Impact of Free Gold for Watching Adds

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    • Impact of Free Gold for Watching Adds

      I’ve only started playing this game in June and love it. During my second game, I was rolled over by a heavy gold user and almost didn’t play a third, but was encouraged by players on the forums saying gold usage wasn’t that common. Shortly after that, I noticed Bytro was giving out free gold on the app just for watching adds. I think this move to include more gold in games was pure genius for Bytro. While this may seem an odd response at first to all the players complaining about gold use in games. What better way to counter one player’s ability to buy gold for an advantage in the game than to offer a little more to everyone? This way, if a player purchases 50,000 gold, it will represent a smaller ratio of the overall amount of gold used in a game if all players who stick around the entire game will earn 30,000 throughout the course of the game. While Bytro probably won’t make everyone happy with this move, I think it’s a step towards restoring fairness and diluting a players ability to buy victory. What has been others experience and opinion? I’m sure there are some strong opinions on this subject. I know a lot of players hates gold users. I personally use about half of what they give unapologetically and save the rest. My rationale is if everyone gets it, there really is no competitive advantage in using it. I have no idea what I’m saving the rest for, but using much more than I do would feel like cheating.
    • I only use gold when it's absolutely necessary and if it doesn't move things around too much.
      I wouldn't gold a unit in my empty capital if there's an enemy ac rushing towards it, I think that would just be unfair.

      I only use gold in very specific circumstances. Like when it's deep into the night, a research ends in 10 mins and I need to start a new one the moment it finishes but my eyes just can't stay open for a second longer. I'd gold that res, it's only 10 mins anyways, if I don't, I could fall asleep and lose research efficiency.
    • Well officially, gold is as much of a resource as food, goods, etc. so gold use of any amount is technically fair use.
      If you mean 'keep-the-competitive-integrity' fair use, then no gold use is fair use, not even 1. The research golding mentioned above isn't fair use by that standard.

      I used to gold at will when I started, then toned down to near zero when I came back after quitting for about 2 months. Only "near zero" because I did the research golding, but I only did it like 2, maybe 3 times in all of my 10 games. Now I'm going for zero gold use.
    • My one complaint with this is that you can't do it on PC. I don't have it on mobile, and I cant get it there for reasons I can't put here. It seems a bit unfair. They should add it for PC too, but only have it once per day, so mobile and PC users can only do it once per account per day.
      Kind regards,
      Donk
      Bytro game addict and avid CoW player.

      "Þ" > "th"



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    • Gold funds the game. Without gold purchasers there would not be as many updates and constant bug fixing as there is. Personally, if I use gold, it's on industry to cushion my income and establish my presence early in the game. If someone is charging my capitol, it doesn't matter if I produce a pop-up army. I've already failed. If I find a golden heavy-hitter, I do make it my mission to produce defensive units and make it as expensive as possible to be taken out. That way, even if I'm not spending money on the game, I'm forcing someone else to. And then the game continues to exist. There's not another free war game that I've ever played as consistently or as long as this one, so I must say that the game mechanics do allow for free-play to win. Maybe not every single time. But what would be the fun of that?
      The elephant is the only land mammal that cannot jump.
    • one_leaf wrote:

      Gold funds the game. Without gold purchasers there would not be as many updates and constant bug fixing as there is. Personally, if I use gold, it's on industry to cushion my income and establish my presence early in the game. If someone is charging my capitol, it doesn't matter if I produce a pop-up army. I've already failed. If I find a golden heavy-hitter, I do make it my mission to produce defensive units and make it as expensive as possible to be taken out. That way, even if I'm not spending money on the game, I'm forcing someone else to. And then the game continues to exist. There's not another free war game that I've ever played as consistently or as long as this one, so I must say that the game mechanics do allow for free-play to win. Maybe not every single time. But what would be the fun of that?
      There's actually a person I went up against once that was a GIANT gold whale. I was France, the player in question was Italy, and I was secret allies with Yougoslavia. We made a pretty extravagant plan to take over Italy, as they were the biggest threat in the area. The plan was as follows: Yougoslavia would attack and push 2-3 provinces in, forcing Italy to do something to counter them. A few hours after that happened, I would attack from my border and take their main economic areas (Italy has like half their core cities near France close together. Well, that's what happened. The plan began to work flawlessly, Italy had committed 2/3 of their army to Yougoslavia, leaving me a clear path into their cores. But there was one issue. As I neared the nearest core Italian city, which had been empty just a few minutes before, about two dozen LT's appeared. I was stumped. I had SM with Yougoslavia and could see a majority of the Italian army continuing through Yugoslavia. I had suspected them a bit before, as their core cities were at 80% stability on day 1, as opposed to the default 70%, but I thought they would at least try to fight kinda legitimately. Well, that wasn't the case. As you may guess, I didn't stand a chance and got defeated. They were ruthless. Here's the player: sIRChief01 (yes, the 1-star general). I should have seen that his stats were a bit off, but I didn't. :P
      Kind regards,
      Donk
      Bytro game addict and avid CoW player.

