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u can not attract new players, but u can reattract old players. a lot of them played because of clanwars, tactics and teamplay. graphics, maps, etc. is not that important...
take the game "age of empires" (1997) for example, still thousands of ppl play this game just because of a great gameplay, certainly not for graphical reasons.
what is missing and what would get my old teammates back to the game would be a fun-based competition. nowadays i see a lot of teams play regulary funwars. if there was a fun-ladder, where every team could chose their map like in a funwar. i think that could help...

the sound was never ingame, it was always made from the watcher-tool outside on desktop...

i dont think its a matter of the system or the easyness to use it. maybe the whole thing is just to easy, in sense of simple and hidden. for example, for me as an person outside i only see a page with rules and one with the ranking. what i dont see is who played against who, which maps have been played, what was the score, maybe some comments about the game, score for the ranking system... etc. etc.
to make it short, i think its a matter or lack of information, communication, emotion and advertising. maybe also the concept of the ladder with the traget group u'd like to attract.

just some ideas to think about...i dont have any solutions, nor can i help u...

hehe, probably a good point to rethink the concept of ur league/ladder. i ask myself consistently why ur league is not attracting more teams/players...because i think there are enough around. i dont have a solution, im just stating the obvious.

just some input, dont be offended. but
your post should actually be a news on the frontpage.
the basis for a strong healthy community and rising players is a good community page with regular news (about the dev-things and community related news), information/boot camp for new players, events for  fun-players, help for recruiting/clanbuilding and funwars, good integrated competition and other things i dont think about....
in my opinion this page is mainly a dev-forum with its own community. there is a large forum, but only 2 small sections for aa2. front-page is mainly shout-box for a few interested. a lot of information in the forum, but spread all over the place and difficult 2 find. not really the best base for rebuilding the community.

Steamroller...