Pay to win, and it's no small amount, you need to spend £1000's if you want to be competitive. This is hardly a strategy game unless you call spending vast sums of money strategic. The strategy element is shallow, poorly balanced with no room for anything other than prescribed setups. If you get unlucky and end up with a few players on your server who are hell bent on ruining things, there is little you can do, they recover after a couple of days to go rampage again. Don't waste your money here!