Yep. Absolutely. Grumpy/SRD makes a great point here. If you can just show up regularly, check up on whatever your alliance is up to, take care of any wars for the day, that kind of stuff - even if, like me, you unfortunately have to be at work when the day-change/military purchase reset occurs, or if you're still on snail-speed dialup or DSL - this shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes over the course of the in-game day (from 12 midnight UTC to 12 midnight UTC). You can split some of it apart, if necessary, just keep track of what you have and haven't done yet for the day.
Some words of advice to any new player that happens to be reading this thread: If you can show up regularly, and are willing to learn, you will become a competent player of P&W, given enough time. If that can be replicated with everyone in your alliance? More power to you.
Interacting with people in and outside of your alliance will also do you wonders for being recognized as "a fellow P&W player" (the latter - interacting with folks outside of your alliance, that is - can take place in many forms, such as informal chats, PMs between players, making posts on the forum, participating in formal in-game diplomacy, or even just playing video games with other P&W players - just be careful not to leak your alliance's intel). People showing up or not showing up are how alliances win or lose wars. (A good blitz or numerical advantage can also help you, but those are different threads entirely, ones that I really don't have any right to speak of at this point in time, given the side I'm on in the latest GW that has broken out...)