Strat is a magnet for this hypothetical "new player," when I first started it was strat that got me hooked with Crpg in the first place.
M&B still gets a trickle of new people who hear about it for the first time from some one ranting about it or listing it on a top 10 games list, when they check the Mod scene it would be good if Strat was still slugging around.
See where you're coming from, but I've watched this hypothetical fabled new player time and again over years and years come into the mod because he heard about the wonderous "strategus", nearly inevitably described to him, or imagined as a perfect amalgamation of multiplayer sync'd warband singleplayer experience and the proving grounds of battle.
anyone with a modicum of experience with strategus could tell you that this is not even nearly the case; generally these new players are highly disappointed with what they're confronted with. after all, what kind of cretinous nerd is actually going to savor and look forward to the opportunity to participate in an intensely flawed browser-based minigame with few graphics to speak of taking a rather long amount of time and organized+informed groups to accomplish anything in with playing routinely subjected to (or asked to, OVER AND OVER AND OVER through necessity god i hated recruiting for retard-time battles) playing at 4am because of some jackass' nighttime settings?
i believe that if strategus were to enter a new round, it would detriment a bit more than benefit the mod; there exists a sizable group of players that will simply not participate in any strategus battle out of principle or preference. there also exists a sizable group of players that will participate in nearly any strategus battle available! with these two die-hard groups combined with all of the fence-sitters and others, every time a non 100v100 unarmed strategus battle pops up, you'll witness the active server be rendered in two with neither group really having a playable server population.
strat certainly got me hooked, but circumstances are far different now. you'd need to see an ungodly and highly improbably amount of work by a considerable number of nerds. not only that, but you'd need a diverse (lmao) group of nerds otherwise you'll encounter enough people trying to revive strategus but the ingrained tendency for alliances with friends or comrades steer the map towards a dreadful carebear state of affairs
so ya basically i propose a partial wipe or economy reset/change that results in a more modest average gear loadout and meaningful upkeep/economy rather than "lol i've got several mil and nothing to spend it on", with strategus rightfully buried
also if strat starts back up i will be unable to avoid the denizens of this mod pestering me without end to participate heavily and i've got no desire for this