Vestial's Betrayal

Though The Commonwealth was on the decline on the Winterstein server in that latter half of January, it was the eventual betrayal of one of the Dukes, Vestial, that lead to her downfall. Like the Roman Empire in it's closing moments, The Commonwealth was bloated with inactive players and stretched over many fronts.

The Betrayal
Being inactive for a few weeks, Vestial came back, and being the leader of the tribe, kicked all the members. His reasons are unknown, but The Commonwealth works in Discord to uncover his reasoning and current whereabouts. This left The Commonwealth fractured in-game, with Yakuza and NOOBS getting a chance to rest from The Commonwealth's collective onslaught, and hundreds of formerly Commonwealth villages without a common cause.

The Truth
The tribe was not kicked by Vestial. He did not return at all until almost the end of February, well after the raid had collapsed on Winterstein. This essentially confirmed the suspicion of a large number of players that it was in fact InnoGames' Community Manager, Coolnite7, that had entered Vestial's account to boot all members and disband the tribe, wasting all the shekels spent on levelling the tribe during the Shekelnacht. Prior to the tribe being forcibly disbanded, many players had been banned from the game and forums which indicated the mods had decided to start taking action. The change in behaviour from the game's mods was likely due to Coolnite7 being doxxed for transgressions against the empire.