Ultimately, how one plays this game depends on how much one is willing to invest in it in terms of time and effort. I remember back when I first joined, I was a grunt in BoC as part of an effort by the players of Worlds at War to infiltrate P&W. We got into a big war, and despite BoC apparently losing I managed to snag a few kills and ended up profiting more that way than I had in my entire farming career to that point. Then I quit since I figured out a way to break Worlds at War and wasn't having so much fun here. I rejoined the game after a couple years as part of a >Bloc alliance, and realized how powerful fortification could be (this was back when it added resistance). My alliance crumpled like paper after foolishly stealing a major alliances' bank, so I went solo and raided like nuts to buy myself the almighty MLP. Then I went crazy, launching my daily missile at everyone without a care in the world. So much salt was mined, y'all don't even know 🙃
Point is, doing that still took time and effort as well as the mathematical skill to theorize the strat. Fortification bombing went away and turretting took its place, but it still takes time, effort, and math. Politics is no different really, it just takes time, effort, and interpersonal skills. A new player cannot, and should not, be able to get ahead of someone that's invested time, effort, and skill in getting where they are. And they shouldn't be expected to; rather it is on their leadership to provide the opportunities to have fun and excel.
Of course, that does mean that we should try and stay away from one-day wars followed by months of game-wide NAPs