Last week my character was barred from running in an election because he still didn't have the prestige 6 months after I created him. Despite having been arguably the most active player in the most ice-affected realm on Atamara, despite having fought countless battles against ice monsters, countless battles against Darkan soldiers, having been imprisoned 3 times, and despite having been lord of 2 regions, he still was not able to even be a candidate for a govt position. But this is getting off-topic.
If you want to increase the player base, you need to make the game attractive to newbies, and your solutions offer nothing to newbies. My first character when I joined BM had to travel for about a week to get to the capital to recruit a unit. I'm not sure why I didn't quit in that first week, but I was very tempted to, and at various times thereafter. So yes, being a knight is boring, and being a newbie-knight is super-boring. You can argue all day that it's my fault, but at the end of the day, blaming me and players like me doesn't stop the player base shrinking.
