Alright, so having tested this new 3 minute message thing. I'm content to ask that its removed for people sending messages to new members of the game. However, force bots to adhere to the 3 minute rule.
Why? Because, obviously, you can't communicate with a bot, however, new members could communicate with a manual member. It also hurts manual members because of the way bots work in this game. Obviously if a noob responds within the first few minutes(3), and there's an actual person on the receiving end, they're more likely to join that alliance and game. Bots can't respond, but banning them would be bad form, so allowing a grace period for people to actually talk about it would be the best.
This also gives smaller alliances, who more than likely, don't have a bot or the membership to support a bot, a chance to "catch up".
I'd even be open to moving the 3 minutes to 5-10. This is to push more people to actually recruit themselves and talk/send personal messages that allow more retention.
Feel free to chew this up.