Sharing in this thread for visibility. I put together some advice and Prestige Level calculator that should help alleviate concerns:
https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/9-2-maths-corner/89657/36?u=ddpgreen
Also, I’ve seen some concern voiced about the tasks blocking progress. I believe that’s not the case. What I understand now after several re-reads of the blog is that the Tasks we’ve been worried about (shiny troops, upgrading weapons, etc.) aren’t actually blockers. We won’t have to complete those to continue upgrading kingdoms. They just reward kingdom-specific crystals for more XP. Colored and Rainbow Crystals can still be used for XP.
The only real blocker will be Global Population, which just means we’ll have to keep all kingdom levels fairly close to each other.
@Jeto Can you confirm (or at least best-guess 
)?