"Different interpretation of what a gem is..." spin.

BS. Such BS. This is not a unique or different approach to gems. What gems are, what they essentially amount to in Godus, is little more than gold/money/dust/etc. currencies in other grand strategy games. Except of course, this is obscured by the fact that they're used as a microtransaction on mobile and we're all caught up in that for very good reasons, plus this isn't a grand strategy game. Setting that aside for a moment, here's the biggest problem with how this is implemented in Godus right now...The gem costs and timer balances are, as we all pretty much recognize, completely and totally off.

In fact, if I weren't so sure they're inflated merely to wear down a mobile user's patience to buy gems, I'd almost be willing to believe that for some terribly backwards reason, they were trying to emulate turns in a grand strategy game but in real time. This is too absurd for me to believe this is the intent, however it disturbingly almost makes sense, doesn't it? City improvement or unit training takes a few turns to complete, but sprinkle on some gold and you can get it in the next turn. Works great there, because you know, turn-based and other stuff to do. Here, though, it's like they're trying to smash together something that simply doesn't work not only from a mobile design perspective but if they intend to keep the gem exchange around, from a general RTS design perspective.

I have, in all my years of playing RTS games, rarely come across this design in such an extensive and terrible manner. In say, Rise of Legends and Age of Mythology (maybe also Age of Empires II: Age of Kings), I only ever saw this approach used minimally for the recruitment of mercenaries or the instant capture of neutral cities. That's it. That works, and the reason that works is because you've got other resources to invest in the construction of other structures (e.g. in Age of Mythology, you have stuff like wood/stone with gold being a side for upgrades and merc recruitment/creation). So really, what all this comes down to is that you're trying too hard to keep things simple, regardless of platform, and shooting yourself straight in the feet again by keeping more of the resource mechanics away for too long, all to emphasize belief, gems, and stickers as your key resources.

Seriously, stop that. Make a good game. Add a sensible resource system, keep your gems for stuff that really matters, not every stupid little thing. You've already got the beginnings of some of the groundwork done for it.

Heck, if you must have your stickers, boost their generation so that they may be used for both cards and structures or something. It makes as much sense as putting them on cards, after all. Faith stickers instantly make abodes pray generating belief to gather, tech stickers make stuff build faster and/or upgrade, social stickers make people happier, settlement stickers both allow for the creation of a settlement and the instant generation of one of its units (farmer/miner/builder), and voyage stickers can be used to hasten the beacon of expansion repair and/or uncover new voyages.

There you go, you'll still need to balance it all out for the increased need for stickers on everything, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than gems everywhere and if you adjust it just right, you can still squeeze out some microtransactions from your mobile playerbase without boring them to death. How's that? I redesigned your resource system without having to jam in new crap, just rebalance some stuff which you've already admitted you need to do, and possibly made it align with your "more ethical" approach to F2P business models. Not only that, you get to keep your precious little gems and may still use them for picking up belief and stickers, just no longer on everything.