Just wanted to make some suggestions in response to the forum invitation. This is long, sorry. Please read it.
I REALLY appreciate that you are trying to make wars better. As obviously, under the current system, the better you are at war, the less fun they are (perfect dtw x 24hrs).
Consider this: If an atk did not make the attacker lose troops, many of the game mechanics problems would seem to go away.
In terms of making this fun for everyone, what should happen? They should be able to pick it up for 1-2 minutes, play, and quit. I think that's brilliant. Very active players should also be rewarded for their activity.
And we want to reward players who PvP, and still have a PvE experience that is worthwhile.
Your proposal rewards the winning clan with EB bonuses (drops/plunder). The PLAYERS who won the war, should get a bonus. All players should get a simultaneous item Estoc's Edge 0% that increases their WAR plunder. ( 1% per war win to max 5%; -1% per war loss (negative modifier not possible), AND -1% in 4weeks, or resets to zero if no war in 8weeks).
This can be abused if people can war in a way where there is no real challenge. This COULD be fixed too, but I won't address this here.
The wars themselves, we want people that are able to BE hit if they hitting. I think the auto-join was a bandaid... If my clan goes to war while I'm on vacation, I don't deserve to be stripped clean. People should be able to hit me if I'm trying to hit them. If I fail an atk, I COULD lose troops but don't have to. If I succeed in an atk, I SHOULD NOT lose troops. If I am attacked, I should lose troops if I successfully defend or not, just LESS for a successful defense. This way 10 non-LB players CAN kill a LB player, but it's hard....
If your army (troops AND spies) is brought to 0, you are "dead" and have a short respawn (if 30 minutes people will lose interest). In a war, if your whole clan is dead, (or 50%, or 75%?) you lose the war.
This would work for PvE as well... You just need to have the EB monsters hit back. How ridiculous is it that our armies can WAIL on an opponent with no return fire?
Players should be able to join a clan, be unable to leave that clan until current war/EB finished, but switch their activity on or off at will with minimum number of minutes (?2) before state change (from EITHER active or inactive). Could set war conditions so that regen (if it occurs at all - replace it with respawn) only happens while "active".
Other really important war changes: all outside actions should be prohibited. Including having allies bought.
Next part is gonna make me into a whiner, but i'm gonna say it anyway. I know some people in the game really LOVE osw, but what is that really about other than facilitated cyber-bullying? Why should a player lose BILLIONS per hit, just because they have played forever, or spent a million RL$, and have crazy sums of money sitting out for stupidly expensive upgrades, and sleep occasionally!!! Take them to war within the game. People don't war because it is too risky or too time consuming... People should lose the same amount per hit no matter how much is out, and it should be in proportion to who hit you. If a giant hits you, you lose virtually nothing, if a tiny player successfully hits you, you should lose quite a bit. And those amounts should be directly reflected in the "winnings" of the attacker, not the current fixed amount based on how strong the attacker is. The disconnect between losses and winnings is frustrating, and serves what purpose? If I have no money, you can't win any; but you should still get credit for successful war actions.
A LB player might choose to take on a group of 10-20 small players to prove his/her might! The side with the greater COMBINED strength, should get less reward for victory.
A clan (or maybe even an individual) should also just be able to say they want to war. Your matching system should match them with a suitable opponent who is also looking for a fight. People can then war on their own time. They MUST ALSO be able to war another agreeable clan of their choosing.
Hope to see some worthwhile changes.
cheers!