They want to see you do good.
But never better than them.
Remember that.
It is. There are people growing 8 billion power in 2 weeks. Unless you pay a considerate amount. Don't expect to even be 500 million.. how it works is generous packs starting at 5 bucks. After you buy 2 of them they turn into 10 dollar packs. OK after type buy that one, they turn into 25$ packs, after you buy that it goes to a 50$ pack, and then 100$ and it STAYS at 100$ to get more packs actually "worth" the money. Can't go back once you've boughten a pack. A true pay to win game. However. Still very very fun. At least for me anyway, when I do decide I will play. Just play it for the first week and you will see how it runs around there. (Btw, some timers on research on buildings can take hundreds of days to even beyond 1000, this is one of the things forcing players to buy packs for the speed ups to finish them much faster)
They want to see you do good.
But never better than them.
Remember that.