I'd agree with almost all of the points there, but surely as the premium player can progress faster, would there not be an disadvantage there?
Also, seeing as BP is coming to an end, would commander or captain form a disadvantage (even though people with those perks seem to have lower luck)?
I think that it's telling, in all my servers there have been front runners in the first two weeks. But, it is rare that I see a person in the top 100 in the first two weeks
stay in the top 200 when things get real there are exceptions of course, but the amount of top players in the early game that stay top players in the late game is a small proportion.
Anecdotal, but a player I consider to be slightly above ability to me will over take me after the first month despite the fact that I held a lead over him since the beginning of the server without fail.
I think the same can be said for the number of threads regarding the topic - It's rare that I see anyone complaining about the unfair disadvantage of premium when players start getting dozens of cities. The top players are top players because of their commitment any disadvantage to non-premium players that seems great in the first two weeks is without fail overcome in the first two months by those who are more committed.
Captain and Commander is an interesting one while I was in Alpha and Delta I didn't think about it much, I had assumed that players as good or better than me we had premium. Myself and voidwolf were some of the best players on Iota and probably the best if you excluded NoE players and void was slightly better than me and when he told me he didn't have premium I was shocked.
But, then I started to think about all the conquests I supported of players who didn't have premium and how the Captain and Commander bonuses became irrelevant when it came to supporting other people the opposite could be argued though, that if you do have these bonuses all of your alliances troops benefit in a defense.
But, obviously Captain is better than Commander.
Commander
Defense - When you take into account the modifier a 25 wall gives, I have to question how relevant Commander is I personally stop paying for Commander after the first month. And I've never paid for it for defensive reasons..
Offense - In 1.0 this was important, good players rushed horses and constantly farmed their neighbors. And losing your troops was huge, it crippled the amount of resources you can get and this was the main reason I got commander. Now in 2.0 killing troops can stifle you (You might be stuck on 5 or 6 farms for a while) but you still get a healthy income and with the importance of killing troops reduced your ability to kill them (and the bonus from Commander becomes less relevant).
It still has it's use though (from my view) not losing as many units in your first few conquers is worthwhile.
Both bonuses become less and less important as the game goes on, I'll probably spend 100 gold in total on Commander for Phi.
Captain
Attacking - Light Ships take a long time to build and a lot of resources if you're going to use hundreds of them trying to break some bireme stacking you want them to be as efficient as possible. Ideally, a lot of people are attacking a conquest your own bonuses become less and less important as more and more people are sending LS..
Defense - As mentioned earlier you're often supporting other people.. (I'm bored of writing.)
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TL;DR
Commander - Not really worth it, almost irrelevant after a couple months (Sieges are broken by LS, troops rarely land) defense is more affected by City Walls.
Captain - Worth it for a long time, less and less important. Probably won't make a difference in a large attack/defense.
Again I would say that top players will still be active players, your LS might fight 10% strongly. But, if my resource/farm management(/favor) allows me to build 30-70% more LS than you your attack modifier isn't going to matter.
I think premium is designed very well and that it is fairly balanced, it is more useful when starting a server and encourages people to spend more when a new server is started. But, tends not to make much of a difference later down the line.