I just spent 1 thousand diamonds to get through the spire, Rediculous. Seems to me inno has gone from an interesting build your city to a diamond grabbing machine. This is my last time in the spire, high cost of players and diamonds are bad enough but the payoff is stupid. whoever took over the game as ceo has to rethink their stand. I have 22 people in my fellowship in which five play everyday. Like you I am here for the group but the game sucks. It's been run into the ground and I for one am bored.
Congratulations wish I could say that and I'm happy for you. Sadly most can't say they are doing well with the game, I only hope inno is listening. It's far easier to keep players than find new ones and the way things are new people don't stay long enough to reap rewards because the spire, tournament and Fellowship are so difficult.
As far as I can tell based on elvenstats, you have about the same difficulty as I with a lot less resources. You need to learn how to use the space a lot better, because currently you have twice as many roads as I with a lot less buildings, pure culture buildings have road connection, etc. You can use the city planner for this. Removing some not that useful AWs like the blooming trader would make tournament and spire somewhat easier. I did so with some of my AWs, but I don't feel a big difference. You need a simia and a watchtower too.
If you can reach a better culture boost you can remove some workshops, which will boost your pop and culture further. You can get more pop and culture by replacing normal residences and old culture buildings with the dragon float you can win on saturday in the event. Replacing normal workshops with magic workshops is a very good idea if you have the diamonds, but you need blueprints to upgrade them, which is an issue in your FS.
Elvenstats writes that you have only 13 active players, which is a huge issue, no wonder why you cannot reach 10 chests. It is hard to do so with a half team only. The spire is useful only if others do it too, the FS total needs to reach at least silver, otherwise you don't get most of the rewards. Silver is mathematically possible with 13 players but only if most of the players do the whole spire, so I guess that is out of the question in your team too. I would ask the leadership to remove inactive players and recruit active players or merge with another half FS, otherwise things won't change from spire and tournament perspective.