      "Þ" > "th"



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    • Whales can usually be recognized by having an extremely high K/D. It takes an EXTREMELY good free gamer to make it to 2.5 or in an exceptional case even 3 (my own is 1.9-ish), anything above that (and I've seen numbers like 11 which is starting to become pretty common, and even a 48) is like walking around with a big sign on your neck "W***** W******".
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Whales can usually be recognized by having an extremely high K/D. It takes an EXTREMELY good free gamer to make it to 2.5 or in an exceptional case even 3 (my own is 1.9-ish), anything above that (and I've seen numbers like 11 which is starting to become pretty common, and even a 48) is like walking around with a big sign on your neck "W***** W******".
      I have a KD well within your range. I spend a little gold, but not much; of course that could be a subjective statement. I've never spent money on gold and use about half of what I'm given in game. I attribute success to putting a lot of effort into learning the mechanics of the game early, playing one game at a time, and being compulsively active. I'm certainly risk averse. I also played a lot on the 22 player map for a while because I was intimidated by how much longer games take on the larger maps and I have a hard time sleeping at night while playing due to the 24 hour nature of the game.
    • Really? Well, I may be wrong then, because I figured this out mostly on the 1.0 version, when losing units which had taken combat losses was "inevitable" (they merged; when 2 units got below 50% they merged to 1 one at 100%). I looked you up; you have only played 15 games; and of course, 22p map games tend to be shorter so keeping a bunch of units at 10% isn't as detrimental for your economy; and besides, there's a lot more drop-outs on those maps as well so they tend to be easier in general. So OK, I drop the exact numbers in my previous post, but I still hold that a high KD has a certain smell.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Really? Well, I may be wrong then, because I figured this out mostly on the 1.0 version, when losing units which had taken combat losses was "inevitable" (they merged; when 2 units got below 50% they merged to 1 one at 100%). I looked you up; you have only played 15 games; and of course, 22p map games tend to be shorter so keeping a bunch of units at 10% isn't as detrimental for your economy; and besides, there's a lot more drop-outs on those maps as well so they tend to be easier in general. So OK, I drop the exact numbers in my previous post, but I still hold that a high KD has a certain smell.
      You’re probably right to an extent. You’ve been playing longer than me, but to your point, things have changed since you came to that conclusion.

      However I always viewed a high KD rate as a sign the player knows what they are doing so may have obsessed about mine a bit. I played a few unrated games early on to learn some of the game mechanics too, but that probably isn’t obvious when looking at my profile. I realized pretty early the value of artillery, especially rocket artillery, and naval bombardment. Plus I prefer Comintern and the upkeep bonus allows me to keep a few banged up units around without slowing my economy down.

      Maybe I’ve been lucky. I’m always surprised how few players put up a fight and just quit at the first sign of conflict. I’d be more than happy to play a game with you if you’re interested. I played one with Donk2.0 last week. But I am dead serious about only playing one game at a time because I don’t like to split my focus.
    • @K.Rokossovski I highly recommend playing a match with @6thDragon. They are a good, new player, and even for an experienced veteran player like you, it might be useful to have a take on the game from a new point of view. The time I played was quite fun, even though I was a bit busy IRL during it. We did quite well, and of course, ended in a victory. You should give it a try! (btw, did you see his ai kdr? it was like 53 last time I checked, insane)
      Kind regards,
      Donk
      Bytro game addict and avid CoW player.

      "Þ" > "th"



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    • Yeah we're setting up something!
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • Donk2.0 wrote:

      @K.Rokossovski I highly recommend playing a match with @6thDragon. They are a good, new player, and even for an experienced veteran player like you, it might be useful to have a take on the game from a new point of view. The time I played was quite fun, even though I was a bit busy IRL during it. We did quite well, and of course, ended in a victory. You should give it a try! (btw, did you see his ai kdr? it was like 53 last time I checked, insane)
      Thanks Donk2.0! Yeah, I don't think the AIs are very challenging.
    • I've had a conversion of sorts.

      I like the idea of gold, but would certainly do things differently if I were in charge.

      I like how it can be used for the X-factor in war. Something along the lines of how the Japanese thought they had sunk the USS Enterprise so many times.

      If everyone started a game with the same amount and got the same amount a day, it would be great. However, with the ability to carry forward from one game to the next as well and being able to just buy it is beyond sleezy. I thought if everyone got the same amount there was no advantage gained by using it. It's too hard to tell if a player is just using their gold from free ads or turning into a credit card commander.

      I did have an experience a few games ago however where gold really got me out of a jam. I was walking my dog just before day change and was setting up my spies on my phone. I intended to recruit two spies. Now my dog is a two-year-old, 60 lb pit bull, when she pulls the leash, you really better be prepared. Anyway, just as I was hitting the button for the two spies, she decided to chase a squirrel and I ended up with four spies. I did the math and realized I wouldn't have the cash on hand at day change for the upkeep on my spies. I wasn't about to loose a game because my dog chased a squirrel. I quickly dismissed the two extra and golded myself the cash I spent on them. Problem solved. It had no impact of the competitive nature of the game and if I hadn't just admitted it here, no one would be the wiser. Probably an example of fair use by any definition.
    • I just finished my first game with the mobile app and watched all the adds for the gold bonus. Never considered spending gold other then for convenience, maybe 500 a game. But seeing that pretty well all players in a game have a percentage of mobile use I would have to conclude that not spending 3000 gold a day puts one at a disadvantage.

      In the early going, it props up the hard to get resources to keep the war machine going. But the biggest boost for me is in research. I usually, in the past was leading in research. I just hated a blank research slot and would get up in the middle of the night to keep it filled. Well over 50% of this new daily gold gift went to speeding up the research. The best deal is the 12 hour speed up, because if there is only one or two hours left, it costs a lot more gold per hour. So in the three weeks this game lasted I did a least a dozen 12 hour research boosts, so I was an additional three days ahead on research from where I would have normally been. It's changed the game for me. I love it.

      And I'm banking up more. The game ended a couple days ago but I still log on everyday and do the adds. Maybe I will bank enough up and take on a big gold spender in the future or something.