I know this thread has already been answered, but I wanted to add in just a couple more things.
i'll keep it simple
1. how does the premium 50% build time reduction work? is it a 1 time thing? or can you just keep spamming it (as long as you have enough points) to the point where a 20 hour building gets completed in 2 hours? (hope that's not the case)
As others have said, you can spam it as much as you want. Also, if the building is the upgrade that is being actively worked on and the build time is under 10 minutes until completion, you can pay to complete/finish the upgrade instantly. For a 20hr building upgrade, to pay for it to be instantly completed, you would need to spend a total of 80 PP.
Just as a breakdown on that:
Total Build Time | Total PP Spent | Comments |
20 hours | 0 | This is when the building is initially queued. |
10 hours | 10 | Dropped in half |
5 hours | 20 | Dropped in half |
2.5 hours | 30 | Dropped in half |
1.25 hours | 40 | Dropped in half |
37.5 minutes | 50 | Dropped in half |
18.75 minutes | 60 | Dropped in half |
9.375 minutes | 70 | Dropped in half |
0 (completed) | 80 | Paid for instant completion |
Because of this upgrade system, the real time advantages are seen when halving long upgrades, but halving shorter durations is costly without providing nearly the same advantages. Going from just a 1hr 15min build time to instantly complete takes 40 PP; whereas, dropping from a 20 hour build time to 5 hours only takes 20 PP. As such, to instantly rush a wall from level 0 to level 20 would take A LOT of PP. (Not to mention the fact that the player would also need to have the resources available; which if the wall was dropped all the way from 20 to 0, the player probably does not have the resources available in the village to pay for those upgrades.) While the player could purchase the necessary resources from the premium exchange, those resources would still take quite a while to arrive, and the PP cost to purchase all of those resources would also be extremely high. So, overall, I don't think you'll encounter too many players who actually have enough PP to rush their wall from 0 to 20, and who are willing to spend that much PP to do it. I am sure there are some players who do and who would, but they are very few and very far between.
2. how important do you find co-playing? is it really necessary to keep up with the competition? from the top players of each world, what percentage do you think that coplays? personally i don't like it. a man can share his car or his wife, but not his account :icon_wink:
2. Co-playing is not essential to compete. If you have an active tribe that you can request account sitting from, then you can definitely get away without needing a co-player. However, it is my opinion that two heads are better than one, and having a co-player allows you to maintain your account without needing to personally be online 24/7. A co-player can offer insight and advice into situations, and you can brainstorm ideas together to better plan tactics. This can also be done with your tribe members, but your tribe members do not have the intimate knowledge of your account that a co-player has, so sometimes a co-player can provide better ideas than tribe members. Additionally, the higher you climb in the rank table, the more time you have to put in to manage your account. Premium features like Account Manager make this much more bearable, but after a while of managing a high rank account alone, it can become increasingly tiresome, and thus it can make a player feel discouraged because he/she is not really having fun anymore. This is where co-playing can also be beneficial. If you have 3 co-players (preferably all in different time zones or with different schedules), each one can take the account for 8 hours every day. Then it is just like working a shift at a job. Rather than having to actively manage the account for 16 hours out of a day, a player can just watch the account for about 8 hours and then pass it off to one of your co-players. This can help prevent players from feeling overwhelmed and put off by the game.
TL;DR: 1. you can spam to complete buildings, but it gets expensive quickly, so not too many players will do that. 2. having a co-player is not a necessity, but I personally recommend it, especially when you get to the higher ranks.