Top 3 only I thought .

Unless the developers have changed it recently, the way that it works is that only 3 surviving players may retire a game, but I believe if one player attains the magic number of victory points for an outright victory then any number of surviving players may receive a pro rata share of the gold awarded. Of course, if the winner captures 65%+ of the victory points for an outright win, the amount of gold awarded for being one of the multiple also-ran survivors is going to be rather small.

Frankly, the amount of gold awarded for winning a game outright is trivially small. I know they have recently added some gold bonuses for winning certain maps, but I think I received something like 1,600 gold units for my last outright win on the 50-player Pacific map. That ain't a lot, sports fans.

That is...surprisingly little. Especially since I won some of the big maps (incl 50p) recently and I got up to 5900 gold in those.

I'm pretty sure that the 5,900 gold units you received includes the new bonuses that are in addition to pro rata gold share. I am currently playing my first new game since I won a 50-player Pacific map in January. I have not been on the receiving end of the new bonuses ---- there was an official thread by Sasri or Freezy that explained the new system. I'll see if I can find it and link it here.

You can actually buy a little something that is semi-useful with 5,900 gold units; 1,600 or 1,700 units cannot even buy any additional resources, which require a minimum purchase of 2,500 gold units. Of course, no amount of extra gold hurts and I've never turned it down.

Update: Okay, I found it. Here's the link to the May 3, 2017 news announcement of the new gold payouts for winning games on any given map:

> > > > Oh, Sweet Victory - Higher Winning Rewards! < < < <

The fourth post in the thread includes a JPG table of the gold reward payouts linked by Freezy.

If you were still active and the game finished, you should have gotten about 1500 + 2 x VP gold

Greetings,

As you guys dont seem to know. Placing players in games get a gold boost as to placing high enough. (I have the numbers around here somewhere. If you finish with VP's, that also gives you gold, but its not much considering its based strictly off of VP's.

Gold payouts for those interested: gyazo.com/4c35f84d3985137f526d7f2528bf4b08

I think these are fixed rewards only, so only people who place.

Already linked above, sir.

Good to know, i only skimmed it.

Some players drop out of games if they aren't in the top three and they think their chance of getting into the top three is slim. That is because it can be extremely difficult for the top player to get the required 2/3 of VPs with 4 players. The other 3 players would have to have 1/3 or less of VPs which has been rare in my experience. The case for more than 4 active players is even worse for the 5th player.
An exception is if your alliance can eliminate one or more of the higher players in the game which likely reduces it back to three remaining players.

One way to encourage players to try and stay active might be to have some time-limit games like PL games which are 30 days. I don't know how much that would help. Maybe give them gold based on their victory points if they survive till the end of the game.

I have even seen top three players sometimes drop out of a game though which is disappointing.

If one has a vacation or has to be away for an extended period, where your country turns inactive, it is like a signal for other players to try attacking.