Gold Spamming

Mostly yeah, coz it seemed like you were directing it at me. Sorry lol.

The major problem with the gold is that it grants instand results. Instand research done, instead troops build, instand buildings finished, instand troops revealed, etc. In many other games gold only decreases the waiting time for upgrading/ building/ producing or makes it cheaper.

Besides that, it is unlimited how much gold you can spend in 1 moment. This is because of the fact your production and construction is finished instandly, so you can begin on the next cycle right away. If gold would only increase the rate of production/construction instead of instantly finishing it, players wouldn't be able to pop-up an army in a city in no time and massive gold spamming is done.

10$ of gold is indeed nothing if the game is 30 days old, but if a player on day 1 builds 5 light tanks and 5 tac bombers it is quite a big deal for his neighbours. His neighbours will have to wait some days before they can have airplanes or tanks. Even anti-tank and anti-air will require a little waiting time before coming available. If gold would only speed up production/research/ construction and so on, this will also be prevented. It just doens't offer other players any chance vs the gold user.


The gold abilities for spy missions are also to cheap compared to the costs of real espionage spies. For example, the 2600 gold to instand reveal all enemy units is crazy cheap. With 2505 gold you can buy 15k $, the price of 1 spy. In order to reveal enemy troops you can place military sabotage spies, I usually place like 8 to have a good chance of succes. 8 spies will cost 24k $ upkeep per day (that's like 3.5k gold) with less than 100% succes chance. Buying and placing spies is just way more expensive than using gold. If we use gold to build units we have to spend gold to fill up our stock deficits. The amount of gold that this costs does equall the trading rates of gold for resources that we can find at the market (like it should).

Most games with pay features have instant results. So, that's a moot argument. People who spam gold are RARE. Remember that.

If people would just understand how rare this is, mabey they'd stop complaining... most people don't have 100 dollars to spend on an online game. Especially RTS games, the people whos pend lots of money generally tend to be on more fast paced games. Or is that just my stereotype?

not very much, with good deal of %%%% action.
if you make a real good deal so 30€ = over 500k Gold
True.


(Attention! sorry for my "english") (Dont read if you are afraid of broked eyes )
in my 1st game on 100er, i was attacked by game sponsor, i deffed good 1 to 1.5 killed units, but gamesponsor instant healed units. and it go to 1.5 to 1 killed for attacker.

Than i selled one province to my allie, who is gamesponsor too.
but Attacker instant healed and build up too --> wasted over 250k and killed his troops, killed-ratio changed to 2.0 to 1.0 and my allie left this continent. 4 hour after attacker defeated coast he had already 12 ships in coastal def and hunted my subs.

At day 11 he had 140 units, befor war began, after war with me and my ally ended (24 hours later) he had 208 units.
My other neighbours losed with 3.0 to 1.0 and 4.0 to 1.0 to him, he is also not noob, but not really pro.

I run with my troops away. To save my submarines for later war. But i have lost a hope, some one can defeat him.

Im not agains sponsoring (since i have 1 year HC), but it need some changes in mechanic.

There are many strategies that can be used with gold that have a multiplying effect on the net-result... instant troops is just one of them. Instant buildings for instant economic growth is one of the bigger problems. The main issue is that gold use takes away legitimacy from the playing experience ... it becomes less about careful strategy and planning and more about spamming the buy gold button.

I usually spend about $50 or so in a 100 player map, and the effect is pretty devastating compared with those who do not.

Removes legitimacy? Maybe that's just some very bad wording... but to me, even though you're a gold buyer yourself, you make it sound like buying gold removes any need for thought, strategy, tactics, or skill.
With a gold SPAMMER, yes I would agree, but again, they're rare.
Personally, when I was buying gold, as I've stopped, the only time I would was to even the odds against a superior force, or when someone thought it smart to be a douche. As a result, by doing so, all it does allow a person to win by strategy. By choice of the right units, in the right places, in order to blunt or if lucky break the strongest point of an invading force, which just puts you both back on the same level, because more often than not, whatever gold I spent on whatever units I spent them on, I ultimately end up losing most of them in that same war. But consequently, because the other person lost their advantage of numbers as a result, it enables me to conduct the rest of the war on the level of strength I had prior to that large engagement, meaning that tactics and strategy and therefore skill are the defining factor of the victory in that conflict. I find that if anything, that increases the legitimacy of the playing experience, because some no-brain unskilled random hasn't invaded me and won purely and simply because they spam build light tanks until their economy busts and then just marches them in a straight line to win by overwhelming numbers. I find that takes no skill. No thought. And that, that playstyle takes away legitimacy. Come to play a strategic game? Then I'm of the personal opinion that a person should be using a strategy better than "just throw lots of hammers as fast as I can so I don't have to use my brain".
Players who tend to end me on a map, apart from early game, are always either smarter players, more strategic, or attack me as a group with the same overwhelming numbers is their answer to everything solution. For me, Gold evens the playing field. Which I believe is quite in the spirit of fairness and good sportsmanship.

