App improvements might help attract new players but keeping them? Hell no. The root of the issue stems from how the devs/forum community answered "how do we keep innovating and making Grepolis exciting?"
From a marketing perspective, the answer would be create new units, add exciting stuff etc. Which to be fair, members of the community did suggest.
Instead, we got the 'engineering'/boring answer of new infrastructure. Gold uses, Mobile Attack Alarms, Grepolis Intel, Victim Finder and other sorts of structural improvements.
But hang on, doesn't more and better features mean improved experiences?
If you are reading this, probably. But you are/never were the majority. The overwhelming majority of players back when worlds used to fill were casuals. These changes the devs have made over the years weren't for the casuals, they were for you (i.e the most vocal and best value customers). It's a lot like natural selection really, the more competitive and full-on Grepolis became the thinner the population came. The casuals have died out and the remaining population has lots of money and/or lots of time. You NEED hundreds of dollars and/or a significant portion of your life to be competitive. Advertising, a new app and new units won't change that. The actual conditions of the game need to change so that casuals can begin enjoying the game again and maybe there will be a boost in players.
Inno has been either completely ignorant of their user base, or focused solely on extorting a profit out of the 1%. Either way, the playing community has also got themselves to blame.
Serious question here.
How many people enjoy the game and what part of it? And ask yourself if that's you talking or Inno's casino like game design.
I have played on and off since en9. Not long ago I had intimate knowledge of what the players in the dominant alliance in a particular world was spending for a crown, it was insane. No other world for it. Way back in the day gold whoring was mostly looked down upon, now, and for some time, it is standard operating procedure.
No matter what you think of that, fact is the "big fish" need "little fish" to eat. Inno/grepo needs "little fish" to fill out the oceans and grow to be "big fish".
If/as the "little fish" notice that they are priced out, they don't play. If "little fish" don't play.....
I don't know how you fix this,, Inno needs profit, Grepo needs a more financially level playing field.
The best I have been able to think of is "Buy-In" worlds where gold use is limited to the initial buy-in purchase set for that world. = In a 5K world, 5K gold is all you have to spend for the duration of the world, budget wisely.-- or 20K, 2K, 10K, 100K, whatever the buy-in is for that world.
The big spenders can beat on each other's bank accounts in high buy-in worlds, the skill players and noobs can enjoy a game where they can be competitive.