the FA it isn't as heavily weighted toward top level FS as some of the bad press would claim
^^This. In March, our rank was ~140 and we placed 24th. For this last one, we're at rank 126 and placed 28th. We did 1 path for each stage, and then burned badges for 2 days in the pits. And we have much smaller cities, don't require participation, and have a core of 6-8 players who are 'all in' as well as a core of 5-7 players who always ignore them (and pretty much tourneys and everything else but visits and trades). The rest sometimes play, sometimes don't, and don't always communicate so when they drop in with some very needed blacksmiths or statues, we're pleasantly surprised.*
*Disclaimer: this is in no way intended to mean the FA doesn't need improvements. A frequency of every other month, interim prizes during a stage, and fixing the quest cycling system are all very much needed.
And I still wish they'd go to an 'X score gets 1st place bldg; Y score gets 2nd place bldg' etc. to reward for effort of each FS instead of 'no matter how hard you work, you get zilch if other FS get more points than you do'. A few of us thought about dropping in another premium expansion to go for the 20th place bldg, but there was no guarantee we'd get it. They may be improving their bottom line on a few heavy spenders who vie for the top spots, but I think they're missing a revenue stream of casual spenders dropping a little. And depending on the prize, there could be enough of them to make it worth it. As an example: we got to 9300 points. If 10000 points got you that (piddly little codex, I know) bldg, I'm pretty sure they would have sold 3 premium expansions. We were in the pits for 2 days and we'd have made the blacksmiths we needed to keep going instead of stalling out with about 6 hrs to go. As it was, we talked about it (we were 24th when we captured the 3rd stage flag) and decided not to bother, made what we could with the space we had and just played until they ran out.