They won't they got duke and froley, but in all seriousness, Athens was made mostly of newer players trying out on their second or third world or first world for some. At the beginning their were only 1 maybe 2 full premades. In this world their is like 4-8, although this world isn't as stacked as Actium premade wise etc. this world still has lots of good players and alliances compared to Actium where it was a band of mostly newer players lead by 5 experienced players and TO was the only one that had several players with crowns from the get go. So don't think you will rollover like you guys did in Athens in the wake of The Empire collapsing.
Even many of the best Grepo players refuse to join speed 1 because they don't think it is competitive at all and it is too slow. Most of TFS although good solid players have never felt the core, center of the world on speed 3, were it takes about 5 hours after BP ends to have your city in revolt, (Long story short about 3-5 days after spawning as the 17th player in the world I lost my only city, before half the alliance even researched transports, and I gained nearly 300 DBP and 500 ABP within 2 hours BP ending, became the 3rd conquest in that world)