The difficulty of a fight is exactly the same for every player in this game. The percent difference between your troops and the enemy troops in the 1st fight of the 1st province or the 6th fight of the 20th province is the same for you or for me or for anyone else. This is the difficulty. The only thing all those AW levels and expansions do is increase the number of troops you need. Nothing else. So if you can make the troops to fill the squads, you can will the fight the same, whether you have 5 AW levels or 500. This is the cost. These are not the same thing. And the same for the Spire. The percent difference between your squads and the enemy squads is the same for everyone. Only the amount of troops you need is different.
Yes the fights are equally difficult, but your losses / negotiation cost are not.
10% loss from 10.000 units or 10% loss of 100.000 units makes a huge difference.
Paying 10.000 mana or 100.000 mana also does.
Especially if you are in the same chapter as the other player.
Then you get for the next chapter 10% extra production of units/goods and your losses raise with 20-30%
The entire formula is broken and makes no sense, yes people leave because they feel that everything they do is detrimental to the things they like and have fun with.
I have literally heared people say, I quit, I have diamonds, I can't spend them, I cant research, I can't level my wonders as I like, why am I even still playing. why is everything so complicated and why does my game improvement do not hold pace with my penalty?
I want to do the chapters, I can't do the chapters, I want to level wonders, I can't level wonders.
Why because the pace in which the losses rise are in no comparison to the amount I get better by doing so.
I think plenty of people hanged on in the hope they would see there error and correct it, instead in the comming chapter they are doubling down on this. they make it even worse.
It's a total disaster.