@SimilitudeB - I really ideas like yours re: the "bubble issue."
Every time our club faces a team that stays shielded (and we get them all the time, regardless of who is ahead in points), I'm reminded of this very annoying, unpleasant aspect of the game. EA has been given countless ideas (both here in their forum and via support emails) on how to make the shield's use more equitable. Part of me believes the company has no intention of making any change until players start leaving the game in droves out of protest (and by then, it will likely be too late).
Therefore, each time I have a different idea how the "bubble issue" could be addressed, I come back here and make a suggestion. Here goes...
If EA doesn't want to make changes to the time that cities are allowed to stay bubbled, then how about changing your club wars algorithm to take into consideration the average time a team's members have stayed bubbled in the previous war, and match the team with another team that has a similar "shield time"? For instance, if a team spent 30 percent of the previous war under bubbles, then for the next war the club matching algorithm would look for a team with +/-30 percent of the time spent under a bubble. Let these turtle teams fight each other, and good luck to them. Meanwhile, if my team has a "shield time" ratio of only 5 percent, then our team would be matched with a team with a similar percentage (maybe with a variance of +/-3). This would, in theory, mean that teams preferring to remain more active in war will be paired with like-minded teams and avoid battles with those who prefer not to participate (for whatever reason) and stay bubbled for 23 of the 24 hours of attack phase.
So, if you're a turtle team, feel free to keep abusing the shield system to try to win wars, but you'll be facing other clubs that love to use that 'tactic' as well, leaving the rest of us who prefer more activity in club wars to pair with each other.
**Looking back at this, I can see that a bubble team could get around this by simply staying active every other war and then pulling their "bubble trick" on the next unsuspecting team, so perhaps take an average of the last 3-5 wars for the percentage. So, over the last 5 wars, let's say, how long did your team stay bubbled out of the 180 hours of attack phase? If it was 25 percent of the time spent in bubbles, then use that as the most important factor (even above elo) in determining who is paired with whom. Secondarily could be elo (although, I wouldn't care/mind if that was dropped altogether. As long as the opposing team is in the same arena and is roughly as active as your team, this could make for much more fun in wartime, rather than primarily worrying about elo, which doesn't give a consistent indicator of the opponent's activity level).
Edit: Just for the heck of it, maybe consider giving the option when the "go to war" button is pushed between being matched by elo or being matched by shield time %.
