@J6niceL tbh we have not experience things like that in our club, yes we have been of course in front of an enemy that comes out with umbrellas and to try to get the lead. But the enemy who doesn't attack since the beginning, is dead...
We have to be at the start, is our strategy, we try to hit as much as possible with jackpots and using overkill, also trying to dud our cities when a jackpot is launched, using pump III + Vamp I, etc... And we have always enemies who since the start fight with us with the same purpose, is the funny part i think, a lot of cities online, with many activations, all trying to get the lead, trying to dud everything, trying to succesfully hit, etc, is the game...
Another thing we like to do before use all our vigor, is take a look of each enemy, because you know, if the enemy have one guy with magnetism lvl 10 or 12, and all you team have magnetism lvl 4-5-6, there is a great chance that you lose, this guy perfectly can go out later with umbrella and get easy points, also more easy is their team have a good fight i mean they don't let the lead get too high.
But if the enemy is like us, with the same levels of disasters, if they don't fight well at the beginning, they are dead. Probably one or two go out later, but you know, they need time to bubble 11-10 cities with overkill, if they didn't touch even one before, and they need to have a little extra levels to secure the win doing that, if the enemy is the same quantity of us.
But i tell you, if not that easy, i was in that case, we was all bubble, and everytime we go out, BOOM, they responded, is hard for us find the enemy who let us do this and also is hard to find the time to hit, is a risk, is a random thing, unless you're a sorcerer and you know when they all are offline and also sleeping, because when you bubble one city they receive a notification in their phones, so if he/she is awake can get online and do something, freeze, or say something in the chat.
But if the enemy have high disasters, we tend to relax and no waste so many activations because we probably lose that one.
It's weird the case you explain, they don't attack you at the start and then they all go out and get the lead easily and win? i can swear one of they have better disasters and do all the job, but have nothing to do with the bubble strategy, is that guy with high level.
Your assumption about EA created a system where the team more active is penalize it is so wrong. Being inactive can give you the worst results, just try that, try to be inactive, and then go out, you find out later that can't be good in all cases ( i'm sorry, but the only one case i see this works is having a big guy in our team who can come out later with umbrella and do all the job, boring tbh, i want my chests!).
i never had this enemy, all attack since the starts and the ones who don't , stay like that at the final, poorly active.
Another thing if only 2 guys go out and bubble all your cities... (the worst case) you can try to take those 2 guys later, using the same strategy, but you know you're taking the same risk they had to take, hoping you all are offline and now you have to hope the same with the enemy (see? the contradiction of your assumption? in this example if you are very active the probability to respond to the enemy is high, and if the enemy is inactive you can respond later bubbling these 2 guys with only one guy protective with umbrella, pumps and all with your team, unless your team is inactive and can't help you to find a time when you all can help to recover the lead... i mean, how being active is penalize here?)
just to clarify things here about me:
i'm enjoying the game, and i like the system.
i dislike enemies who don't fight, that's all, cuz bother my chests and my time checking the game. The war time is too much, and also the prices of the chests imo.
My club and me can respond to the enemy bubble normally, also we are just 10 (not because we want, is really hard find players in our league, and new players are there but you know... low levels, they don't know how jackpots works...) so we get the lead since the beginning and the enemy always fight, probably they think we win with bubble and try to avoid that, we both fights well, probably they dud better, probably we dud better, the points show that, we accept the lost if our points are bad, if the enemy go far, we try to negociate chests, with open war or idk. In general we win if the enemy don't have those big guys, is about of luck, but we also beat some enemies with big guys taking the risk and exhausting that guy with freezes and vampire III, probably these teams are used to let that guy the whole work, when you just take out that guy with bubbling, freezes and vampire, that team becomes very weak and is an easy win. We find every enemy different, a lot are very active, another are soooo mean!! (i hate this one), even when they have 80k lead, i go out and they freeze me and vampire me, use duds, i mean, wth! is that neccesary? you already won!... others are active and then go inactive, smh... , another don't even use jackpots, others use pump III and umbrella III since the begining (all of them!), and we said forget it, this enemy take this too serious lol, we lost this one... general we have 6/10 players active since the beginning, but we don't matter in using umbrellas at the start, we just fire. What i mean by this is that my club aren't exhausted and tired of bubble enemy, if you join our club you must be surprise, is another place, is another energy, is totally different, sometimes i'm having fun there and go here and see so many negatitivy that i think oh my god what server i have? or this is the same game? we enjoy the war like a kids, still we do, we probably need more months to just say '' this is the same thing everytime'' ... but now my president is so addicted and never give up in any war, so i get the energy lol
At the beginning (when we was noob), we found bubbling enemy annoying, but surely we know nothing, we was rebuilding a lot, not overkilling, etc... now we know so many things, that enemy with bubble strategy need to struggle a lot with my club if they want the win.
I think the case you mention is unusual, at least for me, but well, there we see.