Income Strategy?

[magepker]

Hey everyone, new to the game, new to the forum.

Just wonder if anyone can share their wisdom with me. I'm currently lvl 22. 50 allies. 1300 attack 1545 defense.

I'm almost ashamed to say with a 32k income per hour... kinda sad. but wondering if anyone can share some advice on what i should do, should i purchase more money buildings or upgrade the ones i currently have?

after looking around the forums i noticed that it would be a good idea to upgrade my vault and upgrade my 2 munition stockpiles but besides that i don't really know.

Thanks in advance.

[Dreno33]

Build every money building you can. NEVER stop upgrading. If you play throughout the day, make sure to upgrade the supply depots a lot. don't focus on command center ever really... not worth the time.

[Dreno33]

YES, always be upgrading your vault as well. it maxes out at 10m. Also, never upgrade a money building if you know it will finish upgrading at a time you can not get to your game to start the next upgrade (sleeping, work, etc)

[magepker]

so i should focus more on building instead of upgrading?

[Dreno33]

so i should focus more on building instead of upgrading?

BOTH, you can build AND upgrade at the same time

[magepker]

oh. duh lol. forgot. thanks.

[magepker]

im running out of space >_<

what do you think about buying gold to complete upgrades\builds immediately?

or buying those money buildings for gold?

[EnjoyLife]

Basically everything that Dreno stated is what you should do. On the upgrades, concentrate on the upgrade that will give your more money/hour based on per hour that the upgrade will take to complete. Munitions Stockpile is good to upgrade right away to about level 4. After that, other upgrades will be more beneficial.

[Dreno33]

never spend gold on completion!! big waste. IMO, crates or LE units are the best spent use of gold. Then the composite factory (increases defense) 250g.

[magepker]

both my stockpiles are lvl 4 right now, just built a gas plant... waiting for a 2nd silo to be built and upgrading a military market..

[commandNconquer]

my strategy to build a strong income is the following one : always do the less time consuming upgrade, time is money they say so what i do is i update all the money building with the lowest upgrade time, no matter what the cost is. and i also build all the money building i can

trust me always upgrading the fastest upgrade time works i got 451k per hour income.

[Populouspapa]

never spend gold on completion!! big waste. IMO, crates or LE units are the best spent use of gold. Then the composite factory (increases defense) 250g.

Dreno33, Any other gold building worth building?

[magepker]

so maybe i shouldnt of upgraded those stockpiles... takes 24hours >_<

[EnjoyLife]

so maybe i shouldnt of upgraded those stockpiles... takes 24hours >_<

Level 5 Stockpile takes 24 hours to upgrade. You are increasing your income by $30,000 a day. This is $1,250 per hour. It takes 24 hours to upgrade, so that is an hourly increase of $52 for each hour that the upgrade takes.

By this same logic, a recycling plant would be $125 for each hour that it takes to upgrade from Level 2 to Level 3.

[Mcdoc]

There are four activities that you should always have going on in the game:

1) Always have a vault upgrade in progress until you reach the max of 10 Million. One day, you will realize that even 10 million isn't big enough.

2) Always have a land expansion in progress. You will always find a way to fill them. Eventually your land explains will take several days and cost over 8 million. Just be wise about expansions over water. If you study other bases, you will see what the minimum configuration for water buildings is.

3) Always have a building in the process of an upgrade. If you're checking in a lot, then get your 1 hour and 3 hour buildings maxed out as soon as possible. This will help you get more money saved up for every aspect of the game. If you're only checking in a couple of times a day, then concentrate on the 6 and 8 hour collection buildings.

4) Always have a building under construction. Do as many cash buildings as you can, then get your unit buildings up, and don't forget how valuable the boost and defensive buildings are as well.

You keep those 4 activities running in the background and you will enjoy the game much better when you get to higher levels and really need a strong economy.

[magepker]

thanks a lot for the tips mcdoc!!! ill follow your tips like a religion. but what do you think about spending gold on completing upgrades? Like this upgrade for my stockpile is 12 gold, but saving 2-3 hours?

