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I'd really appreciate turning the thread back into what the intent of it was. I spent a lot of time putting it together to try to help people based on my experience. If you have something to add to that or a question along those lines, I'd appreciate we keep it to that.
Thanks for your original thread emcee. I keep it saved in my favorites and refer back to it regularly even still. I also had it open as I typed up my own guide.Quote:
Originally Posted by emcee
Sorry to venture off topic here, but mxz, we know so much about mxz the crime city player... what can you tell us about mxz the person. What is your day to day life like? How would you rate your personal sense of happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, and where was it 5 years ago?Quote:
Originally Posted by mxz
This is an excellent guide MT, and is pretty much what I've stuck to as a camper. For anyone reading: I can guarantee that you'll be quite competitive within your bracket, even as a free player, if you follow these guidelines.
I did it a little bit differently myself, focusing only on defense buildings, scratcher prizes and maximizing Defense when I first began. I dropped my first 20 points into Defense to allow me to maintain a perfect W/L record for more than 6 months straight (Not a smart move by any means, I just wanted to :cool:). After losing my first battle to someone with a maxed amount of the new Respect explosives, I began slowly leveling - Doing Boss Events, Collect 10, and Syndicate Wars). I took my Energy up to about 500, and am currently investing everything else into Stamina for Collect 10 events and PvP Wars. Looking back I could've spent better, but my build keeps me entertained, which is the only thing that really matters.
I don't have the best stats per se, because I spend very little out-of-pocket Gold on this game (When I do spend though, I like to make it count). But for being primarily a Tapjoy player, I've managed to place rather nicely within my bracket.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattThomas08
I guess I'm talking through my experience on what I did on both my accounts, which was camping way before scratchers even started. But I still believe warehouses and basketball courts is not needed, just solely for the huge space it requires. And at the lower levels, space is at a premium.
And I do remember cursing at myself on my oldest account, when I ran out of space due to having 2 warehouses...
I can understand the point if only upgrading what you'll need in the future, however, if I'm at level 6 and saving for a loft or another MT upgrade and it's benificial to upgrade and loss the income for 24 hours while I
Upgrade because in 48 hours I will have made that plus some back, then why not?
The way I'm looking at it is that in order for me to upgrade a MT to level 3 or 4 (one is level 3 and one is level 2), I'd have to save for about 28 hours or 43 hours. If I chance that and take two oter buildings during those wait periods and upgrade them so that something is always upgrading, the wait time in the future is shortened. I have no more buildings I can build. I have every building (minus defense and gold) for a level 6. So why not upgrade while I sit and wait for the money to be able to upgrade my MT as I am no where close to building a loft... (74 hour saving time plus saving for a hood expansion at $50,000 - which would be made off one more MT collection or 100 collections of both laundrymats.
So your italians are already fully upgraded?
Personally I've got 1 ice cream, and I've designated houses as my non-optimal upgrade buildings, so while I wait for key upgrades they get upgraded. Should have MTs at a point where further upgrading should all be long-term by the time they're all at 10.
My Italians are at level 3. They are being upgraded in my down time of MT upgrades. That's my point though. Why not upgrade them and everything else while I'm saving for MT upgrades?Quote:
Originally Posted by bald zeemer
Italians are long(ish) term buildings.
General idea is LMs to pay for italians, italians to pay for MTs, MTs to pay for Lofts, Lofts to pay for NCs.
Upgrade focus is always the highest of these you have down, then move down the chain as required in order to save for that upgrade.
Avoid all upgrading outside this if possible. And if you do upgrade outside this, focus on a building set you'll hold onto for a bit longer.
Broad-based upgrading isn't going to do you any favours.
Yes, once you have NCs up and humming a good argument can be made that you only need to hang onto the lofts, but IMO that's overkill. Expansions enough to fit in these buildings and the other end-game buildings (which are a very, very long way off) aren't expensive. Hang onto the key "chain" of buildings all the way through (LMs potentially excluded - they're handy if you have to bank and have hourly opens, boss attacks etc).
Then if you want the decoration buildings make the decision on whether further expansions are worth your while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattThomas08
Nothing like an epeen battle based off of mobile app game stats.
Well, for the whole dispute on developing an economy ...
My solution is this:
If you want the buildings, then build them.
