PDA

View Full Version : Tired of Rolling Noobs, A Guide to Success



MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 02:38 AM
A Guide


Layout of the guide

About Me and Stats(Do I know what I am talking about? Possibly:D)
Noobs Just Starting Start Here
Oh **** I Followed Quests and Leveled. What Does It All Mean?
Player vs Comp
Player vs Player
Building your Hood(Economy)
The Store
Overpowered Gold *New*
Common Pitfalls, A Summary


Thanks for all the positive feedback on my profile and on the forum! :D

About Me

Hi! I'm tired of rolling noobs so now I am writing a guide. Right now I'm only at level 35 and playing this game on my iTouch and I've come to the realization that almost no one knows how to play this game. My stats at this stage are easily better than nine out of ten and I could easily raise them yet higher(I've generally been more econ focused than stat). Feel free to post your thoughts comments and suggestions and I'll add them or at least respond to them. :D

My Stats

I'm only going to list the ones I think actually matter
Mickey
324 545 575
Lvl:35
Attack:2205
Defense:2625
Income:11079 per hour
Fights Won: 1928
Fights Lost: 178 (mostly early on to gold spenders)
Robberies Won: 713
Robberies Lost:1 (oggling a gold spender hood, misclick)
My Hood: Imgur Link to My Hood (http://imgur.com/a/YlC52#ffkjW)

I may not be the highest level yet in this game, but as of yet I have only ran into one person with similar econ/attack/defense who had not spent money on gold.

Noobs, Just Starting. Start Here

In the Beginning There was a Mobster: You are now a mobster wtf do you do? Name yourself you limey bastard. Come up with your permanent alias who are you? It doesn't technically matter, but as of yet you cannot easily get your named changed so make sure you like it. One option although it is not necessary if you want to make it easy to get a massive mob fast, you can consider putting in your player code as your name. What is a player code you ask? A player code is the 9 digit player id number assigned to your character. This id lets people find you and invite you to their mafia. When you accept an invite to someones mafia it also adds them to your mafia. As of yet there is no downside that I have been able to discern to gainning more mafia, however there are many upsides. (More on that in Oh **** I Leveled and Player vs Player).

Layout of Crime City: CrimeCity is a simple game early on to get used to the buttons and options go to profile help if you feel really intimidated or just press goals and follow the quest system which'll start you in the right direction. The quests will get you familiar with the layout of the game and give you some nice ample rewards. This game essentially breaks down to three arenas which I will go into more detail on. Player v Comp, Player v. Player, and last and most importantly, the economy heart of this maturing game, Your Hood(SimCityish)

Oh **** I Followed Quests and Leveled. What Does It All Mean?

I'm going to assume at this point you have a little knowledge of the three arenas of the game and you aren't retarded. So now that you've leveled and became more powerful there are four things that happen that are important.

Unlocks: One. Bam it tells you about what you unlocked and gained access to. There are a wide variety of items, buildings and harder areas that you unlock progressively as you go up in level. This is not necessarily a good thing. Blasphame you say? Along with gaining these unlocks you are also gaining access to rivals of your level. This means as you go up in level you fight harder people who possibly have been playing much longer that can also come to your hood and beat your face in and steal your ice cream money. Big noob mistake one. DO NOT LEVEL TOO FAST. Give your money buildings time to accrue income. Earning more money before you level = buying more and better gear for your mobsters. Now you are thinking. "Ok Mickey "Two Toes" then why don't I just stay level one forever?" Well you could, but then I'll break your face because that is boring.

Skill Points General: Two. You gain more skill points. You have the three new shiny skill points. You can invest them in one of four things. This really isn't as important as it seems But I'll go into it anyway.

Attack- Increase your attack stat. This is only important for PvP(Rivals). Note: This is not a multiplier for every mobster you have in your mafia, but just a static improvement to your attack or defense.
Defense- Increase your defense stat. This also only applies to PvP. It would theoretically however help your economy by saving your buildings from being robbed.
Stamina- Allows you to attack and rob rival mobsters. [PvP] You regain 1 stamina every three minutes. You start with 5 stamina it takes two skill points to increase it by one.
Energy- Allows you to do jobs and quests in the Computer's hoods, such as Canal Street. You gain 3 energy every minute. 1 skill point increases your energy by ten. As you get higher level and have harder quests jobs require more and more energy and can take more instances of you tapping the quest and investing that energy before it is complete. By level 35 just to start some quests it takes almost 200 energy.

How to Invest Your Skill Points: "So what should I invest my points in Mickey?" You can read this or you can trust me that, honestly, it has only a minor impact on the game. Do whatever you want. I have two theories. One you could go for a PvP build and forget totally about the PvComp side of the game and throw it into attack or defense. Yes you wouldn't get good quest items, but you would get more respect(by winning fights PvP you gain respect, another in game currency besides cash and gold) before you leveled since you were gainning xp only by PvP and you could buy more awesome respect items to make up for that disparity. Thus say by investing all your skill points by level 100 you could potentially have an extra 300 attack OR defense OR combination thereof. This is relatively worthless. 300 attack by level 100 is nothing in the scope of the game. I've checked out the hoods of lvl 80s that didn't know jack with over 6k attack So whats another couple hundred. My Other Theory: Convenience. Sometimes you want to play the game more. I like investing my points in a way that I fill my stamina and energy up in a way that they take the same amount of time to recharge. One skill point in energy gives you ten Energy that takes 3.3 minutes to recharge. Two skill points in Stamina gives you one Stamina that takes 3 minutes to recharge. Skill points carry on over levels so you can invest in 1 stamina one level leaving you with 1 skill point that you can carry on into the next level and invest in stamina twice. Does it matter? As of yet not really. In the later game it becomes ridiculously easier to spend energy than it is to spend stamina. So maybe you'll want more energy. Its ultimately all personal preference.

Your Mafia and Gaining Mobsters: Three. You now gain the potential to have five more mobsters. Your mafia is always limited to your level x 5. Currently it caps out at level 100 so you can have a maximum of 500 mafia. You only have two mobsters? You need henchman. Get more. There are two ways to gain mobsters. One google it and you will find a forum filled with player codes you can add or two go to rob someone check out their "comments" under, "rival profile," people post their codes there all the time. Protip- When you gain mobsters you can visit their hood's and get $100 for visiting their hood. This is very nice in the early game. Menu--->More-->Visit Mafia==Money. (Note: I believe there is some kind of cap I ran into doing this in the early game)

An Extra Little Bonus from Leveling: Four. Your energy and stamina becomes totally recharged. Sweet. This can be nice when you go rob someone to get xp and level just so you can get that last three hundred energy you need to complete a job PvComp and get money and stuff.

Kudos to Amber

Player vs. Comp

Quests and Area Leveling: You are now gleefully following quests, robbing, killing and pillaging to your hearts content. A couple of things to remember on player vs comp. One you can make areas better by increasing their "Level." I haven't done much of this since I've been progressively going to new areas as my quests lead me there, but my understanding is increasing the level increases the amount of money you get from any job done in that area. I think it could also lead to other bonuses such as decreased energy cost or possibly increased item yield, but as jobs in higher level areas yield better rewards per energy spent and better items I have only continued further forward and haven't leveled areas to see the potential outcomes. A note on leveling areas, the progress to increasing the level of an area is only advanced by doing new jobs in that area that you haven't done since the last time you leveled the area. Also, you get one point of progress to leveling the area per job. You cannot level an area by robbing the old lady in the corner repeatedly because it is low energy job and easy. You only get one point for the robbing the old lady. Also the kidnapping the president's daughter job that costs 10,000 energy will also only get you point of progress towards leveling an area. I'm not a big proponent of leveling areas because I don't know of any good rewards or items you get as of yet. If anyone knows good job/area items they should post about it.
(This section needs more knowledge than I possess. Where are the best items? We need a loot guide)

Getting Items with Easy Quests: Some people advocate doing easy quests to get easy items to arm your mafia with. I'm against it, because it will make you level too fast. Just follow the quest system and take your time.

A Tip on Questing: Another warning. Not all quests are worth doing immediately. Some are very expensive for their short term pay off. You will eventually do these quests just don't spend everything you got to do them quickly. I have two examples. The warehouse quest where you upgrade a warehouse to lvl 7. You get this one early and it costs a ton of money and will break the bank if you rush it. (Once you do get a lvl 7 warehouse it is amazing just work on your other economy a bit first) Also some item buying quests are money sinks compared to their reward. The buy five stab vests costs 45k, but the reward sucks! I imagine this only gets worse in higher levels.

Player vs. Player

Combat System: Lets talk about PvP. So just how does the magical combat system work. First off Mob. A little review, for every level of your character you can have 5 mobsters in combat up to a maximum of 500 mobsters at level 100. (This could very well be raised in the future) If you want to gain mob google "toucharcade forums crimecity mob" and you'll find a gold mine of player ids or check people's comments when you go rob them. Why is mob important? Cause each Mobster or Mobsteress can carry 1 gun, 1 melee weapon, 1 armor, and 1 vehicle. The best combination of these makes up your attack/defense rating. Cool. You go to attack someone you look at their defense rating you see its two hundred below your attack and you lose when attacking. WTF? Funzio has some attack defense system they keep secret. You attack you get a multiplier within reason that is probably somewhere between .9 and 1.1 or somewhere thereabouts, defense gets their own multiplier. Its not horrific or insurmountable so deal with it and go for crushing victories where your stats are substantially higher.

Notes:This is just my guesstimation of how the combat system works. If you know the real mechanism. Say it. Also a common misconception your fellow mafia's attack/defense that are in your mob has no impact on your actual combat attack/defense rating.

A Common Glitch You Should Know About: "Mickey you lied to me, you two toed liar! I'm not using all my best items in battle, I'm just using my top sixteen rows and three columns or in other words 48 different item types. For a total of 158 items when I'm level twenty have 100 mobsters 100 melee weapons, 100 guns and 100 armor and should be using 300 items." Hey you've been listening. Don't worry, this is just a glitch that Funzio is working on with the Fight Results screen and has no bearing on your actual attack vs defense in the battle.

Robberies: "Weak miscreants keep stealing my hard earn ice cream stall money even though my defense is substantially higher than their attack!" Robberies work differently than actually attacking opponents. Base defense ratings are cut in halfish when being robbed since it is easier to get a higher defense rating than a high attack rating. A couple things to keep in mind. Each building has its own defense rating. More expensive and higher level buildings generally do better in defense. Towers and defense buildings defense values during robberies are not halved, and are a useful tool to stop robberies just be careful to not overbuild them and hurt your economy. (Waiting for dust to settle Robberies rules have changed a bit and may change again)

"What items kill the best Mickey??" I'll get there in the store section.

My Hood, The Economy of CrimeCity

Pay attention. This is easily the most commonly misunderstood, overlooked and improperly used part of the game. Econ in CrimeCity is essential. Buildings can earn you "new money". By "new money" I mean how much money you invested in building the building plus more money. New money means new guns and new cars that those without the buildings could not afford. New money is good.

More Expensive Higher Level Buildings Vs. Earlier Cheaper Buildings: First off, A common mistake made by many in this game is that people buy the more expensive buildings and try to level them. Bad move. As a general rule of thumb the more expensive the building is the more inefficient it is. What I mean is yes a Loft sounds amazing. You get 11k every twelve hours at level 1. Hellz Yeah. Problem is it will take over a month with PERFECT collection to pay off the initial investment. Your earlier buildings pay themselves off faster and can generate a lot of money. Lets put this in perspective. I saw someone with a level 4 laundromat(under $1,000 cost) and a level 1 History Museum($36,000). It takes 48hrs for a History Museum to pay $3,600.00. In 48 hrs that laundromat could have earned $28,800.00 dollars. That means a history museum costs over 36x more and has 1/8th the earning potential. Its a staggering difference the laundromat is insanely good. In general cheaper buildings pay themselves off much faster than more expensive buildings. So don't skip early buildings! Eventually it is still important to build that history museum and later buildings. It will pay off. Just build the cheaper buildings first.

Fast Turnover Vs. Slower Turnover Money Buildings: The general consensus in the community is that your building/upgrading priority should be focused on buildings that generate money more frequently and can be collected multiple times a day, such as Laundromats, Italian Restaurants, Babershops, Souveneir Stores and etc. There are a couple reasons for this. First they boost your potential hourly income much faster than big pay off buildings like warehouses and gun shops so depending on how much you play they definitely can earn you more. Second they aren't as susceptible to being robbed. For instance, If you show up in a rivals hood and see a level 7 warehouse with money over it you rob it. You rob it until you can't rob it anymore and buy ak47s for everyone. However, the smaller pay off buildings while still often robbed aren't nearly as prioritized by potential thieves.

Want to know how long it takes for your building to pay off its building cost or upgrade cost. Help build and check out Tloord's Guide! (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPDmk8Lr8yadEZoX1RGd19pajJncVVzR282SEN3N Xc&hl=en#gid=0)

Defense: A big mistake that is made by many and seems counter intuitive is that people with weak defense over build defense in their hood, thereby hurting themselves. You show up in a hood. You see 20 watch towers and a level 4 laundromat. Ninety percent of the time if you are playing properly they are weak compared to you and you don't even need to check before you can attack them. Instead of building economy they are sacrificing space, money and upgrade time to build defense. This is a critical mistake, this just creates a cycle where one falls further and further behind. Towers do have their place and are important to secure your hood against robberies just try not to over rely on them.

Expanding: Expanding your hood is another pitfall, where I see people making mistakes. Do not upgrade in only one direction. Every time you expand your hood the cost and time to expand again increases drastically(For me the cost went up around fifty percent last time) Maximize your hood area by upgrading in an alternating pattern (Left, down, left, down etc.) The costs and time to expand your hood rises very very quickly! Also be careful to not over expand. Use up all of your space before you expand and if the next expansion feels a little absurdly pricey it probably is for you wait until you've improved your econ some more before expanding.

Decorations: An aside. I know decorations look cool, but if you are using up floor space for tables you are also sacrificing money. There is always another building you could build. Eventually you should build all the buildings, just build the cheaper ones first. Space should always be as tightly filled as possible. Protip- build (get the cheap pines that are 1,200 not 1,500)pine trees on the sidewalk to block your building levels from view.

Kudos to Kane064, Amber, Tloord

The Store, Items

General Info: There are a couple points I want to emphasize with the store. Do not buy items that are too pricey early. Don't do it. Yeah you got six freakishly good combat shotguns, but you could have had over 30 AKs and had a much better attack/defense rating instead. This is always a tricky your goal should be to get every single one of your mobsters with the best melee weapon, an armor and a gun(notice I didn't say car) they can have while still always upgrading your buildings and expanding your hood. Items work in a similar fashion as the money buildings did they get more expensive faster than they become better. In other words for their attack and defense to double their price will more than likely at least quadruple.

