Starting from the bottom and working up got me involved in the game. I made friends, allegiances, enemies, etc. all in the process of ascending the ranks. That's where the fun is - not sitting on your ass as the lord of a knight-less region collecting taxes you'll never spend.
This is the one thing I wish I could tell any player lost to the glacier/monsters. Starting over isn't a punishment, it is a process. Once you get to the top of the mountain, you don't get to magically fly higher and higher, you have to go down. The only way to the next mountain top is to stop obsessing over the one behind you and begin to imagine the path to the one ahead of you.
