Current Top 10:
EQ:
To me, they seem to have a reasonable spread across K45 and are in a prime position to dominate the North East. In terms of leadership, I have not heard of them personally, but I have heard nothing bad about them. I see a few players I recognise which is always a good sign as well. In terms of nobles, seems to be solid enough target selection. Don't really see anything stopping them at least in the short run, I know they are fighting against some coalition which I haven't bothered looking up, but if they are in K45 they don't frankly stand a hope in hell. One criticism I would give and this could be applied to many tribes down the list is there are slightly too many players for my liking which can lead to a worse atmosphere and less integrated tribe, though a good leader can mitigate this.
Rabid:
I've been in this tribe, so won't comment too much on them. To me, they seem a relatively simple lock in to come out on top in the South East unless things change.
ISN:
They have a bit of a reputation for lets just say bending the rules, but would not count them out based on that alone. Seem to be the favourite in K54, though to a far lesser degree than EQ and Rabid are in their respective quadrants. Panda and Sarcow are still significant threats. I'd say that their clusterisation is slightly too tight for my liking and they could find themselves a bit constricted in the mid term if they did not win wars or recruit. One major thing that I think is damning for them is kicking players after they have been cleared or attacked, not because of stat saving or anything like that which is fine in theory but outweighed by other factors. Personally, I think that if you recruit someone to your tribe, you should be prepared to stand by them to the end. Value your members and they will more likely value being in your tribe.
DOKDO:
This tribe is near me and I've been hearing good things about them. Seem to be the clear top dog in K44, though they do have quite a lot more isolated members than the other tribes above that could be picked off, especially in K54. Have a few players I have talked to and they all seem alright. They have had quite a large turnover of members in the last two weeks so will be interesting to see how that goes. Don't see any reason why they couldn't take over the North West.
(Funny thing about this is that the top 4 tribes are all the leading tribes in one corner of the world respectively, often you have one place that is empty of very big tribes)
PANDA:
Panda has a few advantages over ISN when it comes to the south east. I think they have a better spread for longer term expansion and I would be tempted to say they have slightly better players and I like their member count a lot more. Know nothing about their leadership but at the same time have heard nothing bad. That said, their success at least in the mid-long term relies on beating ISN and Sarcow, they have a more difficult path to tread than any of the tribes above.
SARCOW:
Of the three tribes fighting for K54, I personally think SARCOW is the underdogs, not that they couldn't win though. Their position isn't the greatest, especially with regards to ISN, who can pick at their northern cluster. Given player size, I'd make a wild guess and say they have gotten the worse end of K54 on average. That said, I see nothing that indicates that they are either great or terrible, I'd guess they are middle of the pack, though I love the name.
TBS
:
Seems to be the tribe stuck in the centre of everything. That to me seems to be a very dangerous position to be in with limited expansion, at least they are clustered so they can turtle. I guess after one of the above tribes conquers their part, picking off at TBS
seems a possible logical step. I'm sure in the short run they will do fine, but there is nothing to suggest they will do well in the long run, either in player/leader base which I have no clue about or positioning and expansion opportunities.
KING:
Similarish situation with TBS
so I won't repeat the same sort of thing. What I can say is that I don't like their profile, a lot of people in my opinion who ask for 2:1 troop counts in an application and to a lesser extent farming totals (see Dokdo, though I like their disregard of past worlds) aren't looking for the right things in a player.
(I got bored at this point, the last two tribes in the top 10 will burn...).