It's fun but can be amazingly frustrating. The players range from all age groups (lots of kiddos) and the amount of stupid (or noobish) players is staggering. AFK'ers and botters are also a big nuisance. Then there's the problems with game mechanics like 0 hit criticals as the worst example. The dev team are a bunch of dickhead Belarussians who have quite the "reputation" amongst the community. You can't help but grow a sort of hate/love relationship with this game if you get into it.
I implore you, don't use money on it. Or if you must, only very little, like a one-time purchase of gold with 20 or 50 €. Using money on the game mainly saves you time (which is best used early on playing low tier tanks and learning the game) by accelerating your progress but playing4free is totally viable. Most people do spend some money on it once they get hooked.
I'm very experienced in how the game works so I'd say I know what I'm talking about. You may just regret using more money than what I mentioned. More importantly, don't use the gold on just anything and use it sparingly. The best way to use it is on premium time which gives you an xp and credit bonus gained from matches. Though only buy premium if you've got plenty of time on your hands, you don't want that costly gold going to waste. 1 Month of premium is the best option. Rarely premium time will be on sale like most other things in the game. If you must use gold on anything other than premium, use it during a (weekend) special sale. Always. Keep an eye on the site for such events. There's also a calendar that shows you when they're on. Sadly they only announce what's in them a day before they start.
Things other than premium I'd recommend:
-a couple of tank slots from a sale when you really need them
-a couple of garage slots from a sale if you like grinding crews to get real benefits from crew retraining. You'll eventually run into a tank you don't want to let go of and therefore can't spare the crew of for the next tank.
-A premium tank or 2. The higher the tier, the more credits you'll generally earn but I'd think hard about getting a tier 8 one, they're expensive as hell and for god's sake don't buy one before you get a tier 6 tank or higher!! Get them from sales as well.
Everything else is a bit of a waste in the long run.
I've got over 8k matches under my belt and have been active in the community so I know what I'm talking about. I do regret spending 90€ on this game, it's not really worth it and the devs definitely don't deserve it the way they run things. Also I regret spending my gold on certain things I didn't really need to, but that stems more from my perfectionistic nature. Yet I really recommend using your gold wisely. You'll see things differently after you spend some more time on the game.
I wouldn't recommend getting into Clan Wars, we're not big enough for that and everyone has to be totally committed to it. I'm in a Finnish tank clan POP which is a community of a Finnish gaming magazine so there's plenty of people in it. I've only got one tier x tank so far so I haven't played much of CW and am now in the POP2 group that isn't large enough for CW yet.
