At least, in the world -server- I do play are very few active people and alliances (clans, guilds). The main cause for that, Is -in my oppinion- that the game itself is geting boring. Ikariam used to be a war - strategy game. You could attack, make fights, free of restrictions like the wall pillage or being unable to pillage gold.. Now It is only a game of development and research. You must log in at least 4 times a week only to send wine to your cities, so your citizents don't starve and leave, which is rather boring and takes time.
All the new versions -from version 3.0.0v and after- had no great possitive changes, and caused the leaving of many players, strong or not. And this continues until today. Now let me show you what I mean with some photos:
Here is the world map. As you can see by the island numbers (numbers under the islands) are too low (the maximum capacity of cities in one island is 16)
And Here is my Island... 9 citites. 2 of them are mine. 2 are inactive, and the other 2 banned. so, only 3 players are active. 3 of 9, like we say 1 of the 3 people playing are active, and 2/3 inactive or banned.