Cars: Why didn't I mention cars before? Cars are outrageously pricey for what they offer. At some point they will become cost efficient; however, this point is a couple months into the game at least. You need to have a roaring economy by the time you buy cars. In the early game just buy whay you need of cars for quests and no more.

What Weapons to Buy First: Alright, you don't have money to be buying decent guns, armor, and melee's at first so where do you start? A good initial order is to go melee(brass knuckles), armor(steel toed boots), and then guns(shotguns). This should bring you to about level thirty after which things begin to become more muddled based on what you are doing with your respect. These are all in the 400 to 600 dollar range and offer a good amount attack and defense.

Respect: Respect is a "finite" resource. You earn respect by doing robberies and attacking rival's hoods. Every time you do this you gain xp and consequently go up in lvl.You cannot be lvl 2 and have 10,000 respect. The Combat Boot. This item is ridiculous in the early game for the respect it costs to buy. I went Combat Boot and Tommy Gun to help keep my defense attack similar. For instance the next best value respect weapon is the Tommy Gun. For 1 Tommy Gun it costs 100 respect = 10 attack 6 defense or 100 respect= 2 Combat Boots for 10 attack 16 defense. The short term benefits of Combat Boots are enormous, but keep in mind you will one day replace the Combat Boot. So stay competitive and buy some, but at some point try to save your Respect for more expensive items that will have more long term benefit. Also I like to maximize my Respect income by robbing buildings that tend to give more respect per xp. I like Chinese Restaurants, Clothing stores as they tend to give close to 1 to 1 ratio. Generally later more expensive and more upgraded buildings give a better respect to xp ratio.

Kudos to Junglistical.

Overpowered Gold

Initially I was vehemently against gold. In the early stages of the game gold items are so good they are basically impossible to compete with so it was easy to hate on Gold and gold spenders. Now as an older and higher level man I realize that it has its place. CrimeCity is a great free game brought to us by Funzio. Be nice support the developers and CrimeCityMark who deals with complaints and repetive questions on the forums all day and throw in a couple bucks for gold. Besides Gold is overpowered, and overpowered is always nice to have on your side. [Hint Hint Crime City Mark tell someone to give me gold. I'm pluggin for you guys!]

How much gold to buy: This is a personal preference, but remember the more money you give Funzio in one chunk the more they reward you by giving you more gold for your buck.

Gold Items: These provide only a short term benefit. Cheap gold Items will give you more stats for your gold(therefore your buck) than the expensive items. This is similar to how cheaper respect items will also give you more stats but unlike respect items at this point of development even the cheapest gold items are basically never replaceable by in game cash items. To find out which gold item was the best, I did a simple test. I added up the stat points and divided by the amount of gold so I came up with a weapons stats for gold spent so that I could compare the items. Thus the higher the number the better the value. The result, the wasteland pistol is the most ridiculous of the cheap items weighing in at 16 attack and 18 defense for 25 gold it has a ratio of 1.36 stat points per gold spent, next up the skull breaker bearing 1.27 stat/gold, and then the pickelhaube at 1.26stat/gold.(notice they are the cheapest gold gun/melee/armor) The worst item to throw gold on-the Anti Air missile Launcher at .55 stat/gold. Though if you want to buy a "nice" gold weapon that still give good value, the Crusher Gatling Gun did suprisingly well compared to its expensive peers.(Crusher Gatling Gun .81stat/gold).

Gold Buildings: Gold buildings are an interesting case. There are three thoughts that come to mind when I'm considering buying a gold building. One, are gold buildings that have faster turnover better? Two, as you become higher level and unlock new gold buildings are the higher level gold buildings better or worse for the gold you spend? Three, are buildings better value that cost more gold? Again to figure this out I did another ratio(Income per Hour/gold)), where a higher number indicates better value. Unfortunately here I'm limited by my level since I don't know what the pay off stats are on higher end gold buildings, but I still developed a general rule of thumb for CrimeCity players. The less gold it costs, the quicker time period before it cranks out money and the higher the level unlocked the better value. The most stand out buildings. The Ice Cream Stand 3.95, The Carousel 4, Chicken and Waffles 6.48, and following the rule the highest level building I unlocked was the best-The Smoke Shop at 18.333. On the other hand the Worst building(also following the trend) The Techno Club at 0.104. One more thing it may cost more in game cash to upgrade later gold buildings, but if you are only planning on buying gold once go for better buildings. They'll pay off.

Note: This implies that no matter what level and income you are at you will always get good value for spending your gold as gold items are always good and gold buildings get better for the gold you put in the later their level unlocked. Funzio wants you to buy gold.

Common Pitfalls A Summary

This is just a quick summary. For those too lazy to read or that want a quick recap.

Don't level too fast. You'll fight people bigger than you quicker than you need to.

Don't buy expensive buildings too fast. These take much longer to pay off their initial investment. Build cheaper buildings first.

Don't overbuild defense and decorations. Income is essential. More defense and decorations gives you less space for money buildings=worse gear for your mafia.

Pack buildings in tightly in your hood. Don't waste space!

Expand Proper Like. Fill up your space before you waste money expanding again and expand in a pattern that maximizes area(Like Left, Down, Left, Down)

Don't buy expensive weaponry. Expensive weaponry while good in the late late game is very cost inefficient when you are trying to outfit 500 mobsters.

Don't by cars early. Cars are the most cost inefficient item in the game. Get them in the late game.

Always be upgrading money buildings.

Work your way up the money building tree.

Keep expanding your hood and adding new buildings.

Increase your income rate as fast as you can.

Gold, the cheapest gun is the best, the more gold it costs the lower the "value" of the weapon.

Gold Buildings, The later the level unlocked, and the quicker its turn around (i.e. generates money every hour is better than every day) the better.


Feel Free to Post Your Thoughts/Add More. Now Go Kill People.

nycpizzalover
09-12-2011, 07:52 AM
Good summary....wish I had this when I first started. Hopefully Popeye is looking at this thread and incorporate some of your comments in his proposed guide.

rustbinlid
09-12-2011, 08:38 AM
Yes lets hope he takes out the bombastic bits as well.

Squishh
09-12-2011, 09:49 AM
Good guide for the most part. Missing some key points.

1st. People do not realize the money making potential of having 2 level 10 laundry buildings. Each will collect $375.00 every 5 min. Thats $1,500 every 10 min, $9,000 per hour. Granted you have to be online to collect your $750 every 5 min, but this combination pays out better than any other building early on.

2nd. Defensive buildings are a must have. I agree, dont fill your hood with all defensive buildings, people that do this will struggle later on due to low hourly incomes. Remember defensive buildings no not half their values when your hood is robbed.

3rd. Gold buyers are part of the game. The game does not separate the two. I am at level 59 and I am finding that more people are using gold bars items then people that dont. This isnt a bad thing anyways. People cant be online 24/7. I have had some hefty robbing sessions on gold bar rich hoods.

Its even better when you catch a money buyer right after they bought cash. I lucked out and caught someone with 1.7 million on their person. I attacked and recieved 170,000 for the first, and 155,000 for the 2nd attack. A 3rd attempt yielded nothing as they quickly deposted their money. This made my day since I essentally stole $20-$30 worth of money from this person.

Kane064
09-12-2011, 10:33 AM
Great guide, the only thing I don't think you went into with any great detail was expanding. The amount of hoods I goto and they have done all their expanding on only one side is unreal.

I Always try to keep expanding as equal as I can to get the most new area for your time and gold.

Gunn
09-12-2011, 01:50 PM
Not bad, but you're wrong about the part with the expensive buildings. Expensive buildings cost a lot of money to upgrade, but once upgraded you can usually pay them off in about a month or so. After that the pull in so much money that it will take the cheap buildings a week to do what an expensive building can do in a day, if that. You have to think long term. Yes it will take you a month to regain your initial investment, but at the end of 2 months, or 3... you are going to end up with A LOT more money from an expensive building.

MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 02:16 PM
Yes lets hope he takes out the bombastic bits as well.
I wrote it at four in the morning. Had to keep entertained :D

Allison
09-12-2011, 02:22 PM
Topic creator is probably wrong about attack and defense.

I just lost a fight to a guy with 3162 attack and 3404 defense. My stats are 4031 attack and 4093 defense.
He probably leveled up his defense a lot more than I leveled up my attack.

Junglistical
09-12-2011, 02:28 PM
GOOD guide. I am currently level 51 and have pick up a few things on the way too.

I would add/challenge a couple things:


Essentially buying Tommy guns is just vouching for less defense, however eventually you will be able to replace/almost replace combat boots whereas the Tommy Gun will take much longer to replace.

Im not sure if your saying replacing combat boots becoming easy is a good or bad thing here?

I would say its a BAD thing. The quicker an item becomes obsolete/replaced the worse the investment was. The moment its off the list the respect points you spent are worthless. A wiser use of that respect would have been to go for something you know will last long on the list (even at the determent of some defense as is the case combat vs tommy).

Respect points should be spent much more carefully than cash because its supply becomes limited once the streak goals come to an end. Its better to have equipped with medium items in the time your respect supply is good because essentially that respect investment will go on for longer. Of course, you have to have a competitive attack rating so SOME combat boots are good to keep you up with everyone else. Only stacking combat boots is overkill, it will be good for the short term but long term you will struggle especially when the reward point supply drops.


On another point knowing exactly how to equip with the best cost-rating boost ratio is key. The perfect use of cash is knowing that the item you buy will give you the best rating boost for the amount you spent. It would be ideal to see a list of which items we are taking into battle in order to exactly calculate which item is best to purchase but as of yet the system is bugged.

Instead what I do before purchasing an item is take note of my attack rating. I then go ahead and buy a gun (of medium value) that I guess will give me a rating boost, lets say a machine pistol at 1000. I know the MP should give me a 2 attack boost so I go back and check my stat. If it hasnt gone up at all I know that my lowest useable item is better than the MP, in this case I will go to the next most expensive item and test again. If the MP takes my attack up by 1, I know my lowest item has a 1 attack rating. Hence, if a 1 attack boost for 1000 is still the best cost-rating boost ratio, then I will go ahead and purchase MP until I either run out of money or my stats no longer increase (in which case I move to next expensive item). If i know that I can purchase an armor/melee/vehicle piece at a better ratio of 1 attack for 1000, then I will go ahead with that instead.

Bear in mind this is a crude method of equipping, sometimes its better to go for a few AK47 (2700) over MPs even at worse economy because it will have a greater longevity on your list and hence in a sense pay itself back over the cheaper MP.

I would also say always equip according to attack. Defense can be compensated through buildings and will increase naturally through equipping.

The ultimate goal is to have each of your mafia equipped with the very best items. Only buying the tops items is the quickest way to that but it will leave you with a poor attack rating for the majority of the time. Whichever way you choose to equip you need to find a balance between being competitive and economical.

I hope this adds something to a great thread and/or otherwise opens some more debate.

Feel free to criticise.

MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 02:37 PM
Good guide for the most part. Missing some key points.

1st. People do not realize the money making potential of having 2 level 10 laundry buildings. Each will collect $375.00 every 5 min. Thats $1,500 every 10 min, $9,000 per hour. Granted you have to be online to collect your $750 every 5 min, but this combination pays out better than any other building early on.

2nd. Defensive buildings are a must have. I agree, dont fill your hood with all defensive buildings, people that do this will struggle later on due to low hourly incomes. Remember defensive buildings no not half their values when your hood is robbed.

3rd. Gold buyers are part of the game. The game does not separate the two. I am at level 59 and I am finding that more people are using gold bars items then people that dont. This isnt a bad thing anyways. People cant be online 24/7. I have had some hefty robbing sessions on gold bar rich hoods.

Its even better when you catch a money buyer right after they bought cash. I lucked out and caught someone with 1.7 million on their person. I attacked and recieved 170,000 for the first, and 155,000 for the 2nd attack. A 3rd attempt yielded nothing as they quickly deposted their money. This made my day since I essentally stole $20-$30 worth of money from this person.


Point 1: I couldn't agree more with laundromats. They are hands down the best money building in the game. However I think most people don't play enough to justify going to level 10 to quick, and who really collects with the regularity for anywhere near its true income potential to pay off. I think the choice of how far and how quick you upgrade laundromats is really dependent on how much and how often you play.

Point 2. Right now I have two defensive watch towers, one abandoned building and one machine gun. I rarely get robbed, though there are a lot of failed attempts. I still think this is a weak point in my guide, how much defense you need to build is subjective, and I couldn't think of a good way to quantify it. Twenty towers is overkill, 2 may not be enough. :/

Point 3. Gold buyers.... I despise gold buyers, however, they support the game and I like the game. I have little gold knowledge since I don't spend it and I don't want to give gold buyers another leg up by saying my thoughts on it ;) I see spending gold as like getting "work free" bonuses to your stats that simply artificially inflate your stats because you spent real money to just have better stuff. Does not reflect your economic management or knowledge of the game. Also as I have no gold experience my knowledge is limited and I'm curious whether later game unlocked gold buildings are earlier than early game unlocked gold buildings.

As for second third point. Catching them with their pants down and their money in their hands is excellent. I don't see this as gold related as much as they just had cash and didn't spend/bank it.

MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 02:41 PM
Great guide, the only thing I don't think you went into with any great detail was expanding. The amount of hoods I goto and they have done all their expanding on only one side is unreal.

I Always try to keep expanding as equal as I can to get the most new area for your time and gold.

This.
This is so true. I'd be interested in your thoughts. I think its best to alternate between left expand and then down expand and left and down etc. But I haven't really thought about how street layouts can be used or abused.

MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 02:43 PM
Not bad, but you're wrong about the part with the expensive buildings. Expensive buildings cost a lot of money to upgrade, but once upgraded you can usually pay them off in about a month or so. After that the pull in so much money that it will take the cheap buildings a week to do what an expensive building can do in a day, if that. You have to think long term. Yes it will take you a month to regain your initial investment, but at the end of 2 months, or 3... you are going to end up with A LOT more money from an expensive building.

I'm not sure what to say. I don't disagree with this. But I don't think I said never build expensive buildings. I just said don't rush.

Junglistical
09-12-2011, 02:46 PM
Not bad, but you're wrong about the part with the expensive buildings. Expensive buildings cost a lot of money to upgrade, but once upgraded you can usually pay them off in about a month or so. After that the pull in so much money that it will take the cheap buildings a week to do what an expensive building can do in a day, if that. You have to think long term. Yes it will take you a month to regain your initial investment, but at the end of 2 months, or 3... you are going to end up with A LOT more money from an expensive building.

Actually, he acknowledges that buying expensive buildings are important EVENTUALLY. The more expensive ones will take a long time to generate a profit. Its a better use of time and resources to buy and upgrade the lesser one so the profit can be used towards equipment and progress quests (which in turn leads to higher income itself).

In addition, dont forget in the months an expensive building takes to give profit, you could have had many level 10 lower cost buildings which each would have generated profits in that time. Your "regain investment time" therefore needs to also account for the money all those building would have made in those months. Its substantial if you think about it.

