Joe, You're right, player-base is an issue, but it's not going to be fixed by throwing money I don't have at an advertising campaign that will cost money but wont actually 'convert' into players. We don't have a problem in generating new accounts who go on to create kingdoms (which is all an ad campaign will do), the problem is that they don't 'play' those kingdoms. The inability to convert a new account to a player is not something that advertising can help with.
From the feedback I've been able to get from new players it's because there is no integrated help and tutorial system at all. A new player has to manage to find the NPA forum to get any kind of idea how to play, and even the NPA threads are more aimed towards returning vets than actual new players. They might be lucky enough to find an old build strat, but lets face it, telling you step by step how to spend your first turns, without explaining why, isn't the sort of thing that'll get them to return.
The player-base is what it is until I can find enough time to code tutorial systems and more importantly write new-player targeted help files that are easy to find. I don't have any help doing this, so unfortunately it'll take as long as it takes

Tara, I don't have a code switch to allow the NPC's to be attacked during the automated holiday. I could write it, but it wouldn't be tested. What I could do, is NOT reset and add a whole host of 20 or 30 NPC's for you to play with right now? I'm not limited to 5 NPC's per faith, there's enough NPC names in the system to have a lot more. Actually, I'll birth a few now.
I actually also have an untested mode that ought to stop players from attacking players, but allow them to attack NPC's. I could turn off the automated holiday, and turn that mode on for a short period of time. We could even have an age of guilds vs NPC's instead of guilds vs guilds.