I have only read a few pages of this thread but I get the jist of it. I much agree with the primary post and not so much the last post. I have only been playing a couple of weeks but the mayor contests have been rigged. I have done each league once and been promoted each time. In town, I moved to 1st by picking the best assignments with big payouts and spent my in game cash a couple times to move through assignments fast. I finished a half day early and figure my total was about as high as can be. In the last hour I was passed by and the leader smoked me by > 10K.
I did things different in city, but chased a guy in the lead who was ahead 30k almost instantly. I made selections that opened higher value assignments, the player in first finished and did not move at all by mid day 2. Figured I could catch him, pffft. Even with adding 2 tokens I finished 2nd 20K down.
In metropolis, same thing almost to a T. I added 5 tokens this time and finished 7th, admittedly I missed one assignment by a minute somewhere in the middle, still, I got blown out almost 30K.
It's bs, no way I should be dogged out so much especially when I am adding so many assignments and I am burning cash on I earn to finish early and I burn speed ups on every assignments now, such cap. How can another players speedup and money earned be so much faster and more than mine, it clearly isn't a level playing field.