Why have we no army totals?  Country totals? et cetera

These are way good tools to utilize for & against.

Round here, that kind of thing is for Premium memberships.  I think that's how the site encourages us to give it some $$. 

It's totally worth it.

To be clear.. Having these types of stats technically does not give Premium members any advantage, but .. who's actually counting every unit on the board?  The reality is, it makes things a LOT easier for those who play seriously (and even those who don't). Bottom line. Support the site if you can.

It definitely gives you an edge M, especially on large boards as players are not wont to go add up everyone's troops and bonuses. Knowing what everyone else has leads to better tactical play. Of course, I refer to non-fogged games. On fog games, the edge goes down towards nil.

That being said, I strongly agree with encouraging standard members to become premium members for these reasons:
1) membership entails just a small amount of bucks
2) supports the site and ensures it's endurance
3) all the things that come along with the premium membership, some of which is described above.
4) and most importantly, it's just the right thing to do. ;)

Thingol wrote: It definitely gives you an edge M, especially on large boards as players are not wont to go add up everyone's troops and bonuses. Knowing what everyone else has leads to better tactical play. Of course, I refer to non-fogged games. On fog games, the edge goes down towards nil.

Maybe this is semantics, but I said "technically" it does not give the Premium member an edge.  Then I went on to state that Standard members are unlikely to count every visible piece on the board and make notes of how many each player has. Nonetheless, the information is there.  I don't think Standard members get itemized continental bonus reports either, but even here there is no technical edge given to Premiums members.  Again, they can calculate these should they want to.

I will agree that collecting this information is extremely important if not downright necessary for high quality play, and that it is doubtful that Standard members take the time and energy to take these steps, which gives Premium Members an 'implied' edge ..but only because those Standard members are (by choice) not giving the board as detailed an analysis with each turn.

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few gifted/savant types playing on this site who can do it all in their heads with minimal effort.

IMO - the biggest benefit of the stats table is that you can play games more quickly.  It only takes a few seconds to read the state of the board with the stats table, which in turn allows you to play more games simultaneously with less time spent. 

Thank you all for the answers-- now playing a premium trial...  like it!

Ozyman wrote:

IMO - the biggest benefit of the stats table is that you can play games more quickly.  It only takes a few seconds to read the state of the board with the stats table, which in turn allows you to play more games simultaneously with less time spent. 

I would support this one. It also makes it A LOT easier when figuring out new boards.  I'm currently standard to give myself a mandatory limit on my number of games/time I "waste" here.  

And, yeah I usually have to do a bit more mental math, but since I rely more on my instincts and the "feel" of game play it really hasn't changed much. I'd say the biggest thing I miss is I can't quick glance the Luck stats to see how badly I'm being buggered.

But, this summer when time opens up I'll probably grab the life time package and rely on self-control again (shudder).

I'm not good at self-control, that's the main reason i'm back to standard membership, this site is way too addictive

In my opinion, premium membership is 100% mandatory if you want to win. It's just not practical to have to count units every turn. It also displays continent bonuses more easily. And it gives you more data on the luck screen, which a particularly neurotic individual can use to derive what happened in fog (sort of?) or on maps where history is disabled.

Honestly, wargear is sweet, and run by a single guy if I'm not mistaken. He deserves $3.33/month for the work he puts into managing everything, to help him pay fees, and to maintain the server wargear runs on.

It's the internet age. You have to support the things you like if you want them to grow (or at least to stay the same).

Yeah, I get all that, WTW, and it IS important to support the site, financially and otherwise.

However, we are all in different situations. The time I have invested in this site has caused conflict in my marriage and initially took away valuable time from work. I'm not blaming Tom, this is all about my addictive personality, and I have had to set limits on when I can and can't play.

Is it worth for me to pay for premium membership and put my marriage in risk? No, it's not. Do I support the site in every other way I can? Yes I do, even starting a thread a few months ago praising Tom's amazing work. 

Every person has to make their own decisions about whether to pay or not pay. I don't doubt that I might win more games if I paid for premium membership, but that's not something I will do at this time.  It was pretty sweet to have the stats when I had my one-month free premium, but I'm also an intuitive player, and can get a feel of what I need to do regardless of what the numbers say. 

I've always worked at nonprofits, and we always have people contribute to the organization in different ways, money is not the only way you can support the success of a project, and it shouldn't be the case here either. Of course, if you don't bring in enough money, you won't succeed, but that is a different conversation.