Fundamentally it's a war game and the the objective is to eliminate everyone else in order to win since there is only so many players you can eliminate on your own, you do it in teams because once your alliance defeats another you are taking down almost every player in that alliance because even if they survive the war and jump to another alliance you already have them feeling depleted and it's only a matter of time before they quit.
So in my expert opinion, the top players are the team players that make up those teams, so premium isn't the key to being a top player, attitude, understanding and dedication is. To break in to the top 12, top 24, top 100 or where ever that line is drawn that segregates the top from the bottom in the early stages you do need premium but leading the way in the early stages doesn't necessarily mean you are a top player.
Preimium might put you here at this stage....
but it won't get you here when all is said and done...
Now I am not saying the players in the first screenshot aint top players, coz OKCAdonis and socrates34 being in both proves that isn't the case just saying va va voom is cool but cool isn't always va va voom.
Premium will help you excel in this game as much as a bubbly personality will. Using premium no doubt provides those using it a distinct advantage, especially early on but the real advantage is being in good aggressive alliance.
Personally having admin allows me to get more done with less time and having commander helps quite abit because 20% is a lot of advantage to have but I could do without the rest. High Priestess I almost never activate, I only had it on to make manticore nuke which I killed off yesterday because it was just sitting there not earning BP :supermad: and with a favour cap of only 500 I find it's constantly overflowing. Having maxed out mines and a merchant means that constantly overflowing too, so
I have to move resources around all the time and that's means more get lost in transition because if I am not their to greet it when hits shore it will hit a full warehouse so 30% advantage is not something I really get to enjoy. Commander or not you can't beat on hoplites with horses so it's not really advantage if you are too lazy to wait for spy reports like me.
I will say if you don't use premium and still have need to be high on the ranks make sure
(1.) you get yourself in a good alliance,
(2.) when it comes to conquering you hold out for big cities (10k+) coz demolishing buildings doesn't cost resources building them up does. Having cities that already have mines that are pumping out the maxium amount of resources always helps.
(3.) Build nukes, don't be lazy and starting adding hoplites to your slinger nuke.
(4.) Protect your farms, don't let your teammates conquer your farms that you raid everyday.
(5.) Find aggressive inactive enemies on grepostats and kill their horses.
last but not least be patient bide your time lot of players that use gold quit by the time the 5-6 cities stage comes around because they find themselves spending too much time on the game, spending too much money on the game or aint doing as well they would like inspite of using all that time and money so they quit to join another server or all together.