IMO, your Ch2 city FS has more problems than just you having a small city. Of the 25 members, 4 haven't played since Nov/Dec 2020 and one stopped in early Jan 2021. Even if the 20 left are active and are all playing the FA, the most advanced city is in Ch5. This is part of why I encourage being in an FS with a mix of cities in different chapters. It just makes things easier all around. It's hard to help one another if you're all facing similar challenges. It also makes the FA's harder on everyone.
Agree w/
@Kekune about the potential for really unbalanced CC spell production if overflow were activated for those. My cities are larger than many in this discussion (one end of Ch14, the other end of Ch15) and I have a sufficient inventory of CC spells (178 and 317, respectively) that I could go a long time making CC's and not collecting them. Also, agree with
@SoggyShorts: hate the excessive clicking (and so do my old wrists, lol!) and eliminating much of it would not take away from the planning, coordination, cooperation and focus needed to succeed in the FA.
Here's something to think about and possibly work towards:
I've been playing one city for almost 4yrs, the other for almost 3yrs. I upgraded my MA to lvl 5 early (pre-crafting, pre-Spire, pre-FA's) to improve production time on spells (mainly MM spells). With the launch of crafting, it provided more SF's for disenchanting things than lower level MA's provide as a nice immediate bonus. Spire provides a small chance for diamonds in some regular chests and a small chance for 50, 75, and 150 diamonds in the boss chests on floor 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The Genie is offered in the final 3rd floor boss chest and the Purple mystery chests.
I've been playing the Spire every week since it launched in Aug 2019 and going to the top weekly in Ch15 city for over a year; Ch14 city for ~9mos. That has enabled me to develop quite an inventory of CC's, Spell Fragments, and time boosters as well as diamonds. I have replaced all regular houses and workshops in both cities with magic ones either through winning them in the Spire, from placing Genies, or buying them with diamonds won in the Spire and through crafting in the MA. Here's what my current inventory of SF's and the relevant time boosters (have a good number of the longer and shorter time ones as well) looks like in both cities right now:
Ch14: SF's: 654K Timers: 8hr-128; 5hr-485; 2hr-383; 1hr-765
Ch15: SF's: 781K Timers: 8hr-89; 5hr-194; 2hr-113; 1hr-229
The 2nd city (started 1+yrs after the first) benefitted from all the mistakes made in the first one on most efficient way to build to maximize resources and that's obvious when you look at my need to use time boosters more often in that first city.
All my totals here are after having crafted every single thing in the MA recipes for every single refresh since this FA started, allowing me to produce a much larger number of residue badges than would otherwise be possible. The side effect to that is opening the Mystery Object much more often than I normally do (which averages about once/wk during normal game play). Thus far, since this past Tuesday, I have won 2000 diamonds from that Mystery Object between both cities. Added to that is 400 diamonds (like clockwork, every week) from FS Spire chests (Silver in one city, Gold in the other) as well as some of the smaller quantities of diamonds as individual rewards. I may re-evaluate crafting items I don't really need on a more regular basis, lol!
TLDR: Over time, you can amass a huge amount of resources including free diamonds by upgrading MA and consistent tourney and Spire play.