Team Fortress, Civilization IV

That's two I can think of right off the bat.

That many units is huge in the first week of game play and can make a world of difference in your momentum in the game.
To just casually throw around figures like $20 - $30 shows how blind you really are. Most players who don't pay -- in fact -- can't. Are they supposed to be second-class citizens who must bow at the alter of *****'s payers and pay homage to them? Where's the justice? It's not about support. It's about a lie. Pay to play removes ALL sense of strategy.

Where is the strategy is creating a nation that is twice as big as everybody else on day 1 only to remain twice as big as everyone else throughout the rest of the game? Sure, you can say it was strategy that kept you at the top. But in all honesty, it was a boughten status.

If you are a good strategy player and you play against me and neither of us has any gold, then we should be roughly even throughout the game until one side or the other starts to edge out the other -- by strategy and skill -- rather than by this whole "Pay to Win" concept. But no, you don't buy that (pardon the pun). You want to say that anyone can beat a gold spammer if they are just THAT good. Get real and stop with the propaganda.
Any fool who would waste thousands of dollars on a single match may fund *****. But they are the scum of the pay-to-play/win community. They are the exception that proves the rule. They may be rich. They may be fools. But greed is blinding and it causes those that decide business models not to see how they ruin the over-all gaming experience for the entire rest of the community. Remember, in your words, the spammers are very rare. If that were so then they shouldn't be allowed to do what they do. Happy customers are repeat customers. And the amount of Gold buying by everyone else would far-overshadow those "rare" folks.

So why doesn't ***** want to keep their majority customers' business by shutting down the "rare" rich ones? Because they aren't as "rare" as you say. ***** would never want to please 1 rich player when they lose the business of 1000 middle class players. That would make them the fools. No, ***** knows what they are doing.

They want the richer folks to piss off the less-thans so that the less-thans will throw away even more money to counter them. That's their business model and it *****. Like it or not, it does work for them and there's nothing we (the poor folks) can do about it since we get shut down the moment we start complaining (literally shut-down as in banned from the chats and the forums and even kicked from the game if we don't comply with their totalitarian rule).

I will not reveal whom or what is censored. I don't want to risk getting this message pulled down or me banned.
I'd like to see you beat someone who buys an army on day 1 when you are a non-paying customer.

And there's the rub. You think you are better than us because you can afford to throw away your money on this. You pretend you aren't; you try to defend your own spending as part of the strategy. But by defending yourself, you admit to your own feelings of guilt at doing so. See, the guilty feel a need to justify their guilt. If one truly had no feelings of guilt, they'd never bother defending their actions; be they right or wrong. But in all this, you fail to see this new business model for what it really is. It's money grubbing by all the corporations. Yes, they all do it.

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continued...

continued from previous post...

Remember the day when you could buy a game at the store, install it on your PC, and you owned the title? Remember how you had the ability to play against other people in the multiplayer community and it was a courtesy that your pre-investment purchase helped to fund. The company would offer free updates and you'd pay for major expansions or buy their next game because the developers were glad to create new and rich content or even entirely new games that their previous game had proven to you how worthy they were to invest in their newer titles.

Well, today, the world has changed. The concept of hand-held gaming (iPhone, Android, etc.) has changed the financial model for the gaming community. OK, this new industry doesn't want to charge you up front. They spam you with malware ads until you pay premiums to rid yourself of the ads and to get the bells and whistles. But they charge you a monthly rate instead of a one-time purchase. That's the model of pay-to-play or rent-to-play.

Then there's the modified version -- the farming games -- where you don't just pay to play but you actually have to pay to win. Typical examples of this are The Sims Freeplay or Star Wars Commander. Without paying for vast amounts of premium points, you can't make any serious progress in those games by the time the servers cease to be supported by the developers. So they become pay-to-win or rent-to-win titles.

