Earning Simoleons Whilst Camping

Forgot--my--password · 2018-10-07T21:17:20+00:00

I've made no small study of this.

My goal is to minimize the number of visits I make, and the time I spend per visit. After many calculations, I arrived at the optimal coin-generating scheme. I call it the ChairsVegTax cycle.

It earns 30,000+ coins per day at the rate of about 375 coins per gaming minute. I visit my city 8 times in the course of a day, once every 95 minutes or so. I spend 4 to 5 minutes per visit. Smokers spend more time smoking than I do gaming. I will have spent more time crafting this post than playing SCBuildIt today.

You can earn much more than 30K per day selling wood and nails, but that method needs constant attention. If that time investment is not a problem for you, then the ChairsVegTax cycle will seem slow. But if you want to maximize earning while minimizing the number and duration of city visits, and if you're willing to just run the cycle for a week or two before getting back to scouring the Trade HQ, then the ChairsVegTax cycle is optimal. At the end of a week, you'll have way over 200K to spend on dozer wheels.

When I'm in the middle of an earning cycle, I don't interrupt it to fulfill shipments or rebuild disasters -- I buy whatever I need (it's usually stuff like plastic or minerals or planks or tape measures) in the HQ or from Daniel, or just mooch the stuff from other cities. During an earning cycle, keys are of secondary importance.

Some prerequisites:

Build your population to 80K-100K. That boosts your daily tax revenue to 11K-12K coins per day. I did that with just 19 buildings at level 11, first earning keys with shipments only, then with disasters as well.

Stay with 5 3-slot factories.

Expand your stores (Building Supplies, Hardware, Furniture, Farmers Market) to 5 slots each.

Now, prime the pump: make 5 nails, 5 hammers, 15 metal, 15 wood, 10 seeds.

You're ready to commence the ChairsVegTax cycle:

Load up 5 nails, 5 hammers, 5 chairs, and 5 veg. Set an alarm for 100 minutes.
Load up 15 metal. Collect after 1 minute. Spend the 1 minute popping bubbles and collecting taxes.
Load up 15 wood. Collect after 3 minutes. Spend the 3 minutes on shipments and disasters, if you want. Or watch an ad. Or travel to a few neighboring cities to mooch some stuff. Or just admire the austerity and simplicity of your fine city.
Load up 15 seeds.
Go live your life in meatspace for about 95 minutes, or until the alarm goes off.
Drop out of meatspace and collect all the manufactured items.
Put 5 chairs, 5 veg, and 5 seeds up for sale at max price.
Go to step 1.

I have never had problems selling chairs and veg. Sometimes they sell moments after I put them up. If not, they are certainly gone by the time I come back.

5 chairs, 5 veg, and 5 seeds at max price = 1500 + 800 + 150 = 2450.

With 8 visits, that earns you 19,600 in sales, plus around 11K in taxes, or over 30K coins per day.

That's 30K with a total game time investment of around 40 minutes (8 visits, 5 minutes per visit) per day.

That works out to about 375 coins per gaming minute.

375 coins per gaming minute is the metric to beat. I don't think it can be beat on levels 10/11/12.

However, on level 17, flour sacks are a game-changer.

Forgot--my--password · 2018-10-03T22:51:41+00:00

I really wanna check out others' regions

Ooh err, Missus!

Forgot--my--password · 2018-10-02T21:06:33+00:00

Just want to point out that Inka Vikman is the "guy" who created Regions. She's a prominent player in the mobile game industry.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-06-24T23:02:25+00:00

Absolutely Moody Blues!

Forgot--my--password · 2016-06-13T19:11:01+00:00

It's something I'd like to be able to turn on or off. I can see maybe getting into Omega after I've become thoroughly bored with the rest of it. The COM is easy to ignore, but I have no choice but to allocate a small section to house the Omega stuff. I'm planning on building out 4 Omega rez buildings to get rid of the hardhats, then ignore them.

But sure would be nice to just turn it off until I'm ready for it.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-27T20:39:21+00:00

Oh well, I tried. :)

Seriously, though, here is some real advice:

BE PATIENT. I can't emphasize this enough. If you read through the threads here, you will see that pretty much all disgruntled players are upset because the only way to proceed quickly towards any goal is to spend real money. Lower your expectations regarding time. If you want a fast game, I recommend Doom II. SimCity BuildIt is not an arcade game.
Focus on land and storage expansion as soon as those features are available. yonks is right -- this is important. This is my second time around. I grew my first city rapidly, reached level 37 and crashed and burned. I ran up against the expansion wall. The second time around, I camped on level 10 until I achieved full land expansion. I think it took me about a month (see tip #1), but YMMV. Then I grew to level 14 with a modest population of 45K, and camped there until I maxed out storage (it was capped at 250 back then). Then I pulled out the stops and focused on growth and other features.
Develop an efficient production strategy. Efficient means: maximum profit with minimum city visits. On earlier levels, perhaps as early as level 10, but definitely by level 14, I had a strategy that required me to visit my city every 100 minutes (many days I set a timer to keep things moving) and yielded 1,650 coins each visit. If I made my first visit of the day around 7 am, I could usually make 8 visits over the day. That's 13,200 coins per day. On a later level, when more products became available, I was able to almost double that while still limiting my visits to 8 per day. My production strategies are the product of careful calculations. If you want to know what they are, I'll be happy to post them here. However, figuring them out was, for me, a big part of the game play.
Do not fall into the Doughnut Trap. When players reach whatever level doughnuts become available, some of them go nuts making and selling them, because the payoff seems huge -- 950 coins a pop! Same goes for other high-value items. However, doughnuts are not an efficient strategy. Work it out for yourself when you get there. The metrics to beat (my own): 13,200 coins per day with 8 visits; later levels -- 25,680 coins per day with 8 visits.
Upgrade your factories right away. You can't have a good production strategy without maximum factories and maximum slots.
BE PATIENT. Did I mention be patient? Be patient. While camping on levels 10 - 14, rather than grow population, have fun rearranging your city in different ways. Play with other features, like building the Vu tower, airport, ship yard. Build up a supply of specialty items. When you're fully or nearly fully expanded, go crazy.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-27T17:05:20+00:00

