Travian is, in essence, a game of harassment and human nature. There are players attracted by the advertisements who see the sim-aspect and think it sounds interesting, kind of civilization-esque, and thus join intending to play defensively and possibly even peaceably. Some may try to be active in the marketplace, while others may just seek to build up cooperative settlements. These are the players that prove to be the fodder for the more experienced players to exploit as they are farmed and demoralized early on with frequent raids at inactive hours. This is simply not a game for a non-aggressive or empathetic player--if you are not both firm and at times ruthless then you are merely leading your society to death at the hands of someone else who is.
Consider the ability of a 15-cropper to produce armies well over 13, 000+ compared against a 6-cropper not even able to support a third of that and you have a game noteably skewed in favor of the attackers. They will hit you when you sleep (inactive) and unless you are actively preparing and have friends to aid you will not be able to do anything about it. This is frustrating in many ways, but primarily because you are basically playing at the whim of the stronger kids on the playground, and if they take notice of you there really isn't anything you can do to prevent the wedgies. Welcome back to kindergarden where the biggest kid is the idol and he gets whichever of your toys he wants.
Thus sim-players are given a choice. Do you bounce back, possibly on the next server, and adopt the aggressive raiding philosophy for your own (if you can't beat them, join them), or do you just delete and say "to hell with this [censor]". Whether or not you leave the game, Travian won't care, as there will always be more suckers joining to feed the ammoral war machines.
