Dont know if Evony Development have considered this or if its been mentioned before, but something that is a big trend on facebook games and several other real time stratergy games i keep an eye on is Trial Pay and OfferPay

Basically the system works by people completing offers advertised by partner companies, evony gets paid by those companies and in return the player gets rewarded with game coins and gold.

Now im not suggesting that the amount of gold rewarded should be equal to what a paying customer gets - they should always get the advantage.

But by introducing a system like that it allows free players a chance to earn coins without evony being out of pocket.

Just an idea.