The idea of a capital city was superb, but as it usually happens nothing is ever absolutely black or white. Team play has degenerated into either only protecting capital, or wishing only to downgrade a capital, or punish these who hold pantheons. As a result pantheons have become worse than emporia and no-one wishes to have one.

 Between two warring parties, war can be attempted if there are some significant  vulnerabilities. Making it so that 2 coalitions hold an unassailable capital and the story ends there ,puts all action to the coffin. So, what we should do? Kill capitals? No! Make it imperative to hold pantheons so everyone has vulneabilities. And no matter how strong spenders a coalition has , to render it impossible to hold a coalition's position without teamwork.

In my opinion the game should be played in its totality by both defending and attacking (so called defensive or offensive play, is a fraud to distort the true nature of the game and is only employed by individuals with poor gameplay to hide their weaknesses).                              This post is about teamplay. There are things to be improved in individual play too, but this should be the material for another post.

So, for the sake of clarity I will go on , proposing a raw plan:

Do not change attack limits.

Abolish the concept of capital flags.

Make it imperative to hold pantheons for one coalition to hold capital's level.

Level 20 capital,    12 level 5 pantheons

Level 19 capital     11 level 5 pantheons

Level 18 capital     10 level 5 pantheons.

and so on until level 9 capital  which should hold one level 5. . A coalition's capital falls one level(together with coalition ranking and unit power boosts) if they have one level 5 lpantheon less than required.

Ac coalition can't attack more pantheon level 5s of another coalition, than it owns itself.(the number of pans attacked is computed for every day). 

 If a coalition  owns no level 5 pantheon, it can't attack either level 5 pantheons or capital. A coalition can only attack lower level pantheons, assuming it owns itself lower level pantheons. If it owns no pantheons it can only attack cities.

The designation capital level 20 , 19 and so on remains  and is valid regarding grain consumption and unit speed, but effective level varies  regarding ranking and troops' strength as well as warring options. Coalitions level 8 or below are not affected by these changes they can attack capitals and pantheons of coaltions level 8 and below., but not of level 9+.

As a further safety option, decrease a coalition's units' strength by 1% every month if it holds an ever decreasing number of pantheons or if it holds no pantheons for a whole month. Thus a coalition with a capital level 20 would not only lose 12 % of troops strength if it holds no panths for a year, but another 12 % for every month it sits idle. 

So, they will be in a dilemma , downgrade capital to avoid having a continuous decrease in unit value or take responsibility to defend and attack with plan? So, they stop being a cancer for the game and attack only when they can sustain the retaliation.

This should wake up many coalitions with huge armies and cancerous play, sitting idle from place 100 and destroying teamwork and healthy gameplay of other people . You want to attack? Ok, take  a calculated risk. But other people should be able to attack you too.

N.B. To avoid cannibalization coalitions with a given effective level capital are only able to attack coaliions up to 1 level above and 2 levels below.

I repeat again this is about a teamplay and does not refer to cities which have significant problems of their own.