Cryptobrewmaster. To Buy or Not to Buy

Hello!

During the last week, I was doing kind of an experiment in Cryptobrewmaster game, I was curious is it possible to stay in the top 25 in Top Manufacturer or Busy Bee event if you don't spend CBM.

If you do remember I was getting free cards and ASH tokens pretty frequently, but at the same time I was spending CBM tokens too.

When I was doing daily quests, I was doing even those where I needed to spend CBM. I was buying missing ingredients to brew the beer.

So, during the last week, I tried to brew the beer without buying extra ingredients, i.e. without spending even a single CBm token. And of course, I was far away from the TOP 25 players. What do I think?

Beer

Looks take a look at neutral ingredients for the European Lager Beer. The most expensive ingredients are Local Aroma Hops, Local Bittering Hops, and Larger Yeasts. Each of these ingredients costs around 15-20 CBM. But 1 bottle of European Lager costs less than 10 CBM!
My conclusion here: buying these ingredients doesn't worth it!

Daily quests

So, what about paid DQs? Let's take a look at green level Good Wheat Malt. It costs 9 CBM, I mean it's production in DQ.

How much does it cost in the Market?

The lowest price is 2.89 CBM today. So, it is better to buy it on the market.

But on another side, by completing these DQs you increase your chance to get into the TOP 25 players and receive free cards and ASH tokens...

My plan

After that experiment, I decided to...

Not doing paid DQs for a while
Collect ingredients during 2-3 weeks, and then brew the beer
Save CBM to rent the buildings
Save CBM to upgrade the buildings

Also, I still couldn't decide what to do with ASH tokens and how "influence" works. I heard different opinions about it, but couldn't understand what is what yet...

Do you do the DQs which require CBM?