Playing without tokens (in my opinion) takes much more strategy and diplomacy. You have to be able to ensure you don't have any early wars and at the same time make sure you are still able to expand and get your income up. Its very tough to balance those two things evenly.

If you want my opinion:
Don't play with tokens, either blue or red tokens.
I've personally done better without and I think you should !

I was in an era where the number one player was 100+ power above second place for almost the entire game. He boosted hundreds of dollars of red. He lost the era, lost his entire army, ended with nothing.

Boosting is no guarantee. It helps, but is't required at all.

5000 jess thats a ton. I've never used over 2k tokens in any of the eras I've played up until this CE. Theres no need to use 5k tokens on any era really unless its a special event.

i have been top 30 before and never used tokens in those games. tokens are a waste of money because it takes so many to win solo. get a good alliance (i consistently failed to do this) and they will help you. alliances like BOLD and some imitators have been good this round.

People will say you don't need tokens to win, that's a big lie, unless you are not some big name whom people will fear putting there hands on fearing you will end there career, then you need a good alliance, to make sure you are not dead weight on them you need 2k reds blues as per required, since you never know when war can come up, you can be fine with blues only but then you won't be main gun of alliance, considering it will take you ages to build back if you lose your big part of army

what abt TK huh?
we dont have any big names , and on boosting worlds of m3 , TK without boosting has proved its metal.

because their 5 subs come and boost for them.

Tk is all about subs, every era they play seriously, they got tons of suicidal subs, and players like togar, rhudar are among. Big boosters.,