Being a camper myself, I started off with Basketball Courts and Ice Cream Shops as well. My courts are both at level 10 now and I still have them both to this day. Do they take up a boatload of space? Yes. Are they the most effective buildings in my hood? Heaven's no. But I like them, and right now I enjoy having the double 10 buildings at the front of my hood. That's not to say that they might not get removed one day, but if I like them now, I'm keeping them. Plain and simple.
I thoroughly appreciate economic analysis, but it should really boil down to finding what you enjoy, and building an economy that works best for you. Your actual in-game play-time and collection cycles should be one of the biggest factors considered.
If you're not a very active player, then focusing on building up your Laundromat's is going to pretty much be a waste in the long run. You'll maybe collect them 2-3 times a day, far from being a worthwhile investment (Although they are excellent to initially get you going). Similarly speaking, if you're only able to collect on your Italian Restaurants once per day, then you're missing out on most of their benefits.
For people who only log in once or twice a day, I would strongly disagree with developing hoods that focus on buildings that produce cash quickly. Now you can use those buildings at first to help get the financial ball rolling, but don't really focus on developing them past anything reasonable (Perhaps level 4-7). You really won't be using them at all once you get your collection cycles running. Anything that generates cash in under 8-12 hours is pretty much going to be sitting in your hood all day, going uncollected. For any player, I would suggest looking at how many times you can realistically collect a building each day, and then focusing primarily on building up those buildings that will be the most effective for you.
For a newer player who is only on once or twice a day, having all of your 12/24/48 buildings built up is a much better focus. So Basketball Courts, Houses, Pawn Shops, Tattoo Parlors, Gun Shops, etc., should be the primary focus, with faster-producing buildings being the "secondary" upgrades as you get the chance (Ice Cream Shops, Laundromats, Italian Restaurants, etc).
Then you basically just keep up that routine until you can buy your first Movie Theater. Once you hit this point your MT upgrades become your primary focus. Everything else becomes secondary. Rinse and repeat until you can buy your first Loft. Same thing happens again until you can get your first Nightclub. And once you get your first Nightclub ... Well, by then cash won't even be a problem anymore ;)
Quality guide MT!
Been thinking of starting a camper for a while now, will definitely be following this guide when I get round to it.
I apologize if my peer review offended you in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattThomas08
Part of publishing these types of things is adapting and tweaking them. It's impossible to be the foremost expert on every topic - there's nothing wrong with taking other people's suggestions and learning from their math.
If you wanted to write an autobiography of your camper account, that would have been fine, and I probably wouldn't have even read it. However, when presented as an end-all-be-all guide to growing a camper, you probably should have expected some differing opinions. The fact is - your main dispute with my points, backed up by math and reasoning, had more to do with how little I've helped the community. I don't think I ever saw Tramp Stamp, itz, WF, jimmyshines, allhail, Ramshutu, emcee, Dreno and all the other pioneers of the game (whine) and moan about being peer reviewed so much. My advice...let it go. If you disagree with me, use math not character assassinations.
For me it was quite the opposite. When I first started playing, I rarely missed collections during daytime hours, even Laundromats, so they were valuable upgrades, along with my Italian Restaurants. Now, I log in less, but it like finding a thousand dollar bill on the floor to collect my Laundromats, so I do it, and I feel no need to replace them (yet).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunsets
As to hood planning, like you, I think the most important part is to figure out how often you will collect from a building, and modify the IPH Gain accordingly.
For instance, I expect to collect from a T-Shirt Stand once per day, which means my Realistic Collectible IPH (RCIPH?) is 75% of my IPH.
As a real-world example, two of my choices for upgrade include an L4 T-Shirt Stand and an L8 Basketball court. I prefer to upgrade whichever building will give me the highest RCIPH/Upgrade time.
Since L4->L5 T-Shirt will give me a RCIPH gain of ($10.00*.75)/per Upgrade hour (or $7.50/Hr/Hr), and an L9 Basketball court upgrade will give me $3.32/Hr/Hr, it’s a no-brainer to me, that the T-Shirt Stand will get the upgrade first.
Obviously, some people will collect Italians once a day, and others will collect 6 times per day, so mileage varies.
This is a good summary. It could benefit from linking in more of the detailed and more comprehensives threads about economy, build choices, bracketing, respect, bosses (although I think you linked this one), camping, syndicates etc posted by various other people for more in depth and "explained from first principles" information. There is simply too much info about the camping an economy game out there to really cover everything!
it maybe worth including the glossary I posted in case some of this goes over people's heads. I feel, somewhat that this is a good summary for those who know a little bit about the game, but someone who is brand new maybe a bit lost in some areas.