I am experiencing the same issue, with the addition that now all basic tasks within the game are freezing (claiming a reward, trying to sell an artifact, etc etc) making it almost impossible to play the game. 

Is this issue only present on iOS? The behaviour seems to be a loss of connection to the server, so it should not happen only on one platform....

Does anybody have any experience how we can ask for a refund for something we paid for and now it is unusable?

Same problem here.

There are also multiple topics on the issue but no response from Plarium. Sad

Cmon  palarium  fix  iOS!  I  opened  a  ticket  2  weeks  ago  and  this  last  week,  they  say  its  a  known  issue  but  no  fix

Palarium,  stop  doing  game  updates  and  fix  the  basics!  This  is  unplayable on  ios  right  now!

I  raised  this  in  the  iOS  client  supoort  section  and  their  support  person  suggested  some  tosh  about  installing  a  third  party paid  for  app  "TurboVPN"  to  fix  it.

Really!?  I  mean  really  thats  what  they  suggested.  Blew  my  mind.  Can  you  imagine  a  scenario  where  one  business  has  a  problem  with  its  service  and  instead  of  fixing  it  they  tell  you  to  install  something  that  tunnels  all  your  traffic?  Doesnt  sound  "phishy"  at  all  does  it?!