spawn rate than .net, Ofc some more have the basic 350% (if its the basics)
Meanwhile some of these servers have 700%-1200% barb rate per player aswell 100% bonus barb per village = 8-13 barbs per player spawned. Even saw one greece server with 25 barb per player. Don't know how it worked tho as i havnt spoken to anyone from there haha.
This would result in many more barbarians most likely more than enough for players to noble. Maybe you then say "The competetive players will just noble more" But speaking from experience early - mid the problem for the big players isnt "not enough barbs" It is "Not enough nobles"
So with more barbarians leaving the newer players, more casual players, and newly transfered players a chance to also get some villages resulting in more fun for all.
Would also result in a bigger world, which is more fun. New players get
On top of that suggestions would be to add in no barb support like omen said. This feature would prevent larger players from stacking barbarians, which would level the playing field and give smaller players, whether they are new or more casual or whatever category u wanna call, a better chance to noble. This change would also boost motivation in the game, as we all know that nobling is an exciting part of Tribal Wars. Joining a casual world with no barbarians or players to attack due to the PR limit can be quite dull. This would have to be when support lands if that would be possible, that way u can still time your support on villages you send towards but when landing it returns if you for example walled. Otherwise it would ruin for example players helping each other out from different tribes, as i don't think casual would be a good suit for because simply smaller tribes would need to work together to have a chance vs the bigger ones.
nother aspect to consider is the timing of the first event in casual worlds. I believe the initial event should not occur when the casual world starts. For example, let's take world 137 and casual world 15. World 137 will not have an event when world 136 does, but the Casual 15, which runs concurrently with world 137, will have the event. This would prevent big spenders from gaining an early advantage through the event. This adjustment would serve as a minor balance tweak, assuming that events won't be completely removed, which I doubt would happen.
You won't eliminate the competitive players from casual worlds, but by giving all players a fairer chance to grow, it might enhance the overall experience for everyone involved.
These are just some ideas that occurred to me while examining other servers and drawing from many years of experience in casual worlds. At the very least, it could be worth trying out.
Any thoughts if this would be a good add on or no?