to be able to compete with ww building you need to have 70 - 110 ppl.
That may be true in most cases but we played a server with 34 members and we were the 1st to build out to level 100 and won the server too.
We had no pacts with anyone else on the server and we supplied all the resources ourselves. In the closing days we did have some outside players send defense to our WW but that was it.
One other thing I am proud about that server. We lost no troops in our WW to starvation. The team was epic and all played on till we took home the win.
I think the main thing is to have active members on your team and also be ready to fight at all times. Strategy still plays a part in the end of a server as sometimes you have to plan and launch hammers on almost a daily basis towards the last days. If you are a small team (50 or less) then you have to build your accounts and armies for quality and use them smartly.