8K+ IPH free player

[Hobtuse]

@sborgnanera:
you have a lot of interesting theories but from experience, players just need to tailor their iph upgrades to their own playstyles.

if you play often, opt for the low-output, high collection attempts buildings along with some high output buildings
if you play once or twice a day, opt for high output, regular collection buildings (6/12/24/48 hr)

I got to 12k IPH and never bothered with IPH after that, only upgrading low upgrade cost buildings so as to get an army of dragons while raiding, PVE supplements income decently.

From experience, I have realized manor upgrades beyond level 3 are frankly simply not worth it. In addition, my opinion is that MC upgrades shouldn't go beyond 7, takes way too long to upgrade them. However they are really good in offsetting the damage for box events.

Good luck with your theories and such. But do implement them soon before everyone has moved on with the game.

[sborgnanera]

From experience, I have realized

From experience is slightly different than from an exact calculation...

did you calculate how much do you lose per day, and then per hour, with a building like MC or cottage ?

did you calculate exactly what is your real IPH ?

did you calculate and classify the exact ROI of each building from the best to the worst ?

i'm not challenging your strategy to build first a big army of dragon to earn more money than me, i just say it should be more profitable to calculate than to have an impression

[Njwmrb]

From experience, I have realized manor upgrades beyond level 3 are frankly simply not worth it.

Not worth it in what way? I just upgraded both my manors to lvl 5 and each of those together combine for 5k of REAL IPH. 240k every 2 days for clicking twice.

[sborgnanera]

Not worth it in what way? I just upgraded both my manors to lvl 5 and each of those together combine for 5k of REAL IPH. 240k every 2 days for clicking twice.

sure, me too

[Hobtuse]

@Njwmrb: This is from my personal experience. I just think the upgrades are not worth it given the opportunity cost, time for me. Manors are still extremely good high output buildings that covers high cost upgrades very well but my statement wasn't really directed at you

@sborgnanera:
Some assumptions for this illustration
Lumber Mill is at Level 10
Player solely uses IPH to accumulate gold

Level 2 Manor payouts $30,000 every 48 hours.
Level 3 Manor needs $630,000 to upgrade, takes 60 hours to upgrade and payouts $52,500 every 48 hours.

To earn back $630k from the manor and the loss of income from the manor during upgrade (630,000+37,500)
you need 25 days (12.71 collections)
To break even from the initial investment, you need an extra 34 days (16.95 collections)
12.71 x $30,000 = $381,300
$381,300 / ($52,500-$30,000) = 16.95

The $381,300 is the sum of gold that the Level 2 Manor would have collected in the 25 days and it takes an extra 34 days to break even where the difference in Level 3 and Level 2 payouts finally covers that lost opportunity cost of gold.

Level 4 Manor needs $1,035,000 to upgrade, takes 72 hours to upgrade and payouts $82,500 every 48 hours.

To earn back $1.035m from the manor and the loss of income from the manor during upgrade (1,035,000+78,750)
you need 27 days (13.5 collections)
To break even from the initial investment, you need an extra 47 days (23.625 collections)
13.5 x $52,500 = $708,750
$708,750 / ($82,500-$52,500) = 23.625

Level 5 Manor needs $1,755,000 to upgrade, takes 84 hours to upgrade and payouts $120,000 every 48 hours.

To earn back $1.755m from the manor and the loss of income from the manor during upgrade (1,755,000+144,375)
you need 31 days (15.83 collections)
To break even from the initial investment, you need an extra 69 days (34.83 collections)
15.83 x $82,500 = $1,305,975
$1,305,975 / ($120,000-$82,500) = 34.83

Add in 2 days for newly upgraded manors to begin a cycle for collection.
So, to upgrade a manor from level 2 to 3, it will take just 2 mths to break even, 3-4, another 2 1/2 mths, 4-5, 3 mths odd to break even.

of course there is the caveat that players do activities other than collecting gold, they do PVP and PVE which provides alternate sources of income. This illustration is just meant to show how I think I would much rather take my gold and spend it on other things.

This is also not to say that Manor upgrades are not good. I just said that they are not worth it IMO.

@sborgnanera: from my experience, I realized that you are an (insert random insult)

[Njwmrb]

Ok I see where you're coming from but everyone is going to reach a point where ROI is not going to be the best determinant of what you should upgrade. I made the ~1.8 mill for the second lvl 5 manor upgrade in the 84 hours it took for the other one to upgrade.

