In the latest event, my alliance of veteran, active players failed to reach milestone 1 because the only way to reach a milestone is heavy investment of cores by individuals, or everyone in the alliance donating multiple days worth of cores for a minimum of 2 days. Of course, milestones are easy for anyone that wants to spend $100 on cores. So if you want a game that's competitive, look elsewhere. This game isn't, unless you're willing to shell out $20+/wk