A lot of theft happens, others screen shot and/or video when certain parts of events are on to have the evidence you need to potentially get back what is stolen from you, f2p will be playing for years to get red troops and red gear by then the game would have replaced red gear and troops as they did when i finally reached gold status, the only way to get all those red gear is to spend and spend big, though it's not encouraged as Devs will say, latest mail suggests to "hurry" to try new research.