[vitus79]

thanks a lot for the tips mcdoc!!! ill follow your tips like a religion. but what do you think about spending gold on completing upgrades? Like this upgrade for my stockpile is 12 gold, but saving 2-3 hours?

its maybe worth a few bars if u can put it back to sync with em and not plan to upgrade further next days. otherwise its just a waste i think

[manbeast]

lvl 1-50 or so i had a land expansion, upgrade, and building going simultaneously 24/7.

[manbeast]

so maybe i shouldnt of upgraded those stockpiles... takes 24hours >_<

i wish my upgrades took 24 hrs lol


most of mine are around 72 hrs now

[Mcdoc]

Honestly - your best use of gold is to save up 145 for a triple crate.

I never use gold to speed up time because 20 seconds later you have nothing to show for it. I love to buy the LE's because I know exactly what I'm getting for my money - but the triple crates are awesome because you get 3 indestructible units that are worth a minimum of 50 gold each and you have a chance to get items worth 500 gold :)

I also spend gold to open boxes in the events - but even that isn't as satisfying as the triple crates since there really is no guarantee you will get the top prize - and the consolation prizes along the way really don't compare to the crate loot :)

Building Upgrades and Vault Increases are just there to slow down the game a bit so some 14 year-old kid doesn't have a level 90 character with maxed out stats in 2 weeks. Kinda let's time sort out some seniority in the game :)

Good luck !

[JohnnyR]

thanks a lot for the tips mcdoc!!! ill follow your tips like a religion. but what do you think about spending gold on completing upgrades? Like this upgrade for my stockpile is 12 gold, but saving 2-3 hours?

McDoc's advice is solid, however one circumstance where spending gold to upgrade is if you've got to leave the game for maybe 12-24 hours and you've got a building near completion that will not be finished by the time you leave. I say spend the 5-10 gold to get it done and start the next upgrade. This keeps in line the always be building/upgrading/expanding land/expanding vault rule, and lets you get a jump on the NEXT upgrade when ya come back.

[What?]

Mcds advice is sound it is good to have land expansion, building construction,vault upgrade, and upgrades going simulaneously, but I would also add during the times when all these take over 24 hours and don't need to start saving for the next round of upgrades for a while is when you should purchase units. There comes a point when you do not need to upgrade the vault because it is maxed and no longer need to purchase any land. Right now most of my upgrades take two days at least, my vault is maxed, I don't need to purchase land unless I want to buy gold buildings. During this time I've been purchasing aircraft carriers while waiting for the upgrades to end. Obviously a lvl 22 shouldn't be worrying about aircraft carriers, but you can pick a decent unit still between upgrades and become stronger.

[Freekizh]

I'm a real fan of the big ticket items (for my level) like the oil rig and the desal plant upgrades. Problem is you gotta defend them.

What are peoples thoughts on upgrading just big ticket items and focusing on a lot of defensive buildings to protect them?

[What?]

I'm a real fan of the big ticket items (for my level) like the oil rig and the desal plant upgrades. Problem is you gotta defend them.

What are peoples thoughts on upgrading just big ticket items and focusing on a lot of defensive buildings to protect them?

If someone has more stats defense building really won't matter you will lose your money. If the stats are close it may turn the battle in your favor. You just need to decide who is attacking you and if you added some defense building is 10/20/100 extra defense really going to make a difference? Probably not...

[Arizona]

I'm a real fan of the big ticket items (for my level) like the oil rig and the desal plant upgrades. Problem is you gotta defend them.

What are peoples thoughts on upgrading just big ticket items and focusing on a lot of defensive buildings to protect them?

Fan or not, I think most people will have to deal with the big ticket items as they upgrade.
For me Iv'e upgraded my oil rigs, but what I do is to make sure they are as close to synced together as possible, so I only need to collect once, and to make sure they're ready when I'm around; say early morning or late at night.
I don't focus on defensive buildings. I bought 2 or 3 just for decorative purposes and the few points they provide. I much prefer to spend on defensive units as a priority over buildings.
I'm working on the ore mines and lastly will do the oil refineries, but as I said, I try to get them to be ready when I am. My main income providers are the 1,3,8,12, and 24 hour buildings...