MickeyTwoToes
09-12-2011, 03:04 PM
To Junglistical.

Combat Boots and Respect
I agree, I think this needs to be fleshed out more, but where would you say you draw the line 50 combat boots 100? I think this is the weakest section of my guide and is also the murkiest territory to discuss. Higher cost respect items have best long term value but come at a large short term hit.

Items overall in my opinion is the weakest point of my guide. When where you take hits for more expensive items and spend less on economy I think is all relative to what your rivals stats are. For the most part I strive to keep items at a point where my neighborhood "mostly rob proof" I generally win 2 out of every three robbery attempts.

J.J.
09-14-2011, 08:32 AM
This is a pretty good guide IMO, nice work. I've certainly found that the key to making real money is fast turnover. Definitely buy two laundromats and upgrade both to level 10 as soon as you can. You can get $375(X)2=$750 every five minutes! Next, buy buildings that turnover in either one or three hours and level them up to the max. I'm level 62 and have very few buildings that turnover slowly. Once I figured out this strategy, the cash started rollin in nice and steady and I had over $1 million in the bank before too long.

rustbinlid
09-14-2011, 12:17 PM
0

The laundromats, level 10 or not seriously who out there but the unemployed has time to collect every 5 mins. I cannot own any laundromats because I prefer my sanity and I have a business to run.

I would rather rob a laundromat in another hood.

madawgg
09-14-2011, 07:58 PM
u should post a screenshot of ur hood coz im wondering how u get hourly income of 10000+

MickeyTwoToes
09-15-2011, 01:13 AM
u should post a screenshot of ur hood coz im wondering how u get hourly income of 10000+

Most of my hourly income isn't "real." By that I mean about 5k comes from laundromats that have insane potential, but their actual yield is much much lower because I'm not on that often.

Anyway got to love any opportunity to show off my hood. My Hood (http://imgur.com/a/YlC52#ffkjW)

teetee
09-17-2011, 01:47 AM
Thank you Mickey Two Toes!! Question: How do you keep from teetering?

Amber_
09-17-2011, 07:02 AM
This is a really nice guide Mickey! There's a lot of good thoughts there. I think I have some things to add to the guide too, for beginners to consider.
1. It seems like a lot of people don't know this, but there's another great thing in inviting maffia-friends, especially in the beginning. When you go to visit them, you receive 100$ for each maffia-member you visit. This may not be a lot, but it's an easy way to get some extra cash in the beginning of the game.

2. I agree with the ppl who likes to go with the low-but-fast-money buildings. First, if you're an active player you will receive more money from these buildings. Second, they're not so attractive to rob bcs people mostly go for the warehouses, meat factories etc. And if they get robbed, you'll nevertheless loose that much money.

3. A few tips.. Always keep an eye on the xp-bar. When you're about to level up, make sure you use up the last energy (since it will fill up when you level up). If you don't have enough energy left to do the job in the guide, go for another job in the same city (that you may have to do later anyways). Another tip is to always keep your maffia fully equipped. Even if you can only afford cheap stuff.

4. This is only my view of it, and I know that people thinks different about this.. Don't bother using your level-up-points on attack or defense. It's pretty much useless. Weather to go with stamina or energy is really depending on your play-style. I try to use them equally since I do both jobs and robberies a lot.


I will probably add more when I have time...
One thing I would love is a list on what jobs to go for to get different loot-stuff. Also a list on wich jobs gives you the most xp/money per energy.


/Amber (638 775 017)

Garrison64
09-17-2011, 09:38 AM
Nice guide. Thanks.

TLoord
09-17-2011, 09:57 AM
Great guide MickeyTwoToes!

I didn't have time to write here before, but think your thread is currently the most comprehensive and you have also updated your first post with more info over time which is good, so when the tread gets long new readers don't have to read it all.

Don't know if you seen it but I posted in Popeye The Sailor Man's thread "Crime City Guide for the iPhone?" about the money buildings. I've built an open spreadsheet in Google docs that anybody can edit, with info about the money buildings and hope it will benefit your guide as well.

Link to the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPDmk8Lr8yadEZoX1RGd19pajJncVVzR282SEN3N Xc&hl=en

Quote from my other post:

So people, please help and give 5 min of your time and put in some more data points into the document, it's really easy.

1. Just look at the list of possible buildings you see in the game and put in names of buildings that I've not been able to put in there.

2. You can also mark one of your own buildings and press upgrade to see the the cost, income and new income for the next level as well as the number of hours to update and put that data into the spreadsheet. You don't need to actually do the upgrade to find the data.

3. When you're thinking of upgrading one of your buildings go into the spreadsheet sort it after the key factors that are important for you and compare your options. That way you will know if you should upgrade the Warehouse, as you where thinking of, or any of your other buildings that gives you a better return on investment.

4. Also to plan ahead, if you can't play for a few days or just going to sleep for the night, then it might be a good time for that last upgrade you've avoided since it takes a couple of days or so. That also goes for buildings on higher levels, it can be nice to know that a building is going to take forever to build and lock up your possibilities to build Defence during that time, if needed.

5. I could add an extra reminder to people to please not omit any data that is needed for the calculations to work properly.

By using this data as smart as I could I've managed to go from a fairly low daily income to 50 to 70k in actually collected money per day in just 1,5 weeks and it's not mainly from the Laundromats, I usually collect 8 to 15k every 3 hours, thats it.

/ TLoord: 883 565 730 (Currently at level 17, A:656, D:995)

Spreadsheet link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPDmk8Lr8yadEZoX1RGd19pajJncVVzR282SEN3N Xc&hl=en

MickeyTwoToes
09-17-2011, 01:37 PM
Thank you Mickey Two Toes!! Question: How do you keep from teetering?

Could you be more specific or is that a play on your name or you asking about my mental state? Not sure what you are going for. :D

MickeyTwoToes
09-17-2011, 05:39 PM
Topic creator is probably wrong about attack and defense.

I just lost a fight to a guy with 3162 attack and 3404 defense. My stats are 4031 attack and 4093 defense.
He probably leveled up his defense a lot more than I leveled up my attack.

Actually if he got a 10% bonus to defense and you got a 10% subtraction to attack his defense would be 3700ish whereas your attack would be 3600ish. Not saying that is the system, just saying that loosing that attack is within my guesstimation range.

cookies
09-17-2011, 06:20 PM
Nice guide! My expierence suggests thats attack/defense skillpoints are far from just a static increase but rather a hidden multiplier however.
Think there was a post by Marc to this regard as well, but not sure where it went.

Joeycool
09-18-2011, 08:59 AM
Yeah the gold guide is a good addition Mickey. My advice to people would be don't bother spending any gold on items. Use it on buildings. With the extra income you get from buildings you can boost your stats buying better cash items and upgrades to your defence buildings.

Gold items are a one off buy with a very limited short term gain. Buildings will keep on constantly providing cash as a great long term gain.

Brilliant guide though mate... You obviously have too much time on your hands!! Ha ha.

TLoord
09-18-2011, 05:36 PM
@cookies: I'm not so sure about attack/defense skillpoints being a multiplier. I just did a test and put one of my skill points in Attack to a total of 7(I've been avoiding both the Attack and Defence skill points for quite some time and thought they where good only in the very beginning of the game). I looked at my stats before and after and there was no change at all, so for me it was like getting an attack item with A=1 D=0. Usually you get these skill points at the same times as you level up and get more Mafia Members and that affects your stats, so it is important that those two events are separated when analyzing whats really happening. Ideally we should have a test iPhone with a clean install of Crime City and then have a test protocol to follow to test these things that might be easier to calculate at level 1.

As it is now for me buying an Uzi just gives me 2 extra attack, but buying a Maze actually decreases my Attack by 2. It would be great if we could know more about the exact mathematics behind these stats, as it is now I've seen a lot of speculation, but there is not much we really know, or have any one of you a "prof" of how it all works?

What really does it mean when each Mafia Member gets 1 melee weapon, 1 gun, 1 armor and 1 vehicle? Now I mean in the calculation process in the game when fighting. Is it the same process as calculates the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense and it is all clumped together as a total and then there is a random factor on top of that? Or, are each Mafia member having their own fight with their respective of the opponents Mafia Members and their respective gear and then the number of "wins" get summed together and then the random factor is applied to that? And what happens with vehicles and maybe armor if they don't add up to the number of your Mafia Members? This is probably not the case, since then gold buyers would not gain much of buying insanely strong weapons. We do know that only one strong weapon can have great effects on the outcome. So, is melee, guns, armor and vehicles calculated as separate groups or not and what is fighting what? How is the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense really calculated? Is there a difference of real fight results and what could be assumed from the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense in our stats? Lots of questions... only Mark knows for sure. Have anyone of you in the community made calculations of your whole Inventory in relation to your stats and number of Mafia Members and made a formula that adds up every time?

Why does this matter? Well at least I would like to know what happens when I buy a Maze and it decreases my Attack by 2 and how to avoid similar things in the long term. What if some seemingly good weapons in my current setup will hurt my stats 10, 20 or 40 levels from now? Or is this just something that affects the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense and have no bearing on the real fight? If so, maybe I should not look to much at the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense numbers and only focus on actual fight outcome and in reality be stronger than I seem, this could be good and stealthy for me if I knew how, but for the game community in general not so much. I still believe that unknown randomness as opposed to known randomness is bad for any game and community. A game is more fun when you know its general rules.

/TLoord

cookies
09-18-2011, 06:39 PM
Tloord, the thing with stats decreasing when you buy a new, and suposedly 'better' weapon is a known display bug. Marc asured people that for fight calculations the correct weapons will be chose and their stats applied properly.

What really does it mean when each Mafia Member gets 1 melee weapon, 1 gun, 1 armor and 1 vehicle?

When a fight starts the game will select the best available 1 item of each type per mafia member you have.
Lets say you are attacking someone and have 7 melee weapons, 5 guns, 5 pieces or armor and 1 car and a total of 5 mob members.
The game will then select the 5 melee weapons with the highest attack value out of your 7 (defense does not matter for attacking), add your 5 guns, 5 armors and the car you have.

The same will be done for the person that is defending.
If the defender has 8 melee, 10 guns, 5 armor and 5 cars and also 5 mob members, they will be bringing 20 weapons to the fight. 5 of each type, the ones with highes defense values are selected.

Attack and defense skillpoint modifiers get applied for both attacker and defender and then either compared against each other, or there may be yet another random roll element to it so no fight will ever exactly be the same (highly likely).

What these formulas are, and how exactly they work is anyones guess. Game companies usually do not make their secret recepies known to the playerbase, and the ones that have been found in other games typically come from lots of testing.
It's not likely that the game will calculate 'real' fights for each of your mob members and add them all up in the end since it would be more costly to compute. 500 calculations every time someone attacks or robs another person on a game with thousands of players seems excessive.

Obviously i have no 'proof' of attack/defensive skillpoints being modifiers, just many years of experience with games and some observations that can be made. One being that adding to attack or defensive skill does *not* change your values for attack or def visible at all. You do not receive 3 more attack when you add 3 skillpoints.
And second, if you observe the forums, people that went the energy/stam/def route and have next to zero or very low attack skill, are reporting losses when attacking other players, while others with an offensive pvp strat like myself have no issues in pvp.

When attacking someone you should always take your skillpoint distribution (and the enemies) into account. Do i have low attackskill? Then you will probably want to look for much weaker enemies, especially when you consider that even if your stats are equal, they *may* have dumped 90% of their points into defense and you will loose every single time.
Is my attack skill high? Well then you probably wont have much problems attacking people, but may have left yourself open to attacks and robberies from others.

Which strategy is 'better' in the end remains to be seen (at least for me).

MickeyTwoToes
09-18-2011, 06:47 PM
@cookies: I'm not so sure about attack/defense skillpoints being a multiplier. I just did a test and put one of my skill points in Attack to a total of 7(I've been avoiding both the Attack and Defence skill points for quite some time and thought they where good only in the very beginning of the game). I looked at my stats before and after and there was no change at all, so for me it was like getting an attack item with A=1 D=0. Usually you get these skill points at the same times as you level up and get more Mafia Members and that affects your stats, so it is important that those two events are separated when analyzing whats really happening. Ideally we should have a test iPhone with a clean install of Crime City and then have a test protocol to follow to test these things that might be easier to calculate at level 1.

As it is now for me buying an Uzi just gives me 2 extra attack, but buying a Maze actually decreases my Attack by 2. It would be great if we could know more about the exact mathematics behind these stats, as it is now I've seen a lot of speculation, but there is not much we really know, or have any one of you a "prof" of how it all works?

What really does it mean when each Mafia Member gets 1 melee weapon, 1 gun, 1 armor and 1 vehicle? Now I mean in the calculation process in the game when fighting. Is it the same process as calculates the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense and it is all clumped together as a total and then there is a random factor on top of that? Or, are each Mafia member having their own fight with their respective of the opponents Mafia Members and their respective gear and then the number of "wins" get summed together and then the random factor is applied to that? And what happens with vehicles and maybe armor if they don't add up to the number of your Mafia Members? This is probably not the case, since then gold buyers would not gain much of buying insanely strong weapons. We do know that only one strong weapon can have great effects on the outcome. So, is melee, guns, armor and vehicles calculated as separate groups or not and what is fighting what? How is the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense really calculated? Is there a difference of real fight results and what could be assumed from the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense in our stats? Lots of questions... only Mark knows for sure. Have anyone of you in the community made calculations of your whole Inventory in relation to your stats and number of Mafia Members and made a formula that adds up every time?

Why does this matter? Well at least I would like to know what happens when I buy a Maze and it decreases my Attack by 2 and how to avoid similar things in the long term. What if some seemingly good weapons in my current setup will hurt my stats 10, 20 or 40 levels from now? Or is this just something that affects the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense and have no bearing on the real fight? If so, maybe I should not look to much at the Mafia Attack and Mafia Defense numbers and only focus on actual fight outcome and in reality be stronger than I seem, this could be good and stealthy for me if I knew how, but for the game community in general not so much. I still believe that unknown randomness as opposed to known randomness is bad for any game and community. A game is more fun when you know its general rules. It is purely based on your stats as far as I can tell and your allies stats have no bearing whatsoever. Your attack is matched against their defense plus or minus 10percent to both sides.

/TLoord

As of yet there is no multiplier for skill points. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Funzio ultimately made stats better, because as they are now they are almost worthless. It is for this reason that I've stopped spending my skill points and am sitting on 21 skill points. If Funzio does make attack and defense worth while in CC I don't want to be gimped by it.

Attack and Defense. I'm probably going to flesh this section out some more. Seems like people have a lot of misconceptions. I've actually completely stopped losing battles and never get robbed anymore. In the last 200 battles I've lost three, this was only because I wanted to test the limits of how close I could fight and still win. Generally if you just add ten percent to their defense take ten percent away from your attack and if you still have higher stats you'll win the fight. I'm going to do some close battles and see if that holds true and I'll update the guide to reflect what I find.