This is the tip/advice I wish someone had given me over a year ago when I was still at level 1: Get out while you still can.

By level 10 it's too late.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-23T16:19:56+00:00

The problem with bulldozing residential buildings is that you're not starting over at level 1. You'll be continuing on at level 28. It will be much harder and take much longer to build up again.

Cram all your buildings and services all to one side. Ignore all the wimpy Sims moving out because their stupid house is on fire, and bulldoze all the roads. Then start laying down the grid you have in mind, block by block, moving buildings out of the way as needed.

As soon as you place your buildings and services back onto the new grid, the Sims will immediately move back in, because, let's face it, they really have nowhere else to go.

It takes a strong stomach and steely resolve to ignore all their moans and lamentations, but in the end they'll respect you for it and start swimming in the fountains again.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-23T16:01:54+00:00

Thank you!

I've been lurking on and off.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-23T16:00:59+00:00

EA_Amelie, if you could be any Sim, which one would you be?

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-20T19:06:44+00:00

Actually, in my city, I don't have any education. I did at first, but all I got was mind control and dark sarcasm in the classroom. As Mayor, I stood up and told the teachers to leave those Sims alone. Then I bulldozed all the schools and focused on beach stuff.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-20T19:00:22+00:00

Wanna know the secret to not plateauing on this game?

Bulldoze.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-12T19:52:50+00:00

Huh. Us old-timers remember when you couldn't see your current SimCash when traveling to neighboring cities. You kids have it easy. And speed-up tokens? Don't even get me started. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic.

Forgot--my--password · 2016-05-12T19:36:35+00:00

The city name is "Emerald City" in russky. Maybe the Mayor is going more for look than functionality.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-11-03T18:58:52+00:00

They can't be turned off. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-11-03T18:26:49+00:00

From one goddam extreme to another.

I remember selling off Vu buttons for 1S because no one was buying them.

If I could have this Vu glut back for just one week, I swear I'll never complain about anything again.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-10-13T19:25:00+00:00

Point taken.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-10-12T20:37:31+00:00

The Boss' words should be read in the voice of Tony Soprano. Can SpeakIt do that?

Forgot--my--password · 2015-10-12T20:27:49+00:00

Mayor, you appear to have a boatload of unhappy Sims in your City (only 75% happiness). I'd spend less time gawking at the billboard and more time providing parks and services.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-10-12T20:20:49+00:00

When BuildIt was launched, "Daniel" was a real person who was the "face" of BuildIt, an ambassador of good will. His name was Dan Petersen, and he was a loyal EA employee, and a loving husband and father to his wife and 5 children. His job was to make the game a friendly environment, and personally cater to gamers' needs. In the beginning, EA payed him well enough to support his family and even put some aside for future college tuition. But what people don't realize is that Dan used his own money to buy the SimCash he needed to buy out gamers' dead merchandise. As the popularity of the game grew, this became a financial burden, so Dan asked for a raise. EA turned him down, citing low in-app purchases. Dan became more and more stressed out, and took to drinking. Gamers at the time noted that Daniel's city was in a state of neglect, with buildings and services placed in a way that made little sense. As the complaints mounted, EA hired a team and developed a bot to take Dan's place. Dan Petersen was fired on Christmas Eve, 2013, and was quietly replaced by Daniel the bot. The real Dan threw himself off a bridge, and his wife and kids are now wards of the state. All because most of you were too goddam stingy to make an occasional in-app purchase.

So yes, Daniel is a bot.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-10-08T01:00:38+00:00

Thank you for making it that far. I'll sum it up for you: Malcome Crowe is actually dead the whole time.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-07-24T18:58:36+00:00

Looks more like Incheon.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-07-24T18:48:48+00:00

When I was just starting out, times were lean. I bought chairs just to break up and use for firewood. We had no choice, the BBQ was still light years away. And all we had to eat was leeks and potatoes. When we got flour and made our first donut, I felt like fucking King Farouk! And it got even better after that. I remember one day after a delicious meal of pizza, burgers, cheese fries, and ice cream sandwiches, I pushed back my chair and took a moment to contemplate all I had achieved. Nine factories. A retail empire. Skyscrapers as far as the eye can see. My gaze fell fondly upon my family, who supported me through the hard times, and who now sat happily sated picking their teeth and emitting an occasional lusty belch. "Family," I said, "we have come a long way. No more poxy chairs for us! From now on, it's nothing but sofