The whole thing of this being a newbie world went out the window with some of the settings really. Why are players allowed to send trains in such short time ranges ? It is not possible on my connection and is even further from reality if I use a mobile connection/dongle. It gives such an advantage to those with the right technology - you might as well allow someone to send 4 nobles in the same attack, so long as there is a tag. I don't recommend it, but it would give a level playing field. I don't object to there being this option on other worlds, but not necessarily on a 'newbie' world, as some of the strategies I learned as a newb becaome redundant.
I have to agree with those who have suggested that someone playing a reasonable time per day by themself can't compete. Allowing hundreds or thousands of fake attacks of one unit each is plain silly and not in keeping with the logic of the game. Those of us with real lives have no time to tag all those attacks and don't really see why we should have to.
I understand co-playing and have done it to get a good start in a world, but it is clearly an advantage to those players. If they can launch attacks when you're offline, then you can't know when they were sent (unless you look at attack/command IDs - but that's hardly intended as part of the game). That's fair enough to an extent, but over time, players who find they are not competitive, or just keep losing, will be driven away.
I know I started playing and got addicted, but reckon I'd be more likeley to get put off if I started now as the noob/experienced player divide becomes larger.