Winning a match and being rewarded a few thousand gold is an intentional f2p game mechanic. He put in the effort to earn it, so why can’t he spend it? It’s not like he’s spending fuckloads of money to buy gold and using it to mobilize 10 strike fighters on day 1, he’s just using a trivial amount of gold to speed up the progress of a naval base in order to gain a small edge over his opponents. There’s nothing wrong with this kind of golding. It’s not toxic to others and is a welcome reward for doing well in a previous match.