The disappointment for me is in how *** has fallen for that scheme. It's following the pay-to-win model even though it's not supported on portable devices (there's a quandary). Imagine if, instead of paying all the time by a minority of users, it instead is payed a reasonable purchase price by the entire community. I'm unemployed and broke but I'd find a way to pay up to $50 to buy a copy of the game were it to have absolutely no Gold purchasing allowed.

Were I employed, I might even be willing to pay $5 monthly for the High Command features (unlike Gold, the HC doesn't make or break the game, but as a premium service, HC is worth a premium price). Sure, some are willing to pay more than others, but doing so on a per-match basis instead of a per-month or per-title basis removes the strategy factor in EVERY SINGLE CASE.

Imagine if instead of a million users and 50,000 spammers, ***** instead had a million payers up front without spamming. That would spread out the funding for ***** and make it easier on a per-user basis. It would also ensure a more stable income for ***** since the risk of losing payers is moot when no one player pays more than a small amount.

It's like Disney's "A Bug's Life". The ants were powerless against the grasshoppers because a grasshopper is so much stronger than an ant. But when the ants realized their corporate power far overshadowed the grasshoppers, then they were able to cast off their oppressors. So, too, would it be with the users. If all the users payed a small amount (the ant) then they'd be worth a whole lot more to ***** than the select few rich users who pay a lot (the grasshopper). The income would go UP for *****. Sure, some poor folks might balk at first -- seeing as how they are used to playing for free. But they'd change their tune quickly once they realize it's a one-time purchase and that the spamming ceases for all.

A while back, another person made a point how if everyone had a stake in the game -- paying a little for the privilege of playing -- then there'd be a whole lot less abandonment in the individual matches. Sure, a test-version which would be free to sample the game might leave some abandoned accounts by those who don't like the game might still result in some inactives, but overall, the satisfied samplers will want to invest in a full version of the game. It's a tried and true model that ***** should really consider returning to.

Now, you might wonder why ***** allows all this spamming to happen. Well, it would seem that ***** doesn't really care that much about us "freeloaders". It would seem that, when it gets down to it, the only reason we are even allowed to play for free is so that the paying customers have non-AI targets to destroy with their boughten units built in their boughten factories. Thus we become the pawns in their games. We are meant to be thrown away.

And if one or two of us occasionally does win a match, we are awarded a pittance of Gold that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the next match when you face a real spammer. I have won enough matches to save up nearly 30,000 Gold. Now, just how many factories and units is that going to buy? Hm? Not a lot? Oh...thus is the life of the poor in a pay-to-win environment.

So. What can be done? Well, I have seen others post ideas that would seem to solve this issue for everyone concerned. But ***** never seems to pay attention. I've even seen one user post the idea of just allowing every user the ability to have just a single match(one at a time) which would be gold-less while they would still have countless other matches be filled with enough gold spammers to keep ***** happy. Even if we poor are treated as pawns, we could be content to at least have our one-gold-free match to balance all the losses we suffer in the other matches against all the spammers.

Alas, I think ***** will never even consider that awesome compromise. But like everyone else who complains about the spamming issue, I have no real voice. For all that I type here (assuming it's even allowed to stay) I will reach no one. Only a handful will even see it before it gets taken down (which it likely will). And even if it is allowed to stay, there aren't really that many who read the forums, and even fewer members of ***** that will ever see it let alone take it under consideration. Sure, I can try to mask the reality of who is responsible for the mentality of the financial model. But nobody's "fooled" by it. I can try to make a case for a better game and I'll still get my words censored.

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I may live in America, where freedom of speech is so highly cherished. But ***** and it's servers are in Germany and even 70 years later, Germany is still reeling from the Nazi influences. And, even though Germany censors any notion of Nazism, it is still stifled by the anti-dissent concepts that Nazi Germany founded so long ago.

When the Germans -- who have been so heavily influenced by American culture these past many years -- finally learn from America how important freedom of speech is in all it's forms and in all areas of life, then and only then will the culture change enough such that corporations in Germany will embrace it in places like this forum.

Ironically, it won't be until Germany stops censoring Nazism that it will have truly and completely healed from all the Nazi influences that it still suffers under. In America, we have out-spoken Neo-Nazis and other leftist hate groups. But they are a tiny minority of outcasts in our society whose protected free speech reminds us of what we could become if we didn't maintain that freedom of speech. Their free rantings remind us of why we should ignore them. But if they were censored, they'd have the power of martyred speech to fuel their dissent and would actually become more than a token nuisance to be ignored. But this is another subject that doesn't need to be tackled in this post.

