@TehGrief The wipes are normal in development. There are so many things that have changed that it would be impossible to test bugs/balance without starting over for some things.
Plus, the start is a very different game from later. This gives you an opportunity to get in and direct how the game will progress. This is actually an issue I see whereas players who are at the start get a much more rich experience in the game than someone who comes later. As such I think the wipes have helped people understand what is at the root of the game and get a better idea of how it works. I know it was announced that there are not planned wipes for EA, but I expect if the devs pull through with all of the added content and changes then a wipe may be beneficial to gameplay. I real issues with the wipes were the short play tests since there is a good deal of spinup time to get the game going, with building towns, advancing tech, gathering resources etc. Iron Bank has dome this every test so far, but even we had a hard time getting things going in time for the previous test. A longer test process will give the players more time to flesh it out and get a feel for how things operate.
