I've been playing W112 for the last month, to see if it's possible for non-p2w players to compete in this game against p2w ones. I peaked at rank 35 with 7 villages and 31k points. The rank 1 player Run Boy Run has 46 villages and 321k points. As I'm playing solo, there will be probably be some non-p2w co-played accounts above me, I'd say you'd need to look down to around rank 7 BMarko on 10 villages and 67k points to get a true reflection of where non-p2w players should be at. I think I'd be higher if I had flags and a co-player, but I don't because I've not played many flag worlds and I never co-play. The high % resource and recruitment speed ones I imagine would have helped me a lot in the first few weeks if I had them, tbh, idk correct flag strategy and idc to learn.
My conclusion is: it's possible for a non-p2w player to get a top 20 ranking (at around the 5 to 7 village mark) if your account is co-played 24/7, and/or top 50 if you're solo. But it's impossible to be rank 1 (probably even top 5 to 10) if you're not prepared to spend the same amounts of money the other guys competing for these rankings are.
I doubt I will play another p2w world again, but I won't say never. I'll likely be back for the next milestone world if it's non-p2w, for nostalgic reasons e.g. W150 or 200. On W112, I'm now just selling pps on the exchange for as long as I can be bothered, then I'm quitting.