So if you can afford to do it I strongly recommend upgrading manors, it's the fastest way to increase actual IPH

[albeezy]

I see your point Hobtuse, but I like to think about things differently. Here is how I look at it. If I upgrade a playhouse to level 10 I will spend about 2 mil total give or take and roghly 21 days upgrade time to get there. For that same 2 mil I can do a manor level 5 upgrade. So for 2 million dollars I can spend 21 days upgrading my playhouse to collect $39k every 2 days, or spend 72 hours upgrading my manor to level 5 and collecting 120k every two days. It would take me 6 days to collect from the level 10 playhouse what I can collect every 2 days from the level 5 manor.

I konw I would spend more getting the manor to level 4 than the 2 mil, but I am collecting 120k every two days instead of 39k. Also, as you level higher, it gets harder to save over vault so you are better off going for the big expensive moneybuilding upgrades early. I can get my playhouse to level 8 before having to go over vault.

I guess the biggest point I am doing a horrible job of making is that really expensive upgrades may be a bad investment in terms of ROI, but a great investment in terms of achievability. The ability to achieve a level 10 manor decreases with each increase in your level.

Why not do bang for you buck upgrades while saving for the big ones? Eventually you will upgrade all your buildings or reach a point where you cannot save enough gold without getting attacked that you can no longer upgrade something. That is why ROI is not a good indicator for me. I like to think of it in terms of which upgrade will allow me to save for my next big upgrade faster. For me that is the manors as each upgrade adds 30-40k per click.

[emcee]

What's 3 months or so to break even on certain buildings? You should be highly selective on what buildings to upgrade especially if you do not subscribe to a camping/crawling approach to this game. However, for a free player to be as competitive as possible, generally speaking, once a higher level building is unlocked then emphasis should be given to that building. My lower level account has unlocked merchant caravans at level 23 so have upgraded one to level 9 and the second will be at level 6 in less than a day. I upgrade based on sleeping and social schedule. If I know something will complete early morning or during weekend prime time I'll pick an upgrade that best suits. I don't worry about ROI because I generally don't look at games in terms of weeks/months but more months/years so everything will pay off eventually. So the simplest metric to follow that has worked well for me (generally) in all Gree games is income/hr increase.
Those racing to HL or are at HL already are at a distinct disadvantage when leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars unbanked is suicide. Whenever I hear discussions of those selling buildings to fund manor upgrades is frankly counterproductive at best. A free player should, imo, build up that nest egg in order to fund those heavy upgrades as soon as those key buildings are unlocked. My lower level account will break $9,000,000 most likely today and will continue to save moving forward.
My level 38 account which was not as fiscally disciplined just unlocked lenders and have already paid for level 7 and 9 brothel upgrades which are pretty expensive so lenders are not going to be any easier with only a bank roll of about 1.7 million at present. So the moral of the story is save for tomorrow to be able to afford the key upgrades to "sustain" a dragon army.

[sborgnanera]

@sborgnanera: from my experience, I realized that you are an (insert random insult)

hahaha !!! i love that, that's an other clue that i'm right

i dont understand your calculation : mine shows that the break event to upgrade a manor to level 5 is around 56 days...

[Paul_Texas]

It seems the debate is about which is more important, ROI or time to upgrade. I lean in the time to upgrade camp but only because it is my preference. If you value the time, the method I use on which building to upgrade is based on my expected daily increase divided by hours to upgrade. This can be tailored to your play style as this affects the daily increase.

Example:
Playhouse from 1-2 increases $1300 or $650/day. You will get it each time but it takes 32 hrs for the upgrade (650/32) = 20

Brothel from 1-2 increase $130. I expect to collect it 5 times (your frequency will vary) = $650 but the upgrade time is 40 hrs (650/40) = 16 Not as good of a payoff based on time needed for the upgrade.

Bazaar from 1-2 increases $25. I expect to collect it 10 times = $250 with upgrade time of .5 hrs (250/.5) = 500 which blows away the others based on time to upgrade.

Just my 2 cents.

[Elderly]

@Paul_Texas,

Definitely an interesting way to look at it for sure.

[sborgnanera]

my formula :

UP = upgrade time in hours
OH = output / hour
UC = upgrade cost
D = output delta

nbr of days until the break event= UP/24 + (UP*OH+UC)/D

ps : only for output time over 12 hours