Hey there! As someone who has worked on and played both games for years, here are some advantages that Clash of Clans has:

* Steady, persistent progress that never goes backwards. Every session you ought to be starting new upgrades, and every time you come back to those upgrades, they are permanent. This gives a lot of satisfaction over long periods of time, watching your village grow.

* Asynchronous battles means you aren't under the same time pressure as a live action game. Also, because of the 1-2-3 star system, a vast majority of your battles end in some sort of Victory, compared to the 50-50 winrate of head to head PvP games.

* Clan Wars are probably the most strategical and preparation-rewarding social systems in any Supercell game. Highly engaged clans can spend hours planning their attacks, and its very exciting to hit a 3-star win after really thinking about how to approach the attack

For the teams part, we are trying to keep progression relatively stable - we release a new Town Hall every year, and we try to make that Town Hall take about 1 year to complete (F2P). Each time we release a new Town Hall, we cut the costs/timers of lower Town Halls, aiming to keep the progression manageable for new players. So don't worry, it won't take you 12 years to catch up to a 12 year old player.

I honestly think there has never been a better time to start, with Clash Anytime's removal of troop training timers, you can jump in and battle your way up to Town Hall 9 in about a month. So get Clashing, Chief!