Well, I have no idea how a world is picked for recommendation, but my guess is that w12 was in order to promote the event with the Chinese scoundrels. I am guessing as well that it didn't lift off when it started, as planned, because of a serious interference by the same people who tried to sabotage the scoundrels event on w6 a year ago. I have no idea who or why you were traitored, just hoping the person who did so had good reasons and didn't act on a whim. Personally, I am against traitoring players, any player, unless they are creating a climate of disturbance that interrupts the battle (not counting the one time when I traitored Elmyr, for which to date I am still paying for).
I believe you ignore many facts of w12 to have an informed opinion on what happens there or why things happen. I am not going to discuss boring politics, but I can tell you a few facts without much detail: The Bloody Path is, and has been since it was founded, the leading dueling town and has never been dethroned. APJ is currently the leading dueling alliance.
For two years w12 had two equally strong fort fighting alliances, that would go through up and down cycles, but tried to remain strong at all times so players could enjoy good battles. It was never about owning all forts or crushing the competition, at least for the people who historically led (and founded) those alliances. The goal was always to keep w12 as a fort fighting world where fort fighters could enjoy at least one good battle a day. No multis and, if possible, no flag rushes. For multiple battles a day, flag rushes, quick battles and miscellaneous, players had the other worlds. A lot of those hard core fort fighters have quit battles, deleted or migrated out since the world can no longer guarantee them a good fight, and is mostly about sour politics and a blaming game now. You also said "what if they don't want to fort fight", in that case they wouldn't keep using multis or sabotaging battles dug by two fort fighting alliances.
You see, multis ruin the fun for those who play the game for hard fought battles. Scarce attendance caused by multis ruins the fun for most players because it usually translates into unfull battles with poor scores. Flag rushes are fun once in a while, but get boring after 2 or 3 battles where all you do is set for the flag since round 1, and all relies on who has more HP or onliners. Unlike some who have posted here, I don't believe the problem with the struggling side is that HP is unbalanced. As it is now, one side could drop half the HP and the other could go pure HP and still lose more often than not. It's all about attitude, about leadership, about battle leadership and tactics other than multis and flag rushes. That cannot be corrected unless they stop blaming others for their own shortcomings, and decide to act on taking positive steps instead of keep licking imaginary wounds while blaming others, because it's easier to play victims.
Last, but not least, you say you've done a lot for w3, w6 and w9. When asked what you did for those worlds, you said that you were recruiting inactive players that were already there. Well, I appreciate that you encourage players to get more active, but I remind you that not all players like to play the game the same way you do. Some choose to be alone, some choose to be silent questers in some worlds. In my experience, getting people inviting me to their towns or alliances can be more annoying than anything. In my experience as well, a few players decided to invite new players to start on an old world from zero to fort fight. When you get 100 of the best fort fighters in The West join a dead world and work on their characters, you can claim to have done a lot.