I don't know what "maze" is for sure, but I'm pretty sure you are talking about mace. ;) I'm going to expand the section on how stats are calculated. Basically it takes your weapons with the highest stat points(defense stat plus attack stat) and gives them to your mobsters. Now the reason your attack is dropping when buying mace is because you are replacing brass knuckles that have 3 attack and 2 defense for a total of 5 stat points with mace which is a 7 stat point weapon with 1 attack and 6 defense. Thus even though it would be better for your mafia to fight with brass knuckles when on the offensive and mace when on the defensive CrimeCity doesn't make any discrimination as of yet and you lose 2 attack every time you buy mace but get plus 4 defense, because mace was replacing brass knuckles. (Hint Hint Funzio let us use an independent weapon set for attack and an independent weapon set for defending so we get the best stats our items can give)

MickeyTwoToes
09-18-2011, 06:57 PM
Tloord, the thing with stats decreasing when you buy a new, and suposedly 'better' weapon is a known display bug. Marc assured people that for fight calculations the correct weapons will be chose and their stats applied properly.

What really does it mean when each Mafia Member gets 1 melee weapon, 1 gun, 1 armor and 1 vehicle?

When a fight starts the game will select the best available 1 item of each type per mafia member you have.
Lets say you are attacking someone and have 7 melee weapons, 5 guns, 5 pieces or armor and 1 car and a total of 5 mob members.
The game will then select the 5 melee weapons with the highest attack value out of your 7 (defense does not matter for attacking), add your 5 guns, 5 armors and the car you have.

The same will be done for the person that is defending.
If the defender has 8 melee, 10 guns, 5 armor and 5 cars and also 5 mob members, they will be bringing 20 weapons to the fight. 5 of each type, the ones with highes defense values are selected.

Attack and defense skillpoint modifiers get applied for both attacker and defender and then either compared against each other, or there may be yet another random roll element to it so no fight will ever exactly be the same (highly likely).

What these formulas are, and how exactly they work is anyones guess. Game companies usually do not make their secret recepies known to the playerbase, and the ones that have been found in other games typically come from lots of testing.
It's not likely that the game will calculate 'real' fights for each of your mob members and add them all up in the end since it would be more costly to compute. 500 calculations every time someone attacks or robs another person on a game with thousands of players seems excessive.

Obviously i have no 'proof' of attack/defensive skillpoints being modifiers, just many years of experience with games and some observations that can be made. One being that adding to attack or defensive skill does *not* change your values for attack or def visible at all. You do not receive 3 more attack when you add 3 skillpoints.
And second, if you observe the forums, people that went the energy/stam/def route and have next to zero or very low attack skill, are reporting losses when attacking other players, while others with an offensive pvp strat like myself have no issues in pvp.

Which strategy is 'better' in the end remains to be seen (at least for me).

I'm fairly certain he is not talking about the display bug, but is talking about a decrease in his profile attack stats because his melee attack type weapon(brass knuckles) is being replaced by a defense type weapon(mace) Mace gives plus 7 stats, Brass Knuckles plus 5 stats thus CC chooses to equip his mobsters with Mace over Brass knuckles simply because they have more stat points.

The skill point multiplier, I have plus nine def and plus nine attack and I have yet to find it to have any bearing other than just adding to your profile stats. This could however always change. I'm still playing around with it to find the truth.

cookies
09-18-2011, 07:18 PM
The skill point multiplier, I have plus nine def and plus nine attack and I have yet to find it to have any bearing other than just adding to your profile stats. This could however always change. I'm still playing around with it to find the truth.

Are you certain of this? I checked by not immediately spending points right when leveling up, and my stats prior and after spending skillpoints were exactly the same. Also, with 9 points spent i think you are not likely to see much, if any effect. Certainly the modifiers are not *that* crazy, you could never win against someone that spends purely on defense and ignores everything else.

Cookie
09-18-2011, 08:46 PM
Just spent 3 skill points on my ATK and there was no increase in my overall mafia ATK. Am I missing something?

k0de
09-19-2011, 03:07 AM
Am I missing something?

Yes. Attack "improves your chances when fighting rivals." Mafia attack is calculated based on mob size and weapon stats. AFAIK, skill points have nothing to do with it.

MickeyTwoToes
09-19-2011, 05:25 AM
Dear Cookie and K0de, I'm going to look more into the skill point thing. It looks like you are right and it is deeper than I gave it credit for. Ty. I just increased my attack with no inc to my base stats as well. I have a couple theories on why this might be or what attack def might do.

MickeyTwoToes
09-19-2011, 05:26 AM
If anyone has any thoughts on what exactly skill points in att/def does I'd love to hear them.

Cooz
09-19-2011, 07:59 AM
If anyone has any thoughts on what exactly skill points in att/def does I'd love to hear them.

As suggested above, they most likely serve as a multiplier, meaning the attack logic is enhanced by that number as a bonus. Let's say you have an attack rating of 1000 as generated by all your weapons, armor and vehicles. That 1000 is multiplied by some factor, as determined by your attack skill points. Judging by the anecdotal evidence on this forum, that multiplying factor is not very high. Let's just say 1 attack point equals a multiplying factor of 1.0001. So in the example I used, your 1000 attack rating from your weapons is multiplied by 1.0001, giving you a total attack of 1000.1.

The same would go for the defense, and let's say the person you're attacking has 3 defense points, and weapons give him 1000 points. The multiplier for 3 defense points is 1.0006. That would give him a defense rating of 1000.6.

Ignoring randomness, which is always factored into games like this, defense beats the offense 1000.6 to 1000.1.

This is an extremely simplified explanation, but it's the basic principle of how logic in these games works. The attack/defense skill points could also represent a range or a percentage of chance of a higher multiplier.

Ex. You have 5 skill points in attack, which puts you in a range of a 1.5 to 2 multiplier, and a 30 percent chance of getting that multiplier. So each time you fight with 5 skill points in attack, you have a 30 percent chance of having your attack rating boosted by 1.5 to 2 times its current value.

When you go up to 10 attack points, you're now in the 1.7 to 2.3 range, and you have a 32 percent chance of achieving it. And so on...

Collectively, this forum doesn't claim to see much of an impact from skill points being added to attack and defense, which suggests to me the multiplier and/or range percentage is very low. Weapons are a considerably stronger component of the logic.

Sorry if that's over-detailed. Either way, they'd never share the specifics of how these numbers are determined, but I've played a few games like this (i.e. Mafia Wars, Mob Wars) and that's how they do it, from what I understand. The same concept is very likely to be used here.

MickeyTwoToes
09-19-2011, 08:41 AM
@ Cooz

I like you, you make me think. I'm still going to respond to your gold post and update the guide to reflect some of what you've said, both here and there. Sadly, my life is getting in the way. :D

A couple things. How do we go about finding out just how important the attack/def stat point system is? I'm sitting on stat points because they don't seem to be terribly useful as of yet, but they could be....

Also a tidbit in regard to your post on my gold thread. Building placement. You said something to the affect of you don't know a buildings size until you buy it and take the money out of the bank and some buildings like souveneir store etc are big. This is true in a sense that you do have to "purchase" it before it shows up on your hood screen, but you can see how big it is, decide where/if you want to place it and then just hit the red x and cancel it before you ever actually build it, if you decide its too big or too pricey or whatever. Doing this gives you a full refund and has no penalty.

duder
09-19-2011, 09:57 AM
This is a really helpful guide!

I had a couple of thoughts around buying money buildings I wanted to throw out into the ether to see what folks thought. It seems to me that being aware of one's playing habits would be as important towards figuring out when to buy buildings/which buildings to buy/when to upgrade as the hourly return on the building.

For example, during the work week, I'll be checking a couple times a day and be in for less than 30 minutes at a time. This tells me a couple of things (and forgive me, I'm still pretty new to the game so my building list is short):
1) I'm only going to get at most 12 returns from laudromats per day
2) 3 hour, 6 hour, and 8 hour buildings are going to have the same # of returns per day for me
3) 12 hour buildings are going to have return per day for me (since I usually check when I wake up and right before I go to sleep; I don't sleep that much...)
4) 1 day buildings are going to return twice every three days for me

This is critical information for making the best decisions around money buildings for me. That level 3>4 upgrade on the laudromat costing 465 and going from 30 income to 50 income is going to take me roughly 2 days to break even because of the way I play. Upgrading my gas station from level 2>3 will break even at the same point for me since I'll get 2 returns per day on it and it will take 4 returns to break even.

Also, my break even on investment will often be sooner on new buildings with longer intervals between payouts than the buildings with shorter intervals between payouts.

Anyway, folks probably figured this out for themselves as they read through your guide, but I thought I'd like to throw my two sense in.

Also, regarding the cap on getting the 100 bucks for visiting your mafia, it seems to be somewhere in the close neighborhood of the first 25 you visit (I stopped getting cash somewhere shortly before I visited my 30th mob friend).

Finally, I thought I'd offer another theory on the stat usefulness. One thought (pure conjecture) is there could be a hidden level by stat multiplier (this is how global war manages it). Since the potential total stat points is relatively low and since most games like this tend to be slanted towards folks who think over folks who spend cash, I'd expect this multiplier to be decently large to offset the overpowered high gold bar items (so someone who's willing to drop a couple hundred real world dollars and get a bunch of corner shots won't completely dominate in later levels). Again, just a thought. If I ever get some levels (if you can't tell, I'm the kind of player who's content to go slow), I'll let you know how it goes.

In terms of figuring it out, it's going to take finding parity match ups in terms of mafia attack against mafia defense and recording outcomes... a lot of them, then doing analysis on the back end (I am waaaay to itinerant a player to involve myself in this - and it seems like it could result in a bunch of level - not my bag). Just a suggestion.

-duder
674 597 607

Max Power
09-19-2011, 09:59 AM
This is true in a sense that you do have to "purchase" it before it shows up on your hood screen, but you can see how big it is, decide where/if you want to place it and then just hit the red x and cancel it before you ever actually build it, if you decide its too big or too pricey or whatever. Doing this gives you a full refund and has no penalty.

Yeah, but if you put the money back in the bank to keep from being robbed you take a 10% hit. I have lost 10% many times trying to fit building, etc while I was learning.

Here is a hint for people who trying to put trees up to hide the value of warehouses: Don't waste your money. Most people will hit what I call high value targets regardless of what level they are. Even if your warehouse is a one, I'm hittin it. Trees are great to hide whether your Ice Cream Shop is a 1 or a 10, as there is little value in hitting level 1 Ice Cream Shops and the leveled up ones pay off much better, but big ticket items like museums and warehouse, trees are a waste.

Cooz
09-19-2011, 12:23 PM
@ Cooz

I like you, you make me think. I'm still going to respond to your gold post and update the guide to reflect some of what you've said, both here and there. Sadly, my life is getting in the way. :D

A couple things. How do we go about finding out just how important the attack/def stat point system is? I'm sitting on stat points because they don't seem to be terribly useful as of yet, but they could be....

Also a tidbit in regard to your post on my gold thread. Building placement. You said something to the affect of you don't know a buildings size until you buy it and take the money out of the bank and some buildings like souveneir store etc are big. This is true in a sense that you do have to "purchase" it before it shows up on your hood screen, but you can see how big it is, decide where/if you want to place it and then just hit the red x and cancel it before you ever actually build it, if you decide its too big or too pricey or whatever. Doing this gives you a full refund and has no penalty.

Yes, that's true, I guess my point is more applicable with higher dollar properties. Let's say you take out $40,000 for...whatever building costs $40,000, because it looks like it'd fit the size you have left. You don't keep $40k in cash, so you have to take the money out of the bank before you can place it. In situations where the building won't fit, you didn't purchase it, but it's still on your person, so you either have $40,000 in robbable cash, or you waste $4,000 to put it back in the bank.

The premise of these kinds of game is to let users make decisions and direct their own gameplay, but to me, this scenario is more of a glitch, or an unintended consequence, that gets away from the spirit of the game. Keeping us blind to building size is one thing, but making us pay up to 10 percent of the building cost just to see if we can build it is another.

We should either be able to know the size of the building on the Money Building screen (4 cubes by 6 cubes or something like that), or, better yet, the Purchase/Unable To Purchase prompt shouldn't trigger until you try to place the building.

Right now, you can't try to place it until you have the cash on hand for it. Doesn't make much sense, because the money doesn't get deducted until you place it anyway. That seems fair and realistic to me.

ex. Click on Money Building --> Click on Sports Bar --> UI goes to Hood --> User clicks on spot to Place: If Cash Available = pass AND if Space Available = Pass, then place building. If no, Error Prompt.

Right now, it goes: Click on Money Building --> Click on Sports Bar --> If Cash Available = pass, if no, Error Prompt. If Pass, User clicks on spot to Place: if Spot Has Space Available = Pass, then place building. If no, Error Prompt.

Another idea would be to allow purchases to be made straight from your bank. That doesn't seem to dilute the challenge of the game at all; you still paid 10 percent to put it in the bank, all withdrawing money does is let you take out a specific amount anyway. That's more game development, though, and probably not gonna be an option. It'd be nice, but...oh well.

I'm sure others will cry about having to pay 10 percent to use the bank. It's a way the game can control inflation. Keep in mind, there's no other way to stem the fact it essentially prints its own money, and without it, there would be no consequence to keeping your money away from others, thus negating the point of robbing. Tough to have a non-profitable robbing culture in a game called Crime City.

You also asked..."...A couple things. How do we go about finding out just how important the attack/def stat point system is? I'm sitting on stat points because they don't seem to be terribly useful as of yet, but they could be...."

If the devs changed something, I would imagine they would let users know somehow - probably a forum like this, or maybe an in-game note. They won't give specifics, but rather, something like "There was a build last night, and now, skill points have more emphasis." I'm sure people will be up-in-arms about it, but what do we expect? I'll bet the vast majority of the users don't contribute any money to it. Plus, it forces people to the web to find forums and other players, and that builds brand recognition.

I wouldn't think, however, they'd want to make large scale changes. Small tweaks to get people talking, yes. From a business perspective, the user-interaction helps build their brand, and overall, does lead to a better experience (regardless of how impatient we may be). Part of the game experience is figuring out "the" best strategy. From my experience in playing - never having once developed a game - it seems unlikely they would make massive changes to the logic, because that issue had to be one of their top priorities when developing it, so I think they've done their homework on what they wanted, exactly. Straying far from the original formula is bad for the gaming experience, and would ultimately turn paying customers away. Be warned, though, I would think they'd want to tweak it a little bit here and there, probably tilting more emphasis on skill points in the future. Otherwise, the direction of the user experience is heavily slanted toward jobs and PvC stuff. They want balance so there are hundreds of ways to build your character, otherwise, it gets stale.