...and I try to have a strong enough defence for my level and ally numbers, so that even if I can't be around to collect, I won't worry too much that I'll get robbed.

[Q Raider]

Alternate "Income" Strategy
I read the general consensus regarding economy based building at the start and have deliberately chosen to play a different strategy. Still uses the concepts stated by mcdoc but with a different slant. The objective was to keep leveling up as fast as I could and only generating what was absolutely necessary along the way re buildings.

I started about 6 weeks ago and am currently Level 65.
My income is just 31k/hr from 2x Storage Silo, 2xOil Derrick, 2xWindfarm, Communication Centre, Command Centre, 2xMilitary Market, 2xMunitions Stockpiles, Weapons Factory and Armoury, none of them above Level 5. (I deleted the supply depots along the way as I thought they might have been the reason my game kept crashing every five minutes, it wasn't).

Current Attack is around 4700 and Defence 5300 with enough Valor and backup "last hits" in the PVE section to add in the ability to put those figures up by at least another 1k:D.

I do the missions and I raid for cash. My own base is rarely raided as it is set up so the cost of someone doing it is not really worth it. They are likely to lose some nice Valor units and end up with not a lot of cash.

Remember this point about the income based strategy, if you have a high income generating building then it is a target for such as I. I have a very high Attack Skill ranking compared to Defence and I can comfortably raid in excess of 300 points above my Attack rating as a result.

I can tell you that Defence buildings do serve a purpose so long as they are positioned correctly. They do NOT prevent an attack and it is likely an attacker set up similar to me will still win. However it will often be a hollow victory as their losses will far exceed their gains. Once they realise this they will seek easier targets.

My Experience thus far:
I hit level 62 or 63 before I noticed my Raid losses jump alarmingly and was "forced" into building the boost buildings and am in the process of upgrading them as fast as so I can continue with my raiding strategy and see how far I can go.

I was also running a basic philosophy of adding one ally per level. Again at around Level 62 that has had to change.

GOLD UNITS:
I do have some Gold Units, didn't intend to originally. Funny story looking back at it but was pretty annoyed at the time.

I had some Tapjoy gold saved up and bought some in one of the discount periods to use in the "Secret Document" search. Had just completed a very successful raid and was selecting the vault to lock it away when I was attacked (all I remember is they had Mastodon in the name). As often occurs for me the game froze, I was repeatedly tapping the position of the Vault hoping to get it to work. When I finally got screen back I had.....

No GOLD.
About half of the money from the raid had made it into the Vault.
And my Attack and Defence figures had just jumped dramatically.
All I could figure was the game had reloaded and I had been hitting the mystery boxes area on the big screen that loads up with the advert....
At least I fluked it and ended up with a couple of Rare items with rather large A/D numbers:cool:

If you are going to spend Gold on buildings in the game then my first suggestion (only one really) would be the Composites Factory. I expect I may be forced into doing this at some time to maintain my raiding strategy. Don't know if the upgrades are Gold or cash though????

[mickymacirl]

Composites factory upgrades with cash, and it's not too expensive. It provides a huge PVP hidden DEF boost.

Taranis73 and myself tested this on our Allies list and there is a 8k DEF bonus difference between what he sees on my Profile and what I see. Take away my nation bonus and you still have a significant bonus to DEF being added by my level 4 composites factory. It's second on my list for upgrade to 10.

EMP cannons are also very good, and cheap to upgrade the first few levels and use up NO space at all compared to cash DEF buildings. Drone Flight centers are also used by high stat players but I've no info on those because I haven't got enough space just yet to build some.

[Mcdoc]

I have to agree that defense buildings DO make a difference. Placement is the key though. I have all five of my mine fields kinda centered where I have my big ticket cash buildings (close enough to cover my 2 oil rigs, my Nano-tech - soon to be 2) and people get bitten just about every time they try to raid and overlook my strategically hidden defenses. Plus I have have climbed my Defense skill points up to 97 as I approach the whale territory. I can show you screen shot after screen sot of people who attack me and lose 30k or even if they have higher stats than me - I still manage to win.

Anyway, I think a balanced economy & defense are the key to enjoying this game :)