I think your wrong in that aspect sakku, I think travian has what it takes to stay competitive, i've always like numbers games and many others do that I have talked to as well.
What travian really needs to do is:
#1 MAKE A MOBILE APP @ANYBODY FROM TRAVIAN HOW HAS THIS NOT BEEN DONE MY DRY CLEANERS HAVE AN APP
#2 Keep it up with the special features on bonus servers, what keeps it fun for me is all the new additions and changes on these bonus servers such as the 10x, it makes it fresh and more engaging having more options for tribe/hospital/speed of the server.
#3 But we all know this will never happen is listen to the community! Everybody hated the new UI roleout and now while I am used to it, I still fumble around in my village looking for specific buildings that for years i could identify easily. I've been playing this game for 10+ years and it feels as though they have gotten worse at listening to the players rather than better.
Travian needs to appeal to the mobile age, i play about half my time mobile and to not have a halfway decent app is ridiculous. I don't know how they haven't explored this or even announced the start of development. The app store is an easy way to engage more players and keep your now older mature players active in a time when we are all likely to have a smartphone.