I'm not sure if the "immigration algorithm" is going to increase the "neighborhood" participation soon enough....or at all? I've got about 200 provinces discovered, and in my discovered neighborhood I might have, maybe 4~5 active players that are at par with me. Some participated in the tournament, but because of the "poor" release of the update [tournaments], most started late into it. I tried to encourage, whoever would listen to me, via messages, which most of them didn't even know it was released? [!]... There was some interest and I did get to interact with some of my "advanced" playing neighbors, which was great. Afterwards we shared our experience and most were in agreement that it's something we'd do again, but most likely only when our boosted relic is in play. So unless we have identical boosted relics, we probably won't see each other on the tournament field?
I also reached out to a couple of newer players that have been "migrated" into the neighborhood, but they said they were too new and didn't have the resources [goods & troops] to even consider it. That was a bummer to hear because I have a newer-active neighbor right next to me, which would have been a great combination to team on the lower level tournament provinces....oh well.
So, I'm not sure if migrating new players into neighborhoods is the answer to increasing participation in the tournaments?
Also, the suggestion to open up as many tournament provinces as possible is unreasonable, ESPECIALLY, just to check and see if any neighbors are playing! I opened 13 and stopped because even at the first level it was becoming challenging. It's not that I couldn't win, I think the battles are very "doable", but reaching out to "13" provinces, which takes 8 encounters each, is taxing on the troops & resources no matter how you slice it. I had about 9 more provinces that I could have opened up trying to discover if other neighbors were playing, but again, that seems an unreasonable process!!! If the developers want to increase participation, it seems that they should come up with some better method of seeing what neighbors are playing? I mean, why can't my neighbors see me opening up tournaments on our "commonly" discovered world map? Just something to indicate who's playing? ....or not even who's playing, but that someone has opened a province. That might then, entice me to possibly reach out farther?
Well, that's just my two cents...lol