They're not that important, since the attacker wins most of the time. The true difference they make is in just how much they make the attacker pay for their victories in blood. As far as what makes for good numbers, well, that's relative to the numbers your attacker has for their attack strength. I try to keep mine up over a million, and I
was up over 2 million yesterday, before I got creamed the #1 and #2 guys in the scoring, Ocean Soul and Mithrilander, who are both members of PF.
And yes, it does appear that PF (or, at least, their top 2 empires) has declared war on me, so I put us on war footing with them. It looked like Exodus seemed to be passing my name around at one time as well, so they were the 1st I declared us at war with. All it really means though, is that neither one of us can pass them foreign aid, and we have unlimited attacks against their empires (there are limits otherwise). They are not aware of our status against them, just as I cannot be sure about their status against us, but I can guess what it is considering how concentrated their attacks have been.
On the plus side, many of Exodus' members have dropped rather dramatically in the standings, making them tempting targets. Once you've built yourself up a bit we'll have to see about dealing out some revenge...
