Here is tournament proposal. It is a survival game that involves many players

Ten flags are scattered in a 40 x 40 area. Clicking on one of those you only get a "send army" option. These flags do basically two things.

a)     They "hold" any army arriving for a period of time

b)     Subsequently they redirect any army randomly to any of the remaining flags

So any army entering the tournament field will be trapped in close circuit with many other armies dragging their soldiers from flag to flag. Once an army reaches a flag it sets up a camp which is the "holding" time. A camped army might need to defend itself if a moving army accidentally lands on the same spot. And a moving army might assume the attackers position if the destination is occupied by another player. The challenge each army has to complete is capture a set number of flags. It could be 50 flags for instance. A message with a flag counter will appear every time a flag is captured. The winner may claim x prestige points. It is not an easy task as an army will have to attack and defend multiple times in a test that takes several hours, even days, to complete.

Balancing issues.

The delay time, or the time to set up a camp will be determined by the number of troops present in the army. It could vary from 20 min to 2hrs. So a big army will spend significantly more time in a defence stance than a small and fast army and will need more time to complete the challenge

To make it fair to everyone one army from each player will be allowed to take part in games. When an army meets an allied/confederated/NAPed army it will be redirected immediately to a new destination without being awarded a flag.

Reaching the game field

Players that are residing next to the tournament site will find it easier to participate than players located in a distant part of the world. Some suggestions for this issue would be

A)   build more than one tournament fields

B)    Make a rotating system where the tournament will be held each month to a different region

C)    Allow players to instantly reach the field (clicking any non occupied flag) and get away with it with a message saying "after 10 days of hardships your army finally reached the game fields and captured the first flag" It is a logical leap but will increase the participation.

That's all I think. It sounds like a simple idea with hopefully not overwhelming load of programming.