I cannot stress the latter point enough myself, while grepolis is a war game, it is a social one at that. I'll take an average-skilled player who has the right attitude any day over a highly-skilled, anti-social, lone wolf. The former you can train up, the latter has already made his choice and sometimes they wont budge when you try to approach them.
from the guy who makes a living of creating top 12 alliances take it from horus he has the right idea an average or even below average skilled player with a good attitude will always win.
remember the basic rules of grepolis kids.
coordination, determination, persperation, negotiation, and anihalation
coordination with your team will make your prosper, along with determination you will become a force to be reconed with, persperation means you are working hard which will make you prevail, negotiation is vital to building relationships in that world AND possibly other worlds, and all of these togeather will avoid anihalation!!!