Done ranting now...that's just my $0.02, probably isn't even worth that. Just trying to get more people talking, cuz I'd like to learn more about the game.

TLoord
09-19-2011, 01:31 PM
@ All above from my last post:

Great input! This is exactly the type of discussion I was looking for, sorting out the facts. Maybe I was a bit wordy though, but my intention was to spark a deeper discussion and analysis, not just simple speculation as seen all over the place. So thanks for all the input. I kind of like the idea of that the Skill Points could affect your chances in % of winning a fight and not just be a multiplier of your A/D and think that that makes sense. Hard to test though, as you would need to find an opponent to test with with the exact same stats as yours and have multiple fights(a lot) while remaining those stats and only tweaking the Skill Points.


I don't know what "maze" is for sure, but I'm pretty sure you are talking about mace. ;)

Yeah, you are right, its just me wondering around in the "maze" looking for english words, since I'm from Sweden and also a dyslectic, you're probably going to see a lot more of "prof"-spelling etc from me in the future :p

@ MickeyTwoToes: One extra suggestion for the guide and to discuss here is to also to look into "Time" as an asset that needs to be planned for, just as any currency. Actually we could get a general idea of the value of Time by looking at how CC values it by Real Cash. That means how much Gold is needed for instant upgrades of Money Buildings in relation to how long time it otherwise would take. I have not looked into this as of yet, but would love your input on it.

In a more practical way I have included a new column in the spreadsheet, that relates to Income per Hour / Upgrade time. This makes it a tool to use in the process of finding where to grow the money the fastest.

@ Cooz:
I also added Building Size in a new column there, but its not prioritized so I put it to the far right.

@ All:
Even more questions; How does PvP looting work? Are chances higher when we fight a stronger/weaker opponents, or is it just the number of concurrent fights that are important or any other factor? Does it matter if your opponent runs out of "Stamina" before you? Does any of this have any impact on the A/D of the loot? How does this work for the looser? I have never lost any loot so I don't know.

And then regarding PvC loot: I was thinking of making a spreadsheet for this too, but think it is an overwhelming task. It also seems like its become harder for me to get good loot in PvC since I have become stronger in my stats, does this have any bearing or is it just by coincidence?

/TLoord

MickeyTwoToes
09-19-2011, 03:58 PM
Yeah, you are right, its just me wondering around in the "maze" looking for english words, since I'm from Sweden and also a dyslectic, you're probably going to see a lot more of "prof"-spelling etc from me in the future
.....
In a more practical way I have included a new column in the spreadsheet, that relates to Income per Hour / Upgrade time. This makes it a tool to use in the process of finding where to grow the money the fastest.

/TLoord

Didn't mean to be knit picky I just really wasn't sure what you meant by maze, had to look at it for a minute.. haha

As for the income an hr/upgrade time column I'm loving it. My thoughts have been along the lines of I want max income rate gain per hour of upgrade time invested, which is why this column is awesome and a great tool. I would love to write a detailed synopsis of the value of time at some point

@Duder, I think I allude to the the time a bit in the guide. People need to really decide just how often they are going to check in at the hood. I might go back and flesh out some more too. I'm trying to keep it succinct as I can though, which makes changes like this hard. Thanks for the input about visiting mobsters will update. Also I know after a period of time you can go back and collect some more. So it would be initial 25 period of time, then maybe another 25 or something.

@Cooz someday I'll respond to all your posts.... You make such long posts. There is a lot to read and respond to. :D You are right again about taking money out of the bank, but its not something I think about since I don't actually use the bank, which is why I want to add a section on bank use as well soon. I think its over used in the higher levels. I keep 250k on hand all the time these days. Since I don't lose fights I can do this and basically get 10% income gain since I'm not always depositing cash. Granted one runs risks not using banks and has to be sure of their stats, but I haven't regretted it yet.

Right Now: things I want to add/fix......

How attack and def stat points are compiled.
Skill point multiplier/Fix my garbage old assessment of this.
Upgrade Time and the value of using time wisely.
How best to place buildings/building size. If you got good building placement you should submit pics of what it looks like how you did it.
Bank.
Maybe more specifics on items (not sure how to write this)
Update visit 25 mafia members for 100 bucks/Henchmen note.

TLoord
09-19-2011, 06:39 PM
Didn't mean to be knit picky I just really wasn't sure what you meant by maze, had to look at it for a minute.. haha

As for the income an hr/upgrade time column I'm loving it. My thoughts have been along the lines of I want max income rate gain per hour of upgrade time invested, which is why this column is awesome and a great tool. I would love to write a detailed synopsis of the value of time at some point

Hehe no problems... and thank you for the feed back and you are absolutely right, I was a bit lazy with the calculation, I've added an extra Income Gain per Hour / Upgrade time column now, but kept the other one for comparison.


@Duder, I think I allude to the the time a bit in the guide. People need to really decide just how often they are going to check in at the hood. I might go back and flesh out some more too. I'm trying to keep it succinct as I can though, which makes changes like this hard. Thanks for the input about visiting mobsters will update. Also I know after a period of time you can go back and collect some more. So it would be initial 25 period of time, then maybe another 25 or something.

I did use this a lot in the beginning and yes, it seems to cap at 25 and I think the cap was connected to your level as well before the 25 cap and even though I did not time it I think you can "collect" once a day(24h) or so. After the daily "reset" you will get money for visiting the same guys again, so you don't need to keep check of that from day to day.


@Cooz someday I'll respond to all your posts.... You make such long posts. There is a lot to read and respond to. :D You are right again about taking money out of the bank, but its not something I think about since I don't actually use the bank, which is why I want to add a section on bank use as well soon. I think its over used in the higher levels. I keep 250k on hand all the time these days. Since I don't lose fights I can do this and basically get 10% income gain since I'm not always depositing cash. Granted one runs risks not using banks and has to be sure of their stats, but I haven't regretted it yet.

May be worth the risk at least for some of your money, but eventually one crosses path with someone who is stronger and if the guy is mean and you are asleep he will camp at your hood and keep robbing you as he regains Stamina. Not sure this works though, but I wouldn't bet all my money on risking it.



Right Now: things I want to add/fix......

How attack and def stat points are compiled.
Skill point multiplier/Fix my garbage old assessment of this.
Upgrade Time and the value of using time wisely.
How best to place buildings/building size. If you got good building placement you should submit pics of what it looks like how you did it.
Bank.
Maybe more specifics on items (not sure how to write this)
Update visit 25 mafia members for 100 bucks/Henchmen note.

Great work as always and I'm looking forward to it!

Now it's way too late for me and bed time, got work tomorrow :p
/TLoord

Cooz
09-20-2011, 03:37 AM
I would love to write a detailed synopsis of the value of time at some point

I think you guys came up with a great idea, the time value of money is a key component to any investment strategy. Interesting thought from TLoord about using the cost of gold for instant upgrades as the main factor.

I don't think it's even all that tough to get. Just a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess), it's something close to 1 gold bar for six minutes on upgrades, and 1 gold bar for 3 minutes on expansions. I have an upgrade and an expansion underway, and I took the time remaining in minutes by the gold needed, and the proportions were almost exactly 6 and 3.

Cooz
09-20-2011, 03:40 AM
@Cooz someday I'll respond to all your posts.... You make such long posts. There is a lot to read and respond to.

Sorry man, don't feel like you need to respond, I really was just trying to put the information out there for everyone to look at and put in their own thoughts and experience. I've learned a lot from you, I'm just trying to help continue what you've started here. Dialogue is an important weapon in strategy games. The more we learn from each other, the stronger we're going to be.

duder
09-20-2011, 04:46 PM
The value of time is a really interesting concept in this game. When I wrote about figuring out my play habits, I hadn't realized what a restrictor only upgrading one building at a time and only building one building at a time would be. As I begin to look forward in terms of growing my economy, it's becoming clear that I need to way more planning around my upgrades.

I expected to bring in time to break even once the building was built and long term return on investment when deciding about how to invest cash in terms of what buildings to build and which upgrades to purchase.

I did not expect to have to figure in the opportunity cost of not being able to build another building, not being able to upgrade another building, or having to wait for an expansion when trying to figure where to invest. And this is probably talking at the relatively low end of the upgrade times. The longest upgrade I have out there at this point is 9 hours. All in all, not miserable. But it's becoming clear to me that my initial plan to try to level all my money buildings to level 10 before really trying to progress might be slightly... deluded.

-duder
674 597 607

phantom123
09-20-2011, 11:37 PM
Arent we overthinking this a little bit? Lol. In my opinion you should always keep upgrading no matter what. Building and expansion can wait till the money and space are accumulated. For example right now, I am waiting to get 100000 for expansion (used all my space). I should have it by tonight. It's going to take 58 hours to expand and in that time I will have another close to 100000 for my second loft and an Internet building. As long as you have all the 3,6 and 8 hour buildings to atleast lvl 5 you are good. Trust me, it's a boat load of money. I haven't come across anyone with an income like mine.

Also I have noticed. People sell their lower lvl buildings like barbershop and pizza parlor when they get buildings like loft and crematorium. I strongly advice you not to. Just expand and create more buildings. every penny counts.

Garrison64
09-22-2011, 07:09 PM
First off, thanks for the guide. It was very helpful for improving my economy greatly. Thankfully I found this before getting too far into the game so I hadn't made any real bad mistakes yet. Just as things started to get expensive I decided to learn where my money should go so this was just perfect for that. It also helped me understand attack and defense a lot better although it seems nobody is really 100% clear on that matter along with some other things but I guess we just have to take our best shot and learn from experience.

One thing I don't understand is why you said Respect is a 'finite' source. I'm 35 now and I can still get all the respect I want. I usually get a few hundred points a day just by robbing the buildings you recommended. Great tip that was. I had no idea that some of them gave so much respect. Now I often go respect farming just to upgrade my gear. Very helpful. But I don't see respect as a finite thing since it never really runs out. I may purchase so much gear with it that eventually it isn't needed but I don't see reaching a point where I can't get it any more. There's always someone to rob and as long as that keeps up there is the possibility of gaining respect points.

As far as Stamina goes I'm finding it to be one of the most important stats as far as quickly gaining both respect and lots of money. At least a few times a day I find some poor slob holding several thousand dollars that I rob over and over until they're too beat up to give any more. I net a ton of extra income that way. My stamina is currently 20 and I wish it was higher.

Everything else I totally agree with you on and am very greatful that you took the time to write up your guide. Thanks for sharing. It really changed the game for me.

duder
09-23-2011, 05:42 PM
@phantom 123: I thought the whole point was to overthink the game!

It seems there can be a lot of difference in the short term gains in upgrading a building if you don't think about it at this level of granularity. For my play style I basically agree that the 3 to 8 hour buildings are a great investment for my upgrades. However, the costs and times to upgrade on some of the longer interval buildings can be so low that it would be a crime to pass them up (a 30 second upgrade on the gun shop is going to pay off faster than a 12 hour upgrade on a pizza parlor). This is exactly what I mean by the value of time. This is probably where one could find the most opportunity for improvement in terms of speed of growing economies. ROI is easy to figure out, opportunity cost in terms of time spent upgrading buildings that pay off slower but allows you to complete more upgrades is a little more complicated.

This is getting very important to me since I've just hit the point where the major limiting factor on my economy growth is the time it takes to upgrade a building! I need to begin to balance the number of upgrades I can make in a day against the return on each upgrade.

It's great to get the perspective on the length of time you're waiting on expansions! That is an absurd amount of time to wait for an expansion (I can't wait to get there).

-duder
674 597 607

phantom123
09-23-2011, 09:45 PM
It's funny you mention that duder because I was ready to construct my second loft today when I decided to check On my movie theatres. What a deal man. 2 short upgrade for each. First one takes like 3ish hours and bumps you upto 9300 then the second one will double that which takes 7 hours. So I get almost 74000 each day for twice as much lol. Regretting making my first loft so early. Definitely pays of playing smarter.

Cooz
09-24-2011, 06:26 AM
It's funny you mention that duder because I was ready to construct my second loft today when I decided to check On my movie theatres. What a deal man. 2 short upgrade for each. First one takes like 3ish hours and bumps you upto 9300 then the second one will double that which takes 7 hours. So I get almost 74000 each day for twice as much lol. Regretting making my first loft so early. Definitely pays of playing smarter.

I think the game offers you a ton of glitzier properties really early, when you should focus simply on upgrading what you have. I don't even need to expand, and spent way too much money on it. I'm trying to focus my money on upgrading buildings, and attack weapons so I can rob for respect and continue stacking up on Tommy Guns. Taking a more simplified approach is easier to plan and doesn't cost as much or take as long.

Cooz
09-24-2011, 06:30 AM
@phantom 123: I thought the whole point was to overthink the game!

It seems there can be a lot of difference in the short term gains in upgrading a building if you don't think about it at this level of granularity. For my play style I basically agree that the 3 to 8 hour buildings are a great investment for my upgrades. However, the costs and times to upgrade on some of the longer interval buildings can be so low that it would be a crime to pass them up (a 30 second upgrade on the gun shop is going to pay off faster than a 12 hour upgrade on a pizza parlor). This is exactly what I mean by the value of time. This is probably where one could find the most opportunity for improvement in terms of speed of growing economies. ROI is easy to figure out, opportunity cost in terms of time spent upgrading buildings that pay off slower but allows you to complete more upgrades is a little more complicated.

This is getting very important to me since I've just hit the point where the major limiting factor on my economy growth is the time it takes to upgrade a building! I need to begin to balance the number of upgrades I can make in a day against the return on each upgrade.

It's great to get the perspective on the length of time you're waiting on expansions! That is an absurd amount of time to wait for an expansion (I can't wait to get there).

-duder
674 597 607

You're exactly right, duder, and what I've done is set a time amount I'll always upgrade to; i.e. if the building's upgrade is 4 hours or less, I'll always do that. All of my buildings are now past that threshold, so I focus on ROI and frequency. I've made the 3 hour buildings a priority because it better fits my style of play. I'm past the 24 hour point on upgrades now, so it takes a while, but I've committed to that instead of building new buildings due to cost.

It's not that the newer buildings are "bad" necessarily, it's just that I'm not at a good cash flow position to make those investments yet. Sounds like you're much better off than I am, so maybe I should re-think that.

I never find people with more than $1,000 on their person, and that is really rare. I rob people for respect, and if I get an extra grand after 13 attempts, great. More likely around $400 though. Maybe I just need to look harder.

phantom123
09-24-2011, 10:29 AM
I took some pics of my hood. Got buildings arranged really nicely which could be really helpful. Not sure how to post it here lol. Any guidelines would be aPpreciated. Or I'll google it.

duder
09-24-2011, 11:01 AM
@ Cooz

I'm not really where I want to be... while I can pretty much upgrade anything as soon as I have the opportunity, I'm something like a week and a half away from being able to buy my next building.

