Pending proposal: discontinue suppport for Android 4.x, 5.x

[Mr. D]

TL;DR Support for Android OS versions below 6 will cease unless we find players who are still using such devices (so if you are, please speak up!).

Longer summary:

In light of recent audits by Google and the need to keep our app up to date (which includes integrating new software libraries from Google) I have been reviewing the OS versions of Android devices playing "Domination: Earth".
Out of several hundred devices that ran Android < 6 I can see only 60 remaining who haven't upgraded their phone to a newer OS since starting to play.
Narrowing things down, all activity from such devices predates the release of 2.7 and I believe we no longer have anyone using Android 4.x or 5.x, which is why we are considering to stop supporting these Android versions and impose a hard version requirement to install the game from the Play Store.

Why is this needed:

•  Older devices relying on Android <= 6 are slow and filled with unique technical challenges that need individual attention, but that do not affect (or exist on) the newer Android variants.
  As more features are added to the game, the app keeps getting bigger (and is also filled with more content, incl. Earth View icons) and will eventually become unresponsive / unusable on such devices.
  Accordingly, letting new Android users install the game on older devices is detrimental to our reputation and first impression about the game.
   
• Android <= 6 has its own "unique" (wildly out-of-date) version of Webview, the rendering engine used to display our game. That Webview is technically incompatible with a lot of our visual elements and DE cannot run on it, which is why to show them at all I have had to maintain our own internal implementation of Webview (a fork of Cordova Crosswalk, which has been abandoned by its original authors years ago) and continue developing a piece of otherwise unmaintained software.
  
  This also means that for every new version of DE I have to release the app for 1 additional platform: iOS, Android >= 7 and a separate standalone app for Android <= 6.
  
  It is very time-consuming and is a maintenance nightmare to have a separate codebase for older Android devices.

Because of that we intend to stop supporting all Android versions below 6 and, eventually, version 6 as well (which is currently being used by one of our active players. Yes, we value each one of you! ).

Accordingly, if anyone is still secretly using older Android devices (4.x, 5.x), please let me know, as otherwise you will not be able to download any more updates once the new requirements are introduced.