Agree with whats already been said. This is possibly the biggest change to the game in the last few year with the potential to ruin the entire game by turning it into a 'pay to win'-game. 'pay to win'-games dont last that long do they?
I understand this is being tested on the beta-world. Testing is all good and well, but I would like to adress some potential damaging sideeffects that the beta-testing wont provide answers to(there may be more, im just dropping from the top of my head):
*There are a group of players who cant buy gold (virtually), either because they are too young or are broke whatever.
This could create group of players who registers on almost all new worlds with the sole purpose of attaining resources to sell to acquire gold. The gold would be used on the server they actually play on.
The beta world wont test for this as gold aquired on beta can only be used on beta(right?)
*Heavy gold use is the most effective on newly started servers where there is that race to get city nr 2 first(up to the, lets say 10 cities, really) The ones with a good start gains a tremendous advantage and momentum for the remainder of the server.
The beta wont test for the more obscene effects this would have since its not a new server.
*Id expect beta-players have different motivations for gold use then others. Sure, they use gold, but their interest would more be in testing new features, rather than: Ill get to the top 'spare no costs'.
The beta may therefore not display how this will effect extreme gold spendage amongst minor group of players, and how this will effect the server.
*World Wonder. Consider the following scenario: On a server you have 3 alliances, X,Y&Z, competing to build WW. After a while Z lags behind, so much infact that they give up. X perceives this and gives them a deal. To buy all their resources, X will use the resources to win, Z will use the gold on the next server.