I think CLI for the most part was successful in stopping the pre/retal and allowing players not in a huge alliance to have protection as long as they make successful attacks. and don't get land only prior to 10 castles. for the players who do sleep and work, just finding a target after getting home from work and before bed each evening didn't bother me.
You can always attack again before your protection ends and restart your 24 hour CLI protection I suppose, but many did choose to wait until their protection ended to attack again. I do think the fact that the people that got 24 hours of protection for a win and gaining castle and land, but the person who got hit and lost castle and land gets 14 hours of protection in many cases is not very balanced. and if you happen to fail on an attack for any reason, you get pre and retal for multiple castles and still get like 14 hours of protection. If they pre and retal quickly, Even with transport, your army from a failed hit is not home by the time you are out of protection. and you often get hit again a 3rd time. I think protection duration needs some balancing.
I do agree with others above who commented about full send and get 24 hour protection. some will take retal and others will be so beat from troop and land/building loss, that they do not try a retal because original attacker is way larger after the hit. Example - a few days ago, I was 130k and got hit by someone 175k. They got 24 hours protection. I lost army and castle and land. got 14 hours protection. after hit, they were still 168k and I was 104k. I don't mind punching up a bit, but generally not gonna hit like 70% bigger than me without a TS to know their army is out. They can retrain close to 2x as fast as I can. So taking retal can be risky, cuz if you fail, your army is out and you will get hit and lose another castle.
I agree with the comment above, it seems kinda pointless to try and defend... Players that are 30% bigger will usually still break you. you lose a castle and land and your army. may as well have the army out and at least preserve it. You might get retal depending, but you only lose the castle you gained. and are not going backwards by losing castle, land, and 70% of your army as well.
As for spells, I think TS are an issue... 9 of my last 10 TS, the kingdom I TS was under protection. and I burned all my wizards and was unable to utilize the "intel" as Thane likes to call it. And in addition, then what ever province you TS all seem to target you or TS you back. Not sure what the solution is.
It seems that food is a bit of an issue compared to old days Thardferr. I do have barracks and Thane food tech, but I need like 1.5 farms just to feed 0.9 GH. I could be misremembering, but I thought I used to run 1.3 GH and be clear full and even out with 1.2-1.3 farms.