While I'm not as adamantly against gold usage as others here (I know I'll run into them at some point, and who cares. I'll use that game to try out certain tactics/build strategies), I really felt the need to respond to this post.
Your first paragraph, while I in general agree with you, you have to understand the position being presented. In fact, I actually think you are in agreement, as the frustration stems from a massive army being built in the very early game, aka gold spamming.

Using gold to pay back a douche player? I completely agree and I would absolutely use gold in this scenario if I had it.

"All it does is allow a person to win by strategy." Wait wait wait, what?

"By choice of the right units, in the right places...." Ohhh, ok. So what you mean is that by using strategy AFTER buying the units, you can win. I happen to also view HOW you obtain that army and HOW you go about improving your facilities as strategy as well, not just the combat phases of a game. Resource allocation is vitally important to one's strategy in my opinion. Thus, I pose this question - Why are you facing a superior force in the first place?
- Did you decide to focus on economy first and neglect troops?
- Did you move too much of your army away from what wound up becoming a battlefield?
- Did you lose too many forces in needless attacks where you had better options to minimize casualties, allowing an opponent to build up a larger army than you?
- Same as above, but the opponent merely allowed you to go attack several locations (even if you attacked wisely, you'll still lose units) and then decide to hit you while you're vulnerable?
- Are you facing a coalition of opponents that banded together against you?
- And there are still countless other reasons why this might be the case.

Rather than claiming that gold use allows you to win by strategy, what you seem to be indicating is that gold use allows you to cover up for initial mistakes and/or allows you to be more aggressive than you otherwise would be, knowing full well you can replace a large swath of your army at a moment's notice. You losing the units you purchased does not change anything regarding how gold use should be interpreted. Gold use is gold use, it doesn't change how it is used based on the quantity applied. You could also buy even more units so you take minimal losses. That's still fair play based on the current setup as gold use is a part of the game. It's also still a fair thing to bring up for reconsideration, as it has the capacity to complete reverse the flow of a game instantaneously.

Perhaps, though, you made no mistakes of your own (as would be the case where, say, a preset coalition of opponents decide to attack you, and you stand no chance of breaking them up). I feel this would fall under the same case as running into an opponent who buys an entire squadron of planes on day 1 - Tough break, oh well, fight it out and if you lose, on to the next game.


I think the crux of my issue with this post stems from this bit, though: "I find that if anything, that increases the legitimacy of the playing experience, because some no-brain unskilled random hasn't invaded me and won purely and simply because they spam build light tanks until their economy busts and then just marches them in a straight line to win by overwhelming numbers. I find that takes no skill. No thought. And that, that playstyle takes away legitimacy. Come to play a strategic game? Then I'm of the personal opinion that a person should be using a strategy better than 'just throw lots of hammers as fast as I can so I don't have to use my brain'."


So, let me get this straight. According to you:



So, you hate getting rushed with a mass of weaker units and think it's mindless/no skill/no strategy, but using gold to instantly purchase a, well, mass of units somehow is strategic?! There's no way you're serious, right?

And, quite frankly, aren't you using just a bit of "misguided frustration" and taking your frustration out at having lost to x (overwhelming numbers) on EVERYONE ELSE who makes a claim against gold spending?

To be perfectly clear, I have no problem with your position on gold spending and quite agree - if it's in the game, it's in the game. I feel it's absolutely worth discussing if its use could be tweaked, after all that's what all games that do well must do to evolve. They review how the game is performing and make adjustments on any and all aspects when necessary. I absolutely believe, however, that your presentation and reasoning of the issue at hand leaves much to be desired.

If you have counterpoints, and I'm sure you do, I would love to hear them.

ah, the good ol' coiners vs non-coiners controversy. It's as old as P2W games like this.

Only once have I used a bunch of gold, but it was saved from when I started the game, server outage payments, and game wins, not bought. I used it against someone who was my ally and double-crossed me, and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun to see his plan go up in smoke. In hindsight, I wish I had that gold back, and I'm definitely glad I didn't spend real money on it. I can see how someone could keep buying gold in the heat of the moment, though most probably regret it when their credit card statement arrives.

