I know the feeling......you could join an alliance and play alliance challenges instead? Normally they are agreed to be played without using gold.....and with a little luck, we will soon have an alliance league up and running

BTW, Beer and Titties are looking for new members....and a new alliance challenge.....

Cheers

YES! This is definitely a 'pay to win' game. That skews the stats accumulated by the individual players. Even the best players can get beat by a rookie with deep pockets.

How can I help the beer and tites alliances.
May I get a link to your discord server if you have one.
I'll try to organise alliance matches.

As the game is free to play and the servers are funded by the sales of Gold and High command there would not be a game to play without gold.

If you wish to try your skill without gold there is the official players league tournament where gold use is forbidden.

forum.callofwar.com/index.php?…ll-of-war-players-league/


And you will find that many players are quite skilled without the use of gold. It is always a convenient excuse when you are outsmarted our outmaneuvered to blame gold, instead of skill. It takes a tremendous amount of gold to make up for a lack of skill.

Yes you did, such things have been suggested previously, and while I personally like the idea, it has not been accepted by the Management in Hamburg. Many players have suggested games which had an entry fee and limited or prohibited gold used in the game. The most recent comment that we got from Hamburg was that they were happy with the current process and did not wish to change the business model.



Despite my title as a Senior Game Operator, I am not an employee of Bytro. I simply handle bug reports, support tickets, and fix things that are broken.

The good thing about CoW is that you at any time can create one of the smaller maps as a private map (preferably with password) and even without paying gold, where you can fight gold-free wars with other like-minded players.
Of course, that is no guarantee that someone will not use gold there, but if you set up this map from the outset to unranked (turn off anti-cheat), the temptation is relatively minimized.

If Bytro is happy the way things are, then only because it doesn't know what it's missing.

If deactivation of the in-game gold usage buttons was implemented as an option at game start, Bytro could take a very high entrance fee for such games. At least 90% of all players would like to see the best strategist / the most intelligent one to be the winner instead of the guy who spends the most real money. And many of them are willing to pay a high sum for a gold-free match.
So Bytro could earn more money that way and would be happier.
The above mentioned pay-to-play players would also be happy, then. Now they are frustrated because there is no way for them to escape the gold players.

All others (pay-to-win players and those who don't want to pay for anything) wouldn't mind - they would continue in the majority of matches, which would run the same way as they do now.

I dont like gold usage, but not only because as said above a poor player can win because they have deep pockets, but also that the game now has also be made poorer by the game designers deliberately redesigning construction and production costs, in order to make users use gold to make the game flow better. I cant blame the game designers in that they need to make money in order to keep the game going, but this is where I think they need to reconsider the pay to play option in order to keep players.
I would be more than willing to pay to play, and have the game construction/production costs go back to what they were, and have the game designers STOP trying to manipulate the game to get us to spend more gold during the game. Have NO gold options during the game.
When you create a game now - you can play gold for a better AI, in the create game, why not make it that you can pay more gold (before the game) also in the create game phase for:-
1. More resources;
more gold for:-
2. Faster Tech development;
more gold again for:-
3. Lower unit and building costs.
etc etc
This is where the game developers can make their money.
Have no gold options at all in the game, and take the game back to being solely about Strategy and Tactics.
Every player will have to play gold to play, and the winning 4 players can get their gold back for winning. The rest can lose their gold, but get the points they have earned at game end added to a total, until the accumilated points have added up to a pre determined amount, in order to get a free game.
Please CoW allow Pay-To-Play games with NO options for gold usage in the game at all, and stop ruining the game by changing the game in order to get more gold out of players - you are going to lose more players - especially me.
Make CoW the great Strategy and Tactical game it was before Gold has now spoilt it.

VorlonFCW knows what is up.

If someone beats you because of gold use there is a flaw in your strategy. It means you did not take into account or recognize that this player could be or is using gold. This won't always save you or win you the map, but still. It is usually true and the reason you lose to a player using gold.

In the last (8 months or so) since I had a 1.5 year break from CoW I finished playing 12 games. In these 12 games I encountered 3 gold users that I would consider to be big spenders. Meaning they spent more than 100k. I only lost 1 of these 12 games. I lost to someone that used 136k gold (I asked). In another one of these maps I weaseled myself to victory at the cost of a player that used gold, this player said he used around 500k (I asked again) I would have lost the map had I not used dirty tricks. So if you ask me, using gold is not that big a problem to keep you from winning a map, you just have to be smart about things.

Maybe I was lucky with country placement and I was versing bad players a lot. Sure, if you encounter a capable gold using player, there is no winning it for you. But honestly, if you keep losing to people that use gold, it is not because they use gold. It is likely that you are not as tactically, operationally or strategically skilled as you may think you are.

Out of these 12 games I have had at least, AT LEAST 20 players tell me that I won because I used gold. Which I don't, I like the challenge in doing things without it. Out of these 20 players, at least 12 used gold themselves and I still beat them anyway. Funny thing is that every big gold spender also said I used gold. Sure gold can help you out in the game a lot. But there are plenty of ways around it. And really, if someone is willing to pay $200 to win a map I think they deserve to win.

People that pay for gold make the game free to play. It is that simple. The game has enough options to do well without gold. So just go out and do it. We all like to win, thats human nature. Sometimes however, because of gold use or whatever other reason, you can and will not win. Play a different map and try again.

Everyone is entitled to your opinion - thank you VorlonFCW for your opinion. Also as you are a seasoned player this adds weight to your experiences and argument and I acknowledge this.
I dont want to drag this argument out, but please accept that I will always argue that gold usage is unnecessary if you have the necessary skill, and to have gold usage as an option in a game invites its use, and this takes the game away from purely the use of military tactics and strategy, but then some players like yourself may like this, which is not a bad thing if that is what you want.
I have been burnt in a CoW game when there was a gold spender in the game that would not hesitate to produce immediately in front of my eyes 5+ units from production towns that he just captured 5mins ago, and would bring back to 100% strength, units that I had fought hard to take down to 5% strength. I am not one to back down from a fight, but this is not the type of player I want to play against in CoW, and I told Dr. Leipreachán at the time, and as the good Dr said (and I am sure you will support)- they are not breaking any CoW rules by spending gold (I agree this is true). You are also correct in that it is this type of player that CoW Hamburg love and helps keep this game going, but playing against this type of player is not why I started playing CoW, and will be one major reason I stop playing CoW (other than CoW making the game too hard to play without spending gold).
What would go a long way to keeping both of us happy and enjoying CoW games, would be during the creation phase of starting a CoW game, you could have options that you can choose where you can select:-
1. Pay-to-Play (gold up front - contruction cost back to what they were. No gold use options in game);
a. Additional option - Increased resources in game (more gold up front before game);
b. Another additional option - Reduced tech development times (more gold up front before game); and
2. Gold usage allowed in game (free to play game - gold usage options allowed with game).
etc etc