Gobblins lost a 1000 man army against a 500 man village last night because only half the mercs showed up- for both sides, but this still wound up being more than a 2 to 1 advantage for HoC. Yeah, the NA merc situation is that bad when the best we can field for a battle before midnight on the East coast are rosters of 19v31 where only 8v17 show up. Also at least one of those was EU, though I guess, as an edit, I got the time wrong and it wasn't until 12:50am EST, so it's really only central/mountain/west players I'd expect to show reliably on a Thursday.
Strat started out pretty strong, I mean, I felt lonely defending many AI fiefs and I didn't understand why we- the entire NA community- were so quick to basically GIVE AWAY castles and cities that weren't Dhirim, but there were still more people playing a few months ago than there are now. I guess they've been purged after like three shitty nights where either taleworlds was down or the cRPG site was down.