I have only run into a couple of players who were clearly using gold, and my way of handling it is to fight for a while if I feel like it, but eventually I just leave the game. It's not like we pay to start a game, so there's nothing stopping me from joining a new one. Let the guy get his thrills conquering an inactive player while I've moved on to play elsewhere and forgotten about it. Sure, it can be annoying to lose the time you've devoted to a map, but in the end it's just a game.

gold spamming is good, it should happen more often, i rarely see it

I think what most users find difficult to comprehend about the whole Gold-spamming issue isn't that there are fools who are soon parted with their money. The real rub is that the company encourages it. They facilitate it. They make it possible and they advertise it constantly. This is their right. So they set the rules. Seems fair, right?

But then, what about Nation-pushing? It's a strategy that goes by several names, but -- in essence -- it's basically controlling more than one nation so that you have some of the power of Gold-spamming without using Gold. In other words, a crafty player might create another account (or many) such that they can then make it possible for one or more of their favored characters to gain an advantage. OK, so the company prohibits that. Of course, it's only enforceable if one were to get caught. So the company has certain measures in place to detect this action.

Fair enough. The company sets the rules and they don't want others circumventing the rules. Why? Because the rest of the player community would feel this to be a form of cheating. But isn't that the whole point about why the majority of the player community is berieved about Gold-spamming? Think about it: a player gains a seemingly unfair advantage because they skirt the rules of the game and use external forces to manipulate the game mechanics...that's nation pushing. But when a player gains a seemingly unfair advantage because they follow the rules of the game and used external forces to manipulate the game mechanics (aka, spending Gold)...why that's OK, because it's supporting the game.

So, the problem then is that one form of cheating is prohibited and the other form is allowed. And the one that is allowed is only allowed because it's profitable for the company.

It's simple enough to understand. It's also simple enough to fix. But no one with financial stakes in the matter seem interested in fixing it. I will again agree that offering a single (one at a time) match that would be gold-less would be a good and reasonable compromise for all parties concerned. If only they'd listen.

If only people would actually listen, gold spamming is very rare. I have never met a gold spammer. Yes, I have seen people who use gold to build extra troops and buildings early game to make sure they can at least survive till mid game, but those guys still needed a lot of help from their allies to do anything major when other major powers attacked them, because they only used gold early game. It really is not a problem until you imagine it is. Yes, I think the option to create rounds gold free would be a good implementation, though it would most likely be a gold feature, remember, we live capitalist societies. If we stop paying Bytro labs money, they will go out of business, and then we can;t play their awesome games. Gold spamming isn't exactly good sportsmanship, but complaining about it is even worse sportsmanship.

You don't get it...you really don't. Gold is very volatile in value (800-900% bonuses for some which isn't fair) and I assume Bytro makes decent money from High Command. Regardless, let me enlighten you = I have faced players that rush research, have bombers and level 3 forts on the first day. When Casual players (the people that the game needs and might be tempted to pay money eventually) see this behavior, it turns them off and they quit that map, possibly the game. When players quit, we lack the numbers to properly fill and maintain competitive maps. When that happens less people stay...which means less opportunity for revenue. Do you see the connection and how supply/demand works yet? If you only want 100 hardcore guys playing this game, it won't survive. If you want thousands of casual players to remain active, there needs to be better balance and restrictions in place for the person that doesn't see the point in paying $25+ PER MATCH in a PTW scenario.

We also need to define gold spamming. I would say if you spend more gold than you can win on any map, then that is technically gold spamming. There is a poster on this thread that says he "only" spends about $20-$30 PER map...that is gold spamming. I won't complain about how people use gold to make up for lack of skill/diplomacy/strategy but the playing field is definitely not level. Because I enjoy a challenge and using my brain instead of my wallet, I limit my gold spending to 4K per map which is worth about 20 cents based on the 800% bonuses I keep seeing.

Im just saying, I have never met them, and we play to have fun (most of us. If you don't play this to have fun.. I don't know why you play) and since this is pretty rare, just join another match. Stop complaining

Sorry, but gold spamming is very bad sportsmanship and complaining is the only way to uphold good sportsmanship. I really don't undestand why you discourage legitimate complaints, regardless if you agree or disagree with them.

Like it or not, fair game is a game with an even playing field. Anything that significantly skews the playing field is a form of cheating, regardless if it is allowed or even encouraged by the maker of the game. HC does not significantly skew the playing field. Instant production of units or buildings does. Simple as that.

The company needs to find a better balance between milking money from CoW players and maintaining a level playing field. If it can't do that, it will end up with a severely limited player base and an ever worsening word-of-mouth record. Obviously, that is their problem, not mine. But it is in my interest to react against skewing the playing field.

There has been much talk about the company's buiseness model. Allowing and even encouraging profitable cheating is not a business model, it's just greed.