Of course, I could probably level up and take care of the problem... but I'm kind of enjoying the idea of trying to get the biggest economy and best atk/def for my level. I can't believe that I keep running across other lvl 5 folks who have a bigger economy than I do!

I don't know if this gem of a tip has been floated out, but you can get a really good sense for how folks are heeled by "browsing" the rob command. If folks are new and trying to figure out how quickly to grow, go "rob" someone (don't knock off any buildings) and look at the rival profile. You'll right away be able to see their atk/def, income, and inventory (if you want to figure out someones skills, you can just subtract the weapon & armor stats and the defense building stats from the total in the profile). If everyone you look at is stronger than you are, don't level up!

-duder
674 597 607

phantom123
09-24-2011, 12:10 PM
I strongly disagree with this whole don't lvl up crap. Energy takes a LONG time to refill so use it asap. Do each location 5 times (master it) before you move ahead though. Wasting your resources is idiotic. Always deplete your stamina and energy and if that results in you lvlin up, thats great. Nothing is more important than time in this game so wasting your energy and stamina will make you regret later.

phantom123
09-24-2011, 12:33 PM
http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=6178576208
What am I doing wrong? [img]linkhere[/img ] left that last space intentionally.

becky
09-24-2011, 01:33 PM
hey all im finding that i am running out off cash quick and i cant seem to do any jobs in circuit and its really frustrating dose anyone have any advice thanks much :)

Garrison64
09-24-2011, 10:34 PM
hey all im finding that i am running out off cash quick and i cant seem to do any jobs in circuit and its really frustrating dose anyone have any advice thanks much :)

Put points into Stamina and use that to rob other players during the down time. Stamina builds up much faster than energy and you can go on quite a few robbing sprees during a day gaining lots of respect and money. But use it wisely. Don't blow stamina points on low end buildings that won't net much of anything. You're looking for either high Respect or high money or both sometimes. Learn which buildings benefit you the most and skip everything else. This can take some time but it's totally worth it in the end. Also check the player's stats to see if they are carrying lots of cash and have lower stats than you. My stamina is currently at 24 and I can easily make over $200k a day along with several hundred respect points just robbing other players and their buildings. Level 40 atm so I'm taking advantage of it while I can.

Use the extra cash to build up your city. Use the respect to upgrade weapons and armor.

gomlah
09-27-2011, 08:47 AM
I value my resources in this manner:

gold > respect > cash

gold gives me the highest stats available per equipment, followed by respect and then cash. now, i don't buy cash. this leaves me with only the option of respect.

i don't even think of hitting anything else other than laundromats because they give 2-3 respect per xp. i don't care if the robberies pay very little cash because i can always earn my cash from my cash buildings. higher respect gives me better equipment, thus better odds of winning and defending fights.

I don't do missions, because they drop loots only so often, and the xp i rack up for each drop is hugely significant.

now some may ask me: how do i get enough respect this way to equip all my mafia members? easy, i don't recruit the maximum number of mafia at each level. why? let me explain:

1. the more mafia you have, the more equipment you have to buy. less mafia, less cost. simple.

2. you only fight people who have similar number of mafia as you. having only 1 mafia doesn't hurt, because those with 500 mafia can't get to you.

3. MOST IMPORTANT: your def per mafia is significantly higher, since your defense buildings give a fixed amount of def. take for example, you have a 50 def building in your hood (just for example). having 1 mafia member with 10 def worth of equipment on him nets your hood 60 def. who on earth can achieve 60 attack with only 1 mafia member? taking the view on the other side, a 50 def building in a hood of 10 mafia. you'll achieve 150 def. it is easier for you to be defeated now, seeing that enemies only need to achieve 15atk per mafia member. it gets more and more diluted down the line.

my takeaway is this:
1. respect items own cash items any day. so get them as much as you can.
2. it is expensive, so only hire as many mafia as you can afford respect items.
3. focus on earning the most respect per xp, because you can always earn money from money buildings over time, not so for respect.

i'm not trying to be snobbish about my build, but i think it's the best out there. i haven't lost a fight since i followed this build, and i enjoy watching a wall of green news on my news feed all the time. let's do a discussion on this, and see if we can outperform this build. i would love to hear on methods that can outperform my build, cuz i want to improve on myself as well.

Gunn
09-27-2011, 09:07 AM
Originally posted by phantom123

I strongly disagree with this whole don't lvl up crap. Energy takes a LONG time to refill so use it asap. Do each location 5 times (master it) before you move ahead though. Wasting your resources is idiotic. Always deplete your stamina and energy and if that results in you lvlin up, thats great. Nothing is more important than time in this game so wasting your energy and stamina will make you regret later.

You will live to regret those words my friend. Your missing one big aspect of the game, you only attack and rob people who are at your level. So lets say we both play the game for a month, if you level up as quick as you can you might get to level 70, while I take my time and get to level 20. The difference between us is going to be that I am very strong for my level and you are very weak. Although your character would absolutely be stronger than mine, we will never face each other. This game rewards patience. I know because I started a game, leveled up as fast as i could and got to level 35 in like 2 or 3 days, but everyone else at my level was stronger than me. That's because quite simply the faster you level up, the weaker you will be.

Now I'll try to explain how to post screenshots. This is how I do it.

1. On your ipod or Iphone, press the power and menu button at the same time to take a screenshot
2. Hook you ipod up to your computer
3. go to my computer access the ipod and keep opening folders til you find the image, then copy and paste it to a folder on your computer.
4. Go to www.imgur.com and click upload images from computer
5. Select images and upload them
6. There will be a web address to the left, copy and paste it into the link option while making a post on the forum.

Try this, if it doesn't work let me know where it went wrong and I'll try to help you through

duder
09-27-2011, 08:13 PM
@ gunn & phantom123

So, this is a total balance issue, right? The idea is that at some point you both will have an opportunity to face off against each other & who will win? Chances are, if someone races up the level scale, they will have better opportunity to spend their hard earned cash on upgrades or buildings which will have a higher yield, thus giving themselves an advantage over the slow and steady play style.

Theoretically, one way to manage your leveling is to look at your economy decisions and try to decide if the investment cost in the next building you could buy (assuming you need to level to get to it) has a better return on investment than your next upgrade. If so, quick level up!, go get that building since that's the most effecient use of your cash.

The other side of that coin is that you're not taking into account the fact that at the next level you're opening the door on a few folks being able to trash your defense. That means you can never hold cash, which means you are automatically losing 10% on your income. Additionally, your win/loss % gets a beating.

I think this is another place that lends itself to play style. If you're a perfectionist as it pertains to growth, sit back, contemplate the best investment of your funds given your current building mix and grow. If your play style dictates you have to use your energy, go ahead, and level up. If you're intested in your win/loss, you'll need to invest a greater percentage of your funds in equipment and defensive buildings than you'd otherwise need to. This could lead to slightly more of a struggle in terms of securing the capital needed to grow economically

However, if you're not concerned about win/loss percent, leveling up quickly will absolutely open the door to more lucrative opportunities. The trade off is that your stats are going to take a pounding and you'll automatically ditch 10% of your income. I'm not certain one style is necessarily better than another; however, it would be a shame to end up following a particular path without making the decision of which path you prefer...

-duder
674 597 607

duder
09-27-2011, 08:22 PM
@ gomlah

Does that work long term? Looking at the arsenal decisions, it seems like respect is a short term commodity. It looks like pretty much every respect item has a cash item which dominates it. Is that not the case?

I am very intrigued by the advice to minimize your mob based on what you can afford to equip. It definitely make sense from the perspective of the adversaries you pull are based not only on level but on mafia size (I have a big mafia, I tend to see folks that have at least level x 5 mafia in my list). I guess you'd still want to have at least 25 mafia so you can get the daily visit bonus, right? But then after that, only expand if you can afford to outfit your mob?

Can you talk more about your build? It seems to me the best way to grow with a build like this would be through doing missions, but it also sounds like this is a good way to have a mission focused building that has strong pvp stats.

-duder
674 597 607

Garrison64
09-27-2011, 09:22 PM
Duder when you say cash item are you talking about game cash or real world cash?

gomlah
09-27-2011, 09:50 PM
gold items whip respect items any day, and respect items whip cash items anyday. i don't have money to buy gold, so the next best thing i can have is respect, which i get from robbing laundromats. they pay 2-3 respect per hit, and only 1 xp. this way i don't level up fast, but i get decent respect for it.

at my level now i hold 36 combat boots, 36 mustang and a few tommy guns and that respect knife i can't rmb the name. the only people who can attack me are people of my level and mafia size (notice that you don't find people with much less mafia than you do on the hit list). so unless they have a full equip of respect items (INSANE!), chances are, they can't rob me. they can't attack me. they can't touch me.

i don't do missions, because they payout too much xp and all i get from it is cash and, very rarely, loot which really isn't at par with respect items.

i don't collect my cash from my 25 mafia members everyday, because 2.5k for so much hassle just isn't worth it. i don't need so much cash anyway, just respect points.

give my build some thoughts and tell me if there are any loopholes in it, like when you're at a higher level you can attack people even when they have much lesser mafia than you do.

cookies
09-28-2011, 02:11 AM
I value my resources in this manner:

gold > respect > cash

gold gives me the highest stats available per equipment, followed by respect and then cash. now, i don't buy cash. this leaves me with only the option of respect.

i don't even think of hitting anything else other than laundromats because they give 2-3 respect per xp. i don't care if the robberies pay very little cash because i can always earn my cash from my cash buildings. higher respect gives me better equipment, thus better odds of winning and defending fights.

I don't do missions, because they drop loots only so often, and the xp i rack up for each drop is hugely significant.

now some may ask me: how do i get enough respect this way to equip all my mafia members? easy, i don't recruit the maximum number of mafia at each level. why? let me explain:

1. the more mafia you have, the more equipment you have to buy. less mafia, less cost. simple.

2. you only fight people who have similar number of mafia as you. having only 1 mafia doesn't hurt, because those with 500 mafia can't get to you.

3. MOST IMPORTANT: your def per mafia is significantly higher, since your defense buildings give a fixed amount of def. take for example, you have a 50 def building in your hood (just for example). having 1 mafia member with 10 def worth of equipment on him nets your hood 60 def. who on earth can achieve 60 attack with only 1 mafia member? taking the view on the other side, a 50 def building in a hood of 10 mafia. you'll achieve 150 def. it is easier for you to be defeated now, seeing that enemies only need to achieve 15atk per mafia member. it gets more and more diluted down the line.

my takeaway is this:
1. respect items own cash items any day. so get them as much as you can.
2. it is expensive, so only hire as many mafia as you can afford respect items.
3. focus on earning the most respect per xp, because you can always earn money from money buildings over time, not so for respect.

i'm not trying to be snobbish about my build, but i think it's the best out there. i haven't lost a fight since i followed this build, and i enjoy watching a wall of green news on my news feed all the time. let's do a discussion on this, and see if we can outperform this build. i would love to hear on methods that can outperform my build, cuz i want to improve on myself as well.

This is pretty solid advice, altho there may be one factor you are forgetting. Now i cant verify it since i am running max mafia members, but many of these games will further open you up to attack from people with more mafia members as you level up. If not, then yes, your strat seems pretty good.

Max Power
09-28-2011, 04:22 AM
There is no penalty to carrying more mafia than you can use other than some of them could be on your rivals list. At least that's the impression I am getting. They extra mafia aren't taking weapons away from the ones you can use at your level.

Gunn
09-28-2011, 07:23 AM
Gomlah
Listen to maxpower, he makes a very good point. Also I do not dispute that respect weapons are better than cash weapons, and putting the majority of your focus on earning respect is a solid strategy. Where you make your error is thinking that you should only use respect for weapons. If you only have enough respect to get 50 weapons, that doesn't mean you should only have 50 weapons. You should still supplement with cash weapons. It's good that you see the value of respect, a lot of people don't, but it would seem you don't see the value of money.

Garrison64
09-28-2011, 02:16 PM
Currently I have to supplement my respect gear with cash gear because I leveled up too quickly and am now in a holding pattern while I build up. I'm now spending my respect on Yamaha's because between respect and money I've already loaded out my troops with gear from the other categories. A vehicle at this point is pure growth for me where any weapons or armor I purchase with respect will be dinged points from replacing lower end gear. It's a very interesting game when you get into the specifics of it. I've learned a lot over the past few days in threads like this. I appreciate you guys sharing your leveling ideas. Never even thought about the benefits of robbing Laundromats until looking this over.

CheezyPoofs
09-28-2011, 05:35 PM
Using Gomiah's build, at level 60 I can see tons of players with 200+ mafia on my rivals list (along with the smaller mafias too) but so far it seems that they can't see me as I've only been attacked by other players with small mafias.

CheezyPoofs
09-28-2011, 05:42 PM
Dropping mafia size may be a good solution to leveling up too quickly because I was really up the creek having leveled too quickly and was not able to play effectively because my stats were so low. Dropping all mafia that I couldn't equip with respect items or loot items made it so I was at the top of the pack in my size group.

I highly recommend this strategy if, like me, you thought leveling up was the main goal of the game for say.....about 60 levels.

Dfeziggy
09-28-2011, 06:13 PM
I am Lvl 65, around 6500atk 7k def. I'm having trouble with the streak goals now. Anyone have any suggestions. I can't drop mafia size since my current goals require 50 straight against 320 mafia or more. I notice most people around my Lvl have lower attk then me but with def buildings the average defense is 5500 to 7000. While robberies are no issue fighting is near impossible.

I have always practiced taking targets 20% less then my attack and have had great success. However now defenses are getting lopsided compared to offenses and I keep losing to targets between 5500 and 6k defense... Which makes me wanna chuck this iPhone seeing I still am considerably stronger then te targets..... Sorry for the venting but any suggestions would be great.

Back to the respect farming..

schlumpf
09-30-2011, 11:18 PM
bumping this thread since it can't be made sticky

duder
10-02-2011, 07:33 AM
give my build some thoughts and tell me if there are any loopholes in it, like when you're at a higher level you can attack people even when they have much lesser mafia than you do.

So, it's hard for me to critique since I'm still pretty new to the game, but the low mafia respect equips build looks like a middle-term strategy (though it may become more viable as folks buy into it). Popping around the forum and looking around in game I think there are a couple things that look to me light they could develop into issues later (but I definitely see the short term benefits of this):

1) It looks like the loot equips that can be picked up later on definitely compete well with the respect items.
2) The weapons with a high mafia requirement to unlock are stronger than the respect items (though if you never have enough mafia to see enemies with these items I guess this gets neutralized)
3) It does sound like your rival list is first bound by level then by mafia size. If you check khung003's thread, he seems to be running into this issue in employing this strategy.
4) This is pure conjecture, but I'd imagine you would find yourself struggling more against gold players. Since using gold to pick up items would be more effective if you have to maintain fewer items, it seems this strategy would slant towards them.

