I'm in the same boat. I think I used to be ok at this game but now I'm not sure how I ever ranked up before. Playing like I always have, not blowing money on early rolls, focusing on economy, trying to balance good units and available alliances, but I hardly ever finish outside the bottom four even when I have more/better three starred units than the competition. I must be terrible at positioning, or not properly building my underlord, or not playing around the jailed units correctly? Clearly however I thought this game was played is wrong, so I think I'm just going to try playing like a moron until I get out of smuggler, can't do much worse than I am currently