Active from beginning of war is such a bad idea! Imagine that you are stuck to work or that you have a real life that grabs you all of a sudden! That makes you unwillingly a target! Or if you are going for a trip! Is it supposed to postpone it for a war game! Terrible idea! A strategical way of doing war is to involve forces in waves. One more reason for NOT being active from beginning! Who wants to throw tanks in front of infantry? Unacceptable!
And being a target for players outside the war... Imagine that I want to battle! And I see in the list that opponents are some in EB, some in war. Who do you think that I shall choose? Or that I have an alt (as almost everybody does) and pin myself! That's "turtle war" in new colours! I think if you wish to encourage alliances, you should make them first official - like a tab in clan page that shows the alliances made. And that means that you should have a switch to turn on for alliance as an admin if both clans agree to do it. And you can now allow during war the much needed help from an alliance or another! And do not allow hits from other clans, except one or two allied clans, which are mentioned in your clan page list.
The duration of wars is crucial for a large part of players. And that should be customisable! This I think is the most wanted feature in this game.
About rewards... Those are great, and estoc (?) is a good idea! But the limit for not losing that should be a 30% or more from the players that fought the war! And please do reward one side with drops - aqua/inferno/crystals/mithril/items - and gold, and the other side with plunder made from war and some drops as well, rewarding the activeness and encouraging the future activities in next war. And items from war should be a rule! Of course that a lower war tax sounds like a dream, but you should consider that for same reason as above!
Thumb up for listening to our feedback and hopefully this will help you to make this a rare strategical game!