Saying that someone "must have spent about 14K to earn 2 castle tower levels in the mid- to high-teens is, imho, a total guess. Inno's math may be confusing or even confounding from time to time but there are set parameters and it's been announced. (My total expenditures over a 1/2 year time frame are pretty high but surely no where near 14K, either!
The castle system has existed for 78 weeks, and as you say they are set parameters, which is where I got my numbers. The math isn't confusing, honest - it's really straightforward. The time the city has existed doesn't figure unless you started it more recently than that (like your Carthage/Dilmun cities). If you're at L12 that is 399600 points. A level 18 castle is 2,698,400. Two level 18s plus a level 17 is 7,360,300 points. You get a tiny amount for fights/negs/etc.
- If you do all the fights/negs you can get points for, that is 480 points per day. (Almost, because of the GBG/GE dead day once every 2 weeks. But I won't quibble, lol.) So that is 3360 per week.
- If you never miss a daily challenge, that is another 1400 per week.
- You can get 235 per week collecting from your castle.
- Winning an auction gives you 30 points. Buying an item outright gives you a few more depending on the item (my antiques dealer currently ranges from 4 points for the cheap stuff to 53 points for a tac tower upgrade at 10800 coins and 34 gems). Assume you're an auction fan and win 3 auctions per day, every day, every world, and buy the highest item every day. That's another 143 points per day, or 1001 per week.
So that's a total of 5996 per week. We'll round it to 6k per week for a VERY active player and auction fan, which means you could hit L12 for free, if you played that way since the Castle system was brought live. Any level beyond that requires money.
If someone played all three cities, maxing the free points, and ended up with 2 L18s and a L17, that leaves around 6 million points on the table. Inno gives 500 points per dollar spent. So that'd be about $12k assuming that someone was also an auction freak.
For me, I very rarely use the antiques dealer, and I don't get 15 negotiations in per day, even with SC, which I just built a couple of weeks ago. I do the ones required for quests. I probably miss a couple of daily challenges per week, so my weekly average is more like...3000 points.
I started my Carthage city just a few days after the castle system started. (lol, and didn't get the fights OR negotiations in at first.
) I hit L16 on that castle about a year in, maybe a couple of weeks past that. That means it took around $2545 to get there. (Sounds right - I was averaging $40 per week with extra during Christmas, my birthday week and Wildlife. My lack of patience is expensive. lol.)
How on Earth is any different from any other Internet Company - gaming or otherwise - in the whole world??
This change is different for me, and not all Internet gaming companies do things the same way. I play free games and pay games both. On games with ads, some turn them off if you have made any purchase. Others let me make a one-time payment to remove ads. When I like a game, I happily pay it. And some are optional for a bonus of some sort, as Inno has done, though the rewards strike me as low for that type of ad.
If ads are forced, I won't play that game. For optional ads, for me, they need to not be intrusive, and I really feel Inno failed there.
Regardless, would I pay $48 or $360 per year, in perpetuity, in
any game just to turn off ads? Nope. And certainly not after spending $2500+ in one year. (I don't know about the $4 subscription they are beta testing, but the $30 Forge Plus to remove ads...I think that was *per world*.)
I think it's a really bad implementation.
Plus I'm really sad to see people leaving.
(BTW - apologies for any typos. I tried to be careful, but I had eye surgery a week ago, can't see at all out of one eye, have a cataract in the other...typing is kinda rough going.)