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View Full Version : Upgrade, Build, or Upgrade and Build?



tower
06-20-2012, 12:58 PM
So I have a little room to build in my hood again. I'm waiting for Loft #2 to finish building and saving some $$ in the meantime. I'm upgrading my MT's to level 4 at the moment.

While waiting for these week long builds, I'm pondering whether during the day I run upgrades on ANY property in my list, by shortest upgrade time first. The idea to get as many upgrades in as I can while awake and set 8+ hour upgrades for night.

I've always gone with the largest hourly income boost, but every bit helps and some of the upgrades get too expensive to save for that quickly. Since it's all about the benjamins at least a low level building upgrade is affordable and I'm doing SOMETHING while farming properties.

I know a lot of people get rid of their low level properties in favor of land use, but I personally keep adding more land to accomodate all the buildings. Though, at 3.6m for my next expansion I'm starting to regret my OCD.

I also maintain a version of the spreadsheet on my phone that shows me what levels all my properties are at so I can simply run over the list and find the next upgrade by affordability, build/upg time, or by income per hr increase.

How about you guys? What's your strategy for building and upgrading?

Ramshutu
06-20-2012, 01:00 PM
I always have something building, and something upgrading, at all times. Upgrade and build time is every bit as much of a resource as respect and cash.

joaquim
06-20-2012, 01:02 PM
I use the goal calculator on white frog's spreadsheet.

Dorian Gray
06-20-2012, 01:19 PM
If I'm not building a money building I'm building a turret.

I'm always upgrading something.

3.6 mill for your next expansion... Just started my $50 mill expansion. Keep Expanding. Hood size does matter! ;)

cookie monster
06-20-2012, 01:21 PM
I try to construct the buildings with good income per square first. I try to give priority in upgrades to high income per hour, low-robbery target buildings. When this isn't possible, I focus on IPH first, keep my defense higher than most. If it's a building with a big pay out, I won't upgrade it when it's close to paying. Also, I try to manage the upgrade time so that when a building finishes I can get to the game and begin upgrading another. For example I make sure upgrades won't complete at 4 AM. So far I've tried to stay away from the upgrades that take longer than 1 day. My theory being that if it takes two days to raise my IPH $500 with one upgrade, I can probably increase it at least 50% more if I choose to make lower level upgrades elsewhere during those two days. Plus, keeping one building from being standing too much taller than the rest makes me less vulnerable to robbery. I don't have to sit and wait those final five or ten minutes for a building to pop for fear that someone is birddogging it, too. If someone nails a building... fine, I've got several that pay out about that amount. The percent of my total income that has been lost is much smaller relatively than if I'd taken one building and jacked it all the way to 10 before going to another or whatever.

I like to have the gun turrets around b/c their upgrade from 1 to 2 is only 4 hours, so at times this is very convenient to get a pay out before starting a major upgrade.

I've increased my IPH over 70% since the weekend of the income event. If I pushed forward this weekend I could make that go over 100%, but I have a defensive target in mind for when I get to level 100. Plus, I'm trying to save up some funds for some big upgrades.... which will be safer the higher my defense goes.

ShawnBB
06-20-2012, 02:36 PM
When facing a decision for huge upgrade or huge build.
It's basically about the value of that move. Go for the one that will bring you a better iph for the close amount of cash spent. Personally I don't care it's a build or upgrade.



Another important point here is that when building Type As like MT and LOFT, you better put a little more preparation upgrade before building them. Because your goal is to almost instantly upgrade MT and LOFT to lvl2 after built.
It might be easy to recover even if you don't pay much attention on this point.

But when you are facing the month long nightclub project, preparation upgrade is vital in improving your game efficiency.
You can spent 4 months suffering with a 100k IpH, or increase your IpH to 180k in 1 month then spent 3 months to get the same result but with the advantage of the 80k extra.

Nudie
06-20-2012, 02:39 PM
Yes, do both. If you can't do two big jobs concurrently, do one big job and one small job. Keep your mob busy or they'll do bad things like open a 3rd nightclub illegally. ;)

Vicious...
06-20-2012, 06:45 PM
Upgrade and build, easy. The harder decision is expand or upgrade/build. The only thing I can build right now is basically gatling turrets, which I'm close to maxing out on. I don't want to shell out $3.6 million and $5 million after that for my next two expansions, especially when I have one upscale club built, but after the second upscale club it will afford me the excuse to upgrade my lower, cheaper buildings.

mnju_03
06-20-2012, 10:41 PM
I'm always changing my mind and for each device as well, differently. But I really like to get all my cheap little stuff upgraded and keep them revolving 24/7 just to get things going in the right direction, it also helps me save money. Once I have enough for expansions, I do that too. I build as well.... My motivation might have highs and lows depending on my life but those are my routines... And I always try to keep up on my TL....and I am farming a few items.

badvoc0
06-20-2012, 11:45 PM
i usually alternate my builds i.e money building then defence building(currently missile turrets) and repeat ad infinitum.

While i am building a money building i am upgrading defence buildings and vice versa

Bala82
06-21-2012, 07:58 AM
I tend to build when i have time but when events are on is difficult to build thing since your focused on getting event item you forgot about your hood than 1 week gone and you forget what was i suppose to upgrade.

Right now I am upgrade my house level 6
Tomorrow working upgrading my seafood restaurants to Level 2-3
Than Upgrade Dominican to Level 2-3
Than Upgrade MT from 2 to Level 3
Hopefully i can spend 2 days of saving to get my first loft than a week later try to get level 2

TRAZ
06-21-2012, 08:04 AM
Build/Upgrade/Expand....as much as possible ongoing at the same time.

Buck
06-21-2012, 03:29 PM
Build one nc, or 2 office buildings? Not sure what I wana do yet.

jmeijer
06-21-2012, 03:30 PM
Build one nc, or 2 office buildings? Not sure what I wana do yet.NC! By far the best building in the game. Upgrade it to LV2 and you don't have to worry about other upgrades anymore.