Hi,
Awesome, glad you liked it!
Me, I have yet to play a single Arcade mode battle. Historical has that single plane per battle feel of impending doom that just can't be beat. Also, you have to watch your speed, or you will rip your own wings apart, or your elevators will lock up and you will plummet to the ground...
This game makes me wish I had a stick. I would play nothing but Full Real. Alas, I don't, and you can't play Full Real with mouse and keyboard, so...
Anyway, what you can buy with real money:
1) Golden Eagles - That's the game's premium currency and I'll list that later, but it gets cheaper per eagle the more you buy at a time
2) Starter packs - Those come with a premium plane (see below), a few days of premium xp (see below), and a few Golden Eagles as bonus
3) Campaigns - Those come with a premium plane, premium xp and eagles, like a starter pack, but also, single player campaigns
What you can buy with Golden Eagles:
1) Silver Lions - That's the game's normal currency. Again, cheaper per Lion when you buy more at a time.
2) Premium planes - Those come in two flavors, special versions or captured planes. Special versions are exactly like the ones you get normally, but they cost less to repair and give you greater rewards; captured planes are exactly like the ones you get normally, but you fly them under a different nationality. In Arcade, that's mostly irrelevant, but in Historical and Full Real, that actually gives you a bit of a tactical edge.
3) Premium XP - while active, you get douple XP and 50% extra Silver Lions. If it were the other way around, I'd be all over this. Like this, I'd almost pay to not have it...
4) Crew training - Every time you fly with a crew, it gets better. You can buy a truckload of crew XP with this, and again, cheaper when you buy more at a time. Not worth it for regular improvements, but some things, like more trained gunners, cost so much crew XP that you basically have to get this.
5) Backup planes - Irrelevant for Historical and Full Real, extra lives for Arcade
6) Plane talismans - gives you extra X and crew XP (and possibly Lions, don't know) whenever you fly that plane
What you can buy with Silver Lions:
1) New planes
2) Crew training for planes - every time you deploy a plane to a crew for the first time, you have to train that crew on that plane. You can only have each plane in one crew at a time, and you can only have one plane in each crew at a time, but as you get better planes, you can put your old favorites on other crews, for instance...
3) Plane upgrades - better parts, better ammo, stuff like that - this is actually rather well balanced - it's not a game breaker, but it's important enough to notice the difference and you'll want to have them all as soon as possible. Unfortunately, they are also limited by plane XP, so you have to fly a few times without them.
4) Plane repairs - the first ten times you crash or get damaged with each plane, it gets repaired automatically. After that, it either gets repaired over time (a few hours for early planes, but tier 9 planes take almost two days) or you have to pay for the repairs with Lions.
5) Ordnance and special ammo reloads - this is actually pretty cheap and is only here for completeness
What I've bought:
I haven't spent any real money on this yet, either. I have earned some Golden Eagles in events (and you get a few starting Eagles if you do the tutorials), which I've spent on crew training for my bomber crews, so I can have trained gunners. Not particularly worth it, but I didn't like seeing the penalties in red for not having them...
Anyway, I'm bored, so I thought I'd type that up. All in all, the free vs premium currency system is rather well balanced, except for the premium XP thing, but a lot of people like it as is, so... YMMV, I guess.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
J.