So sorry, I don't know what 1.9 is. I did see it somewhere over the past few days but I think it was something that didn't yet pertain to me, so I didn't investigate. But I THINK I get your drift. Now that I'm in IA I can contrib to others' GBs and I was just looking around to see what it was all about. And I was thinking, it looks like there are rewards, so if you went and donated towards the end you increase your chances of gaining the rewards? Is that what you're talking about? Like you could donate a very sm amt and the reward is greater?
New players do seem a bit mystified by 1.9 talk. The basis of "1.9" is entirely based on the Great Building Arc.
All GreatBuldings give reweards to the players with the hightest positions in cascading order down by total Forge Points placed in the Building. The top positions win Forge Points back, plus blueprints and Medals. So donors used to jockey to be the top donor that wins a spot in swaps. Then Arc arrived and changed the game. Since the Arc leveled up increases the rewards given back for Great Buildings.
The Arc has several noted levels taht players talk about.
Level 60 is 1.8 times the base reward
Level 70 is 1.85 times the base reward.
And level 80 (the most popular) is 1.9 times the base reward of a Great Building payout.
This 1.9 has become a standard in Foe play for putting Forge Points on Great Buildings
In high level Guilds there may be higher levels 1.92 etc up to 2.0 (which is level 180)
.++++
And yes the trick of placing less than the amount and still successfully winning the spot is a big thing ... called sniping.