I honestly dont think crpg wouldve lasted half as long without clans, and especially without strat (i hate strat but i do think it has its merits).
Fully agree about Strat. Dead Strategus means dead mod most of the time. However I disagree about clans on public free for all game modes. Could be that clans on battle provided longetivity but believe that rare mix of good and fun gameplay mechanics (Warband base) and the worst kind of psychological entrapment chadz devised to keep us playing (cRPG item and leveling system) are the reason for strong response from gaming community towards cRPG and reason why it is still alive seven years after first release.
Clans never grew naturally with community, in fact clans cannibalized community. At first clans cannibalized freelancers, lone wolves, players who didn't belong to an organized team aka clan. Clans fed on them, mostly discarding those unwilling to go through the hoops (some people take pride in difficulty of an online gaming, from this perspective I find that laughable) and integrating those who passed the trial by fire. That way influence of clan grew while random players lost any influence over battle outcome. In second phase when new players stopped coming in waves, big clans cannibalized smaller clans to the point where only huge inflated clan were left, completely losing identity in the process because they integrated half a server. After a while huge clans became bored because there was no competition cuz they started avoiding each other, because if they played each other it was shorter end of the stick for one of the huge clans.
Mercs and to certain extent you guys were super weak clans devoid of any higher purpose because you bullied randomers on free for all servers while mostly ignoring truly competitive interclan tournament aka Strategus. Its like being adult and fighting preschoolers while other adults fight each other in competitions meant for professional adult fighters.
True winners of cRPG, despite all the underhanded tactics and cheating are eastern Europeans, because they dominated year after year only meaningful competition this mod has to offer, Strategus. Eastern Europeans being Druzhina and Grey Order, of course.
Mercs will be remembered as a clan pretending to be only for elite fighters, but in the end they turned into worst mix of random elements and weakest huge clan during second phase of community cannibalization process. Which shouldn't be of surprise when you take a good look at founders of Mercs, only Gnjus out of them can pass 'not being completely retarded' test. Other prominent members including the likes of Siiem, Xant, Blackbow and Bjord.