I have been thinking about trying this again for awhile, but then I got totally embroiled in the new citizens and experimentation stuff, even making two different hive-engine tokens. So that sas November and now getting back into some more regular play - could it be profitable to roll dCity 3rd edition cards?
Well I have saved up 800,000 SIM to test it out, we will calculate the EVs and see how I do, and we will talk about why its so important to have buying new cards for SIM be perceived as a smart economic decision in dCity (and any game).
In order to really know what we get with so many, first must take a look at what we have, I can take a screen shot to make this easier. Then we can compare the same screenshot after the purchase like so:
These are the cards of 3rd edition, and they all have predetermined drop rates to make this easier. Let's make a table so this is all easy to see and laid out properly:
| Name | Expected % | EV(1000) | Start | Finish | Difference | Skew |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction Site | 20% | 200 | 1733 | 1925 | 192 | -8 |
| Office | 10% | 100 | 742 | 838 | 96 | -4 |
| Barracks | 10% | 100 | 401 | 499 | 98 | -2 |
| Power Line | 7% | 70 | 656 | 730 | 74 | +4 |
| Train Station | 5% | 50 | 746 | 805 | 59 | +9 |
| Parking | 4% | 40 | 44 | 82 | 38 | -2 |
| Ice Cream Shop | 5% | 50 | 39 | 95 | 56 | +6 |
| Pizzeria | 5% | 50 | 116 | 183 | 67 | +17 |
| Barber Shop | 4% | 40 | 24 | 56 | 32 | -8 |
| Church | 5% | 50 | 590 | 636 | 46 | -4 |
| Warehouse | 0.1% | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | +1 |
| Prison | 0.1% | 1 | 14 | 15 | 1 | - |
| Fire Department | 5% | 50 | 581 | 635 | 54 | +4 |
| Constr. Company | 1% | 10 | 145 | 154 | 9 | -1 |
| SpaceSIM | 0.1% | 1 | 13 | 14 | 1 | - |
| Spa | 1.2% | 12 | 179 | 187 | 8 | -4 |
| Military Base | 0.5% | 5 | 70 | 76 | 6 | +1 |
| Court | 2% | 20 | 310 | 327 | 17 | -3 |
| Music Store | 5% | 50 | 94 | 151 | 57 | +7 |
| Car Dealership | 4% | 40 | 291 | 328 | 37 | -3 |
| TV Station | 2% | 20 | 317 | 332 | 15 | -5 |
| Graveyard | 3% | 30 | 464 | 494 | 30 | - |
| Ruins | 1% | 10 | 22 | 27 | 5 | -5 |
Okay so that table took a lot longer to make than I thought! But my initial impression is that we did pretty well compared to the Expected Value, what we need now is another table to analyze the prices for both the expected and the resultant, and see if there is any paper profits!
I'll see you after the next table for more analysis.
| Name | Market Price | EV(1000) | Total EV(1000) | My Roll | Total(My Roll) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction Site | 110 SIM | 200 | 22000 | 192 | 21120 |
| Office | 879 SIM | 100 | 87900 | 96 | 84384 |
| Barracks | 750 SIM | 100 | 75000 | 98 | 73500 |
| Power Line | 499 SIM | 70 | 34930 | 74 | 36926 |
| Train Station | 685 SIM | 50 | 34250 | 59 | 40415 |
| Parking | 799 SIM | 40 | 31960 | 38 | 30362 |
| Ice Cream Shop | 650 SIM | 50 | 32500 | 56 | 36400 |
| Pizzeria | 666 SIM | 50 | 33300 | 67 | 44622 |
| Barber Shop | 745 SIM | 40 | 29800 | 32 | 23840 |
| Church | 1675 SIM | 50 | 83750 | 46 | 77050 |
| Warehouse | 79500 SIM | 1 | 79500 | 2 | 159000 |
| Prison | 41500 SIM | 1 | 41500 | 1 | 41500 |
| Fire Department | 597 SIM | 50 | 29850 | 54 | 32238 |
| Construction Company | 1475 SIM | 10 | 14750 | 9 | 13275 |
| SpaceSIM | 33000 SIM | 1 | 33000 | 1 | 33000 |
| Spa | 1249 SIM | 12 | 14988 | 8 | 9992 |
| Military Base | 26000 SIM | 5 | 130000 | 6 | 156000 |
| Court | 1100 SIM | 20 | 22000 | 17 | 18700 |
| Music Store | 790 SIM | 50 | 39500 | 57 | 45030 |
| Car Dealership | 795 SIM | 40 | 31800 | 37 | 29415 |
| TV Station | 1999 SIM | 20 | 39980 | 15 | 29985 |
| Graveyard | 339 SIM | 30 | 10170 | 30 | 10170 |
| Ruins | 995 SIM | 10 | 9950 | 5 | 4975 |
| Totals: | - | 1000 | 962378 SIM | 1000 | 1051899 SIM |
Wow! So as we can see from the chart, the Expected Value (EV) of rolling 1000 cards is over 960k SIM, which means the EV of rolling any card is better than +20%! This is great news, and you should all be rolling, we will talk about this in a second.
We can also see here that I personally did even better than the EV with a whopping 1.05M SIM in value, or 131.4% of what I spent.
Why is it so important to roll cards?
Rolling new cards is the original and most important SIM sink. As we continue to watch the SP float - trying to limit the excessive printing which forces players to play towards tax-rebate meta strategies (which also burn SIM) - it can only help to notice and celebrate that the number one SIM sink is profitable right now!
According to the stats, we are growing in SIM POWER by 1.3 Million SIM each day currently. I would like to see that at least trending back towards zero if I can help it before my presidential reign ends.
I hope that players consider buying a card or more with their income because it just could be your lucky day by landing a Military Base or a Warehouse. These are rare, true, other nice wins would be the a church, spa or TV station. You can also lose out with some other cards, true, maybe rolling new cards is for the big boys....
You hear that big boys?
I want to see that printer spinning overtime! Let's get to work 😅
Taxes
We opened up recently to around 4%, I am slowly restricting that back again over time. Its kind of fun to watch the numbers change. One number that has not changed is the War Tax Lobby. I'm not sure if I should be miffed or muffed but the one number I said several times I would like to see grow...has not.
So in kind, I have lowered the War Tax another point, to 3%. If you guys really want war, show me. Otherwise maybe its time to wrap up the whole thing and bring our boys home.
I have also switched from Education Tax to Creativity Tax! Enjoy the bonus background mining chances for the next several days :) The police tax remains on, although we might unfund them for a day or two over the next week just to check our crime numbers.
We are now down to about 1.38% Tax Free Income with Law Firm (TFILF), what do you guys think about these tax levels? When was the last time you rolled new 3rd edition cards?
Let me know what you think for an upvote!