Here are my thoughts on the pros n cons of mafia size (though again, this isn't really from experience as much as it is from just theorizing). Off hand I wouldn't guess one strategy is inherently better than the other, as the real danger in a game like this is someone who plans. Anyone who is actively managing their mafia is a planner...

Pros:
Small Mafia -
a) Cheaper to equip.
b) Strong equips that are relatively hard to find (either loot drops, respect items, high cash value, or gold) are more effective.
c) (This is just a guess) Skills (Attack/Defense of your avatar) become more important.
d) Defensive buildings can have a larger impact in rivalries.

Large Mafia
a) It is possible to manage other folks high atk/def equips if the entire mafia is equipped well.

Cons
Small Mafia
a) There needs to be rivals with similarly sized mafias to face off against (if your rival list is chock full of folks with double your mafia, you'll be at a severe disadvantage)
b) You need to get the hard to get items - gold players see a big advantage here
c) There are aspects of the goal list that can not be addressed (I guess this is a con?)

Large Mafia
a) It is very easy to level too quickly and be in a situation where winning is nigh on impossible.

So I guess the summary here is, if you're looking to level up fairly quickly and maintain a solid win/loss record, keep a small mafia and outfit them with respect items. You will do no wrong and be able to wreck your opponents. If you're willing to wait weeks between levels to maximize your economy and buy the most expensive equips for all your mafia members, go with a large mafia. The respect items will still definitely be awesome in the early levels, but they will eventually get balanced by the number of mafia that you need to equip.

Any thoughts out there?

-duder
674 597 607

Jerome Lachaud
10-02-2011, 08:00 AM
I'm fairly certain he is not talking about the display bug, but is talking about a decrease in his profile attack stats because his melee attack type weapon(brass knuckles) is being replaced by a defense type weapon(mace) Mace gives plus 7 stats, Brass Knuckles plus 5 stats thus CC chooses to equip his mobsters with Mace over Brass knuckles simply because they have more stat points.


Hey there,

I ain't sure this is the right place to talk about it but I think that a comprehensive writing on equipment purchasing is a must have

Taking my case: I'm level 46 with +800 mafia members therefore 230 actual members (yes, I've leveled WAY too quickly but not anymore thanks to Mickey's great work) with 2279 A. and 2607 D., when buying weapons then looking at the changes on my stats, I've witnessed the following:

MP is: +2 A., +2 D. but after buying one, my stats went: -1 A., +0 D.
AK47 is: +3 A., +4 D. but after buying one, my stats went: +0 A., +2 D.
Stiletto Knife is: +2 A., +3 D. but after buying one, my stats went: +2 A., -2 D.

I know this is linked to the fact that better items replace weaker ones but this ain't really clear to me....

Veronica Quek
10-04-2011, 04:16 AM
I'm not very clear on the replacement system as well...

I have 4x army helmets. +3a +6d
I bought 2x Camo Fatigues +3a +4d to replace something else of a lower a/d stats.
Instead of replacing them, 2 of my army helmets got replaced. :confused::confused::confused:



And I am sick of my x11 pocket knife. +3a +1d. They were paired up with 3x Savage Dagger +3a +0d.

I previously bought 11x street knife +3a +3d but refuse to add on or replace the pocket knives. Same goes to my Brass Knuckles +3a +3d, got 16x of these but pocket knifes and savage daggers stay in combat. None gets replace. Must I get something that is at least +4a to replace them totally?

another question: is it worth leveling mastery in towns? the higher the level you are in the town, you get better weapons from the jobs? i usually stop after attaining level 3 at each town but i see some people who seem to manage to get better weapons with higher stats. i find that loot weapons are often better. if it doesn't matter what mastery you are at and will still receive the same loot, then i shall stop wasting my energy hitting on the old folks and try my luck at the newer unlocked towns.

phantom123
10-05-2011, 11:19 AM
What I do is master each town all the way which is 5 times and then move to the next one.

duder
10-07-2011, 07:50 AM
re: replacement while attacking and defending

I do wish it was possible to see what equips I bring while defending...

I'm guessing the mechanics are such that depending on when you're attacking or defending, you'll bring the best equips for that action (I think mickey actually states this in his opening explanation). If that's the case, it could explain why camo fatigues replace army helmets while attacking - they're equal value on attack, and either CrimeCity prefers recent aquisitions or camo fatigues have preference over army helmets on attack.

This should be really easy to see on attack since you can always review what you brought into fights. I guess you could test this theory for defense by attacking people, seeing what they brought, and then checking out their inventory.

re: replacement for profile
Who knows? Personally, I keep track of my arsenal in a spreadsheet outside of crime city (ok, I'm kind of a huge geek for excel). The profile attack and defense is only going to be based on a subset of your equips and probably will not tell you your in situ attack and defense since there are so many equips that are heavily slanted one way or the other.

-duder
674 597 789

rustbinlid
10-09-2011, 04:09 PM
0

The laundromats, level 10 or not seriously who out there but the unemployed has time to collect every 5 mins. I cannot own any laundromats because I prefer my sanity and I have a business to run.

I would rather rob a laundromat in another hood.

I have changed my mind on the value of laundromats.
I was wary about being robbed. So...........

I am on my third set of laundromats. Laugh if you want but I have built both three times and sold them twice. But now I do not care, rob them if you want.

KeyMan Johnson
10-09-2011, 11:05 PM
Ha, well I've been lvling quickly while building up my attack and defense. Currently lvl 27 with 1.3k ATK and 1.4k DEF. All in a matter of 3 days.

I just kept fighting, and robbing people, while making sure they either had a lot of money on hand, or they had buildings worth robbing.

As I kept fighting and robbing, my respect kept going up. Used it on mostly combat boots and tommy guns. Right now I'm going to focus on robbing laundry mats for the highest Respect to Exp ratio, so that I wont lvl too quickly while gaining respect quickly.

Also plan on maxing out my laundromats before I continue lvling up the rest of my buildings.


P.S: Something to keep in mind: Max out one building at a time rather than alternating between buildings. This wastes time and money. So when you move on to the next, you get to fully take advantage of your maxed out building while lvling up another one.

rustbinlid
10-10-2011, 03:15 AM
[QUOTE=KeyMan Johnson;46084


P.S: Something to keep in mind: Max out one building at a time rather than alternating between buildings. This wastes time and money. So when you move on to the next, you get to fully take advantage of your maxed out building while lvling up another one.[/QUOTE]


I disagree, are you really going to wait 24 hrs or 30 hrs to level up a building when you have so many, others that just need a 30 minute upgrade. That is just silly.

duder
10-10-2011, 02:17 PM
@KeyMan Johnson

I guess from the perspective of you know that you're not going to burn time waiting for income to come in, it kind of makes sense to upgrade one building at a time, but it puts an overall slowdown on your economy growth.

Let's say you were trying to decide between leveling up your Deli from level 6 to level 7 - an upgrade which will take 30 hours, cost ~6k and improve your economy by 540 per collection (every 8 hours) versus upgrading your two Diners from level 1 to level 2 - an upgrade which will take 4 hours (about 2 hours per diner), cost ~4k and improve your economy by 400 per collection (every 6 hours).

I'm not saying alternate evenly, but I think it's important to pick the right upgrade.


-duder
674 597 607

duder
10-17-2011, 04:38 AM
I wanted to expand a little on the thought above on economic development.

So far, I've been focusing mostly on return on investment (roi, which upgrade/building is going to maximize the usefulness of the cash I am putting towards it). However, I've recently realized that I am struggling to spend my cash. Honestly, what level 8 crime city guy should be able to save up for a loft between upgrades (just 5 more days, and I think I can get one! ...I know, I know, I should really level up - but you know I'm not really close to the top income at this level?)

I'm now starting to evaluate change in daily income per time to upgrade. So basically, here's how I'm evaluating economics choices:

1) Do I have a long term goal at hand?
Most of my economic upgrades are basically split into two categories, ones I will have ready cash on hand to perform (e.g. ~5k to upgrade my gas station from level 6 to level 7) and ones that I need to save up for (e.g. ~760k for building a loft). If I have a long term goal, then I am going to heavily consider the roi in the decision process. If I expect 10 days' collections to get me to my goal, then I will only consider upgrades with an expected roi of 10% per day or better.

This same could be said of weapons upgrades. My next major equipment investment will probably be 10x Blast Guard Helmets (I'll be looking to upgrade in installments). Since this will probably take on the order of 20 days to save up for, I will only consider upgrades with an expected roi of 5% per day or better while saving up (fortunately, pretty much every upgrade I could consider falls in this range).

2) Of the upgrades left, which will make the largest increase to my income stream given the amount of time it takes to upgrade?
I've recently realized that an upgrade with a high roi that takes a long time to complete, may not be as valuable as two upgrades that can complete in the same amount of time with a lower roi. So, whereas before I was very interested in (change in income) / (upgrade cost), I am now considering at equal footing (change in income) / (upgrade time).

So, really, it's a two-tiered approach. 1) limit the possible choices by those that do not slow down my long term goals, 2) pick the choice that will most quickly increase my income stream. As always, my biggest limiting factor continues to be the fact I can only upgrade one building at a time. By evaluating change in income based on time, I should be able to spend more on updates. By making these decisions based on a minimum ROI, I can ensure my long term goals are not affected by these choices.

Thoughts?

-duder
674 597 607

Max Power
10-17-2011, 04:43 AM
How do you calculate ROI in weapons upgrades? There are far too many variables in their use to do that kind of analysis.

whocareswhatmynameis
10-17-2011, 01:48 PM
So far, I've been focusing mostly on return on investment (roi, which upgrade/building is going to maximize the usefulness of the cash I am putting towards it). However, I've recently realized that I am struggling to spend my cash. Honestly, what level 8 crime city guy should be able to save up for a loft between upgrades (just 5 more days, and I think I can get one! ...I know, I know, I should really level up - but you know I'm not really close to the top income at this level?)


there are elements in your strategy i use such as ROI and upgrade cost:time and upgrade cost:incremental income (credit: TLoord's spreadsheet). however, my overarching goal is building as many high level buildings in the smallest amont of time possible. my main emphasis so far has been on being able to build, upgrade and expand all at the same time. since time is the limiting variable in the game (other than real cash which i am hesitant to spend in the game at this level), i decided to concentrate all my efforts in efficiently coordinating these three activities all at once. i invest money in upgrades while saving some amount for expansion and construction of new buildings. i have played the game for little over three weeks and i have an hourly income of 10K+(no, I don't have level 10 laundromats). one advice i would give you is to level up, since there are more efficient buildings than loft that you could build (e.g. movie theater).

Alwaysfree1977
10-18-2011, 10:34 PM
Well this is a really NOOB question. I was looking at some items I wanted to buy, but it requires for me to send out Mafia Invites. Do I have to send out invites for each item I would like to buy or can I send out a ton of invites and it will unlock all of the items that fall under the invites I sent out? Do they also have to reply or sign up to unlock the items? I wanted to send some out, but I wanted to gain all the information I could before I sent them out.

Thanks

duder
10-21-2011, 09:25 AM
@ Alwaysfree1977 The items will unlock once your invites have been accepted. If you end up with more mafia than you wanted, you can always remove mafia later.

@whocareswhatmynameis

there are more efficient buildings than loft that you could build
(sigh) yeah... but I have all the ones for my level. The choice is to save up or level up if I want to keep building buildings.

@Max Power

How do you calculate ROI in weapons upgrades? There are far too many variables in their use to do that kind of analysis.

I'm sure this would surprise you, but I have a theory...
Basically you can look at equips ROI either in terms of cost to change stats or in terms of changing your likelihood to win fights and robberies. So... the second part seems hard as heck (has anyone cracked the fight mechanics yet?), but the first part isn't too bad if you really want to do it. It just take a little organization.

What you can do is figure out your best attack equips, your best defense equips, and how many mafia you're going to bring to battle. For each equip that you can buy, match it against your current equips and compare the change in attack or defense points. Per piece of equipment, the change in attack or defense divided by the cost is your ROI.

It's kind of easy for me, since I'm only level 8, I can only bring 40 mafia, and my equipment is basically homogenous. So, when I evaluate the cost of buying it runs something like this:
I have 40 Steel Toed Boots @ 2/2 a piece
I can upgrade to one of the following:
Armored Gloves 3/3 for $1900
Blast Guard Helmet 6/14 for $125000

The cost here is:
Armored Gloves = +1/+1 for $1900
Blast Guard Helmet = +4/+12 for $125000

Now you can either aggregate it overall:
Armored Gloves = $950 per stat point
Blast Guard Helmet = $62500 per stat point

or you can do it by individual stat
Armored Gloves = $1900 per attack / $1900 per defense
Blast Guard Helmet = $31250 per attack / $10417 per defense

As you do this across all equipment types, you can figure out the least expensive way to boost your stats. Of course, if you take the least expensive option, it usually makes the more expensive options less efficient.

Franklin
10-23-2011, 09:38 AM
Dropping mafia size may be a good solution to leveling up too quickly because I was really up the creek having leveled too quickly and was not able to play effectively because my stats were so low. Dropping all mafia that I couldn't equip with respect items or loot items made it so I was at the top of the pack in my size group.

I highly recommend this strategy if, like me, you thought leveling up was the main goal of the game for say.....about 60 levels.


I felt that progressing through the missions was the main goal of the game, so I have studiously progressed and finished many districts through their level 5. The robbing and attacking aspect for me has been largely to supplement my income, gain respect, beat the consecutive quests, and have something to do with my 9 stamina points.

No one on here seems to enjoy the missions...has everyone forgotten that the folks at Funzio have designed 33 (if my count is right) complex and often humorous levels full of games and people to kill. I admit that I hadn't considered many of the aspects of person vs. person play presented here (and my wins/loss ratio shows it), but I feel like everyone here is missing a huge part of the game. For example, one mission states that art always goes up in value when the artist is dead; now that I have stolen some of this individual's art, I should go help the value increase.

I am at level 41 and have one person in my mafia and I don't really get attacked by people of higher mafia (I haven't kept track too much), but I have the opportunity to attack people with much greater attributes than myself, and I often win. I have a very well equipped group of gang members using their maximum capacity in all categories. My city is growing quickly and buildings are giving me ~$10K per hour (and increasing rapidly). I can put my money into more buildings/upgrades and not as many multiples of weapons. This is fun, from my point of view!

I've gained some good pointers here though, so thanks for everyone's obsessions with details. I would just suggest people have a little more fun with the missions. You gain game-given mafia members periodically and cool weapons as well anyway.

Mb Tnk
10-23-2011, 01:03 PM
...
I am at level 41 and have one person in my mafia and I don't really get attacked by people of higher mafia (I haven't kept track too much), but I have the opportunity to attack people with much greater attributes than myself, and I often win. I have a very well equipped group of gang members using their maximum capacity in all categories. ....

