This is an idea to enable kingdoms to grow quickly by gaining more gold and plates, but without doing premium epic battles by using a premium item. Why? Because there is currently only one premium clan running at any one time and it is is usually full and this prevents anyone with chimes or seals from using them. The idea is to introduce a new crux chest with special properties 1. When run at the same time as gold and silver crux, gives 10x gold 2. Runs for 1 hour 3. Automatically expires when a xtal is used to regen troops, or the gold or silver crux expires 4. Plate drops for the eb it is used with increases at a compounded rate (5%-10%?) 5. Increases legend item drop rate 6. Increases the damage done in the epic battle This puts the gold earned within the premium eb range. Gold and silver cruxes are easily earned in the legends as well as being drops from chests. The limit on time to 1 hour means you could get 2 bars of troops and spies for the one invocation, but it is also at the expence of the gold and silver cruxes, so there is a strategic decision on using these items (cruxes and xtals) together. The expiry of the item on a xtal regen means that there isn't a need to get as many xtals used during the time period so the cost of the item can be low as a result. The extra plate drops are an incentive because growth will increased. The extra damage makes the eb go faster and puts the new eb in range for smaller clans Example: In an NK I would use a seal (59 nobility) and typically run all cruxes through the first 2 hours, burning 8 or 9 xtals. Using 10 of the new crux, I could burn the same number of xtals and get the same amount of gold, but without the waiting involved for entry to a premium clan. This could be limited to the ebs in Sveruganti series, or be tried as a feature only available in a promotional eb, or only available for, say Zoma which requires a random drop in order to be run. I'm guessing 3 to 6 nobility each would be an ideal cost for this so the cost per gold is similar to the premium ebs. The rate at which you can use this is throttled by the number of crux chests you can earn in the legends so throwing money at these is not viable. Ideally you want to use it from full bars when the gold and silver crux are running, so I suggest the following messages when one is activated: Warning you troops are not full, continue? Sorry you require the gold and silver crux to be running to activate this. You are about to activate the premium crux, continue? A message when cruxes expire may also be a useful feature. An alternative idea to requiring the gold and silver crux to be running, would be to require a key to activate whose supply can be restricted (eg, random drops from ebs or chest, completion of certain legends, etc.) but I'm not sure if this would work well.
I'm not suggesting premium clans were promised by devs. We do what we can with what we've got. This wil provide more choices.