I think another factor that reduces willingness to go to war is the extensive looting that seems to be the norm these days. Looting is fun when you're the one looting, not so much when it's being done to you. If your realm is on the frontline, then your border regions are almost guaranteed to suffer greatly. It's an effective way of depopulating regions, which then take weeks or months to recover, if they don't simply revolt.
And if you're a newbie and you're aligned to one of those regions, your income dwindles away... I can imagine it's no fun having to beg to be able to recruit 15-20 men, when you see members of your realm walk around with units 3-4 times that size. I wonder how many have given up on the game because of this.
I'm a fan of looting myself, but I do feel that it's being overused, as well as being too powerful. Every war that's going on in the game right now revolves around looting. The border between CE and Carelia: devastated. The central mountains and outlying regions on AT: devastated. The border between SoA and Sirion: devastated. The warzone between Caligus/Perdan/Ibladesh: devastated. The warzone between Caerwyn and Astrum: devastated. The population in these regions has been mostly slaughtered or starved, production is next to zero, infrastructure is destroyed. These areas either go rogue, or become pretty much useless to whoever owns them. Yet they still need estates if they want to be kept in the realm, which means people have to become knights of those regions, and more often than not, it's the new guys who are pushed into the role.
All of this doesn't help keeping the new guys interested in playing, I believe. They're starting to resemble pack mules who get to do the dirty, thankless jobs that the 'veterans' are too good for...