Very interesting, so what type of PvP fights do you win, i.e. how many Mafia do these players have? Since you only have 1 mafia, only 5 items can come to battle (as of version 2.0). I wonder how this type of fight works for you, meaning, does your 1 mafia fight over and over again against a larger group..... OR if your 1 mafia wins it's fight, does that mean you win?..... in either case this could be a BIG problem for funzio.... think about it, all you would need is the best gold items for 1 mafia, and beat EVERY fight with everyone in the game.... that would kinda ruin this whole build up and time spent on the game, would it not?


Also, how are you able to only have 1 mafia, the story line forces mafia members on to your team, and I don't see how you can remove them. Unless you mean you only have 1 real player as a mafia member?

Franklin
10-23-2011, 01:24 PM
Very interesting, so what type of PvP fights do you win, i.e. how many Mafia do these players have? Since you only have 1 mafia, only 5 items can come to battle (as of version 2.0). I wonder how this type of fight works for you, meaning, does your 1 mafia fight over and over again against a larger group..... OR if your 1 mafia wins it's fight, does that mean you win?..... in either case this could be a BIG problem for funzio.... think about it, all you would need is the best gold items for 1 mafia, and beat EVERY fight with everyone in the game.... that would kinda ruin this whole build up and time spent on the game, would it not?


Also, how are you able to only have 1 mafia, the story line forces mafia members on to your team, and I don't see how you can remove them. Unless you mean you only have 1 real player as a mafia member?


To clarify, I only had (at writing) one additional mafia over the story line-given mafia. I have a total now of 30 (including 4 added mafia). Right now I fight and win against people with any number of mafia.

Just as a test I just fought and won twice against someone with 44 mafia using 170 equipment vs my 30 mafia and 120 equipment. I got 6 xp and 2 respect each time. Glancing through their equipment (I don't usually sit and do complex analyses on my opponents) I see that they have a total of 8 vehicles in play, while I have a full 30. Overall, it looks like their mafia is underequipped vs. mine.

I don't win all of my fights (1210 won/604 lost), but I always attack the highest mafia person on my rival list, just to see what will happen. I'm frequently surprised by my ability to win. I guess the game presents rivals you are similar enough to that you will have a possibility to win?

And a note on banking - I just consider the 10% fee as a part of the game. I precisely calculate my withdrawals, but I figure if someone is lucky they will end up stealing a lot more than 10% of my cash, which has happened several times to me.

Mb Tnk
10-23-2011, 02:17 PM
To clarify, I only had (at writing) one additional mafia over the story line-given mafia. I have a total now of 30 (including 4 added mafia). Right now I fight and win against people with any number of mafia.

Just as a test I just fought and won twice against someone with 44 mafia using 170 equipment vs my 30 mafia and 120 equipment. I got 6 xp and 2 respect each time. Glancing through their equipment (I don't usually sit and do complex analyses on my opponents) I see that they have a total of 8 vehicles in play, while I have a full 30. Overall, it looks like their mafia is underequipped vs. mine.

I don't win all of my fights (1210 won/604 lost), but I always attack the highest mafia person on my rival list, just to see what will happen. I'm frequently surprised by my ability to win. I guess the game presents rivals you are similar enough to that you will have a possibility to win?....


Interesting, so I wonder if the concept of 51% of the defenders number of mafia is the required win point (i.e. you need to win 51% of there number of mafia fights to win the round)? Do you see anyone in your list that would have over 58 mafia? If not, then this would be the deciding factor to all fights, and a good way to win in this game.... very interesting.

Most people that come to this game think and believe the more mafia the better...this is Funzio's fault.

khung003
10-23-2011, 04:49 PM
many guys surprise me by forming up gaming theories and state like pros only after some days of playing, if you keep secrets your levels and number of mafias, everything you talk shall be considered high value by many people here.

Franklin
10-23-2011, 08:37 PM
Interesting, so I wonder if the concept of 51% of the defenders number of mafia is the required win point (i.e. you need to win 51% of there number of mafia fights to win the round)? Do you see anyone in your list that would have over 58 mafia? If not, then this would be the deciding factor to all fights, and a good way to win in this game.... very interesting.

Right now I have level 42 and 31 mob (5 real players); the highest opponent is level 56. That's not to say it couldn't be higher, but several refreshes didn't show any and most are in the low 30s, or a few 40s.

Mb Tnk
10-23-2011, 09:14 PM
many guys surprise me by forming up gaming theories and state like pros only after some days of playing, if you keep secrets your levels and number of mafias, everything you talk shall be considered high value by many people here.

I guess that is all we have to go by, since there are no official posted rules to how combat is conducted, so be as surprised as you will.

Leetfeet
10-24-2011, 11:14 AM
many guys surprise me by forming up gaming theories and state like pros only after some days of playing, if you keep secrets your levels and number of mafias, everything you talk shall be considered high value by many people here.

That why we listen to you :)

mehyo27
10-25-2011, 03:51 AM
pls add me 691-552-775

after checking no more points if we add one with 300 mafia or more
each add will give you

attack : 6 Points
deffence : 9 points

with regards

nopenopenope
05-03-2012, 08:01 AM
necro'd, but still a good read albeit some of it is out-of-date by now.

thebengerman
06-20-2012, 10:32 AM
Thanks for the help!

Derek Shane
11-28-2012, 06:50 PM
very good tutorial man. thank you very much

Reznor
11-28-2012, 06:56 PM
inb4 Joaquim's "don't necro threads"

Al Murkya
11-29-2012, 11:52 AM
Great thread. Very good information for noobs and vets.

Hero of Time
11-29-2012, 07:16 PM
Don't necro threads.

TonySpaghetti
11-29-2012, 07:17 PM
Don't necro threads.

Don't impersonate saints.

TruthHurts
11-29-2012, 07:27 PM
Don't impersonate saints.


Hillarious!😂😂

Hero of Time
11-29-2012, 07:32 PM
I like the ignore feature! Neither TonyCocksucker's or TruthSucks****'s posts are visible!

Honey Boo Boo
11-29-2012, 07:34 PM
I like the ignore feature! Neither TonyCocksucker's or TruthSucks****'s posts are visible!

Ooohhhhhhh, you just broke the rules.

REPORTED!!!

Honey Boo Boo
11-29-2012, 07:35 PM
Don't impersonate saints.


Hillarious!😂😂


http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag96/qwerty9702/1EFE4F6E-D0D3-4C55-A09B-8C259D4A5B89-237-000001F9F17FF39C_zps6d51fb3a.jpg

TruthHurts
11-29-2012, 07:35 PM
Ooohhhhhhh, you just broke the rules.

REPORTED!!!

Yep, See ya next week!

TruthHurts
11-29-2012, 07:38 PM
I like the ignore feature! Neither -- or -- posts are visible!

How do you know something was said about you? You're about as sharp as an orange.

Honey Boo Boo
11-29-2012, 07:42 PM
How do you know something was said about you? You're about as sharp as an orange.

Hero of Time: (thinking to self) "You know oranges aren't sharp, right?
....…………………
......wait, I see what you did there."

TruthHurts
11-29-2012, 07:44 PM
Hero of Time: (thinking to self) "You know oranges aren't sharp, right?
....…………………
......wait, I see what you did there."

Are you kidding? He still doesn't get it!😜

TonySpaghetti
11-29-2012, 07:57 PM
I like the ignore feature! Neither TonyCocksucker's or TruthSucks****'s posts are visible!

And you have the cojones to ask CCM to "fix" the trolls harassing you? Lol

gunny22
11-30-2012, 03:49 PM
Hi! I'm tired of rolling noobs so now I am writing a guide.

And what a complete guide you made. Thank you.
It should be made sticky.



Right now I'm only at level 35 and playing this game on my iTouch

Samsung Galaxy Tab (from work; wouldn't spend that much on a tablet if I had to buy it myself)



My stats at this stage are easily better than nine out of ten

Maybe one year ago, but now I'm not so sure about that.



Feel free to post your thoughts comments and suggestions and I'll add them or at least respond to them. :D

Here we go.



Lvl:35
Attack:2205
Defense:2625
Income:11079 per hour

My stats, and NOT happy with them!
Lvl:26
Attack:4635 minus one Exploding Turkey that will explode soon
Defense:4824 again minus 1 ET.
Income:11366 per hour

Why I am not happy? (1) Even though I know from the Storm8 games that you have to progress very slow (lesson learned the hard way) I'm still going too fast. I was camping at ease at level 10 with all money buildings present (no gold, except the ice cream with my starting gold) trying to get them to maximum level. But I let myself trick into 2 epic boss events and the exploding turkey event and BAM now I'm at level 26. Still managed to buy all money buildings (except one, I'm sitting out my time of the 500K expansing to be able to place it; and of course no lofts: 760K is a really large sum). But it is going to take FOREVER to get all these (think I counted 45) buildings to level 10, with an average of say 3 days per building? And then there also a few defense buildings that I have.
Why I am not happy? (2) When doing the PvP events I noticed that compared to the players in my rivals list (=same level and mob mostly) my attack value is somewhere in the middle. So not big enough to risk blind attacks, always using the ROB button then looking at the profile (AND money) before attacking.



More Expensive Higher Level Buildings Vs. Earlier Cheaper Buildings: First off, A common mistake made by many in this game is that people buy the more expensive buildings and try to level them. Bad move. As a general rule of thumb the more expensive the building is the more inefficient it is. What I mean is yes a Loft sounds amazing. You get 11k every twelve hours at level 1. Hellz Yeah. Problem is it will take over a month with PERFECT collection to pay off the initial investment. Your earlier buildings pay themselves off faster and can generate a lot of money. Lets put this in perspective. I saw someone with a level 4 laundromat(under $1,000 cost) and a level 1 History Museum($36,000). It takes 48hrs for a History Museum to pay $3,600.00. In 48 hrs that laundromat could have earned $28,800.00 dollars. That means a history museum costs over 36x more and has 1/8th the earning potential. Its a staggering difference the laundromat is insanely good.

Here I don't agree. NOBODY gets a perfect collection of the laundromat or ANY building for that matter (unless somebody made a tool to collect automatically, is there?). The income per hour stat is just a tool to compare with other players. Nobody actually collects that kind of money. It is a theoretical maximum. The econ system of CC is a great disappointment after the Storm8 games: at least they don't stop producing money until you collect.



Maximize your hood area by upgrading in an alternating pattern (Left, down, left, down etc.)

I figured that out myself already. Only got 1 disappointment so far: one moment I went down and the extra playground was cut in half by an extra street. Going left not yet encountered an extra street.
I heard the facebook players can remove the street and build there too!



The costs and time to expand your hood rises very very quickly! Also be careful to not over expand. Use up all of your space before you expand and if the next expansion feels a little absurdly pricey it probably is for you wait until you've improved your econ some more before expanding.

Once I figured out you don't need to leave any room between buildings I started puzzling. Thank god a move is free and does not reset your upgrading or collection counters.
Unfortunately from the drawing you cannot determine the size of the building: you have to select the building but in order to do that you must have the money. In others words, it would be nice if the developer could add the size of each building in the buying window. Until then, maybe somebody could make a list? BTW, on of the things I appreciate so much in your guide are the many links to other useful documents.



Protip- build (get the cheap pines that are 1,200 not 1,500)pine trees on the sidewalk to block your building levels from view.

OMG what a great tip. Never saw anybody in gameplay who has actually done it, but since I've read about it the first time earlier today, I've been putting all my money in cheap pines. I already have trees in front of every possible level indicator, now I'm filling up the spaces in between to them take away the view to the building completely. You should see my town now, almost like Sherwood Forest. LOL



Also I like to maximize my Respect income by robbing buildings that tend to give more respect per xp. I like Chinese Restaurants, Clothing stores as they tend to give close to 1 to 1 ratio. Generally later more expensive and more upgraded buildings give a better respect to xp ratio.

I've been told that robbing the laundromats is better because they don't make you level up too quickly.



Overpowered Gold

Not yet bought any. Almost the other day when there was a large reduction.
Of course, if CCM gives me some, I'll use it.



Now Go Kill People.

NOOOO, first do some more camping, preferably until all my buildings are level 10, another 6 months or so? BORING!

nopenopenope
11-30-2012, 05:44 PM
@gunny22, you aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?

Honey Boo Boo
11-30-2012, 06:24 PM
@gunny22, you aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?

Dull would be the understatement of the century.

Honey Boo Boo
11-30-2012, 06:27 PM
Hey Gunny, ever thought of writing a book? I think you got the first couple chapters out of the way. You could call it something like, "Gunny's Guide to Buying a Clue".

OZTHEMAN
01-12-2013, 07:02 AM
Point 1: I couldn't agree more with laundromats. They are hands down the best money building in the game. However I think most people don't play enough to justify going to level 10 to quick, and who really collects with the regularity for anywhere near its true income potential to pay off. I think the choice of how far and how quick you upgrade laundromats is really dependent on how much and how often you play.

Point 2. Right now I have two defensive watch towers, one abandoned building and one machine gun. I rarely get robbed, though there are a lot of failed attempts. I still think this is a weak point in my guide, how much defense you need to build is subjective, and I couldn't think of a good way to quantify it. Twenty towers is overkill, 2 may not be enough. :/

Point 3. Gold buyers.... I despise gold buyers, however, they support the game and I like the game. I have little gold knowledge since I don't spend it and I don't want to give gold buyers another leg up by saying my thoughts on it ;) I see spending gold as like getting "work free" bonuses to your stats that simply artificially inflate your stats because you spent real money to just have better stuff. Does not reflect your economic management or knowledge of the game. Also as I have no gold experience my knowledge is limited and I'm curious whether later game unlocked gold buildings are earlier than early game unlocked gold buildings.

As for second third point. Catching them with their pants down and their money in their hands is excellent. I don't see this as gold related as much as they just had cash and didn't spend/bank it.

The later buildings are much better definately.. I have spent on a church and two other rock cafes and the income at level 110 is phenomenal.. It changes your economic outlook.. But I also dont agree with the economic outlook becasue this game is about time keeping and the better you are at that then the more rewarding this game is..

riorancho
01-13-2013, 06:50 AM
Okay, so I resisted buying gold in the beginning. I wanted to make sure I could really get into the game...and I did. The "cheaper" side of me said, "Hey, WTF!...the game is essentially FREE! However, after having enjoyed the game about 1000 hours (minimum!), I realized that I wanted to get this one weapon that either cost too much cash...or was not available accept via a gold transaction. And I had this player who absolutely needed to get whacked by me immediately! If you get my drift. So, I spent about $9.99 to get the required gold to buy the overwhelming gun that ... well ... managed to very effectively WHACK the daylights out of my RIVAL. He agreed with me that we should both join each other's mafia! End of story! Again: the weapon I needed was NOT available via game cash...just via GOLD! I had no choice but to buy the gold...which I felt was a reasonable payback to Funzio for all the fun I was having. Thank you, and have a great game!