Those limits are bad for Bytro economically. In reality in this kind of game a huge portion of the money almost surely comes from isolated spending sprees not a steady stream of trickling revenue from a high number of sources. The money comes from a few torrential downpours that cause flooding not a daily light sprinkling. The limits you're suggesting would make the flood smaller while not increasing the small sources in any manner and put a big dent in the revenue. When two whales get into an ego war and start spending at an accelerated rate Bytro gets a pay day. The cap you're suggesting would not only lower the need for both players to spend more but would give them time to think things over and decided if $200 on GM was really going to give a good ROI for their entertainment dollar. Even when a single player is trying to buy a win, they typically spend more GM than the rest of the map combined. Bytro needs these bursts of spending to keep the lights on, this model would not survive if it tries to rely on smaller contributions from a much wider set of clients. That model only works for games with a much broader appeal and typically a much higher production value. People pay to play games like eve and WoW on a subscription basis because there's many millions of dollars poured into creating a much richer world and a nearly infinite number of things to do. This game can not hope to approximate that kin of immersive experience, nor should it. It's hard to create a good game with a f2p option but a premium model where the f2p players still have a chance. They've done a fairly decent job here and if occasionally you get steam rolled by a fat wallet remember that expenditure keeps the game available to everyone.
I don't personally understand the joy in winning by spending more money but never lose sight of the fact that the game could not be f2p if that option was not available.
Thanks for this post, because this sums it up quite nicely and explains why we are hesitant to make any change to the current business model. It is just a very risky endeavor for a matured game that is deep in its product cycle. We might experiment with different monetization methods in future games that garner a new player base, but it is unlikely that we will change the model for existing games.
By the way, Supremacy 1914 currently has the highest amount of active players and the highest amount of revenues in its whole decade long lifetime. So we are not in any decline yet.
You can of course continue to discuss alrernatives in this thread, but please don't expect us to change the current model of this game as long as it is working and as long as alternatives have a significant risk attached to them. That is just the economically sensible thing to do (and most other businesses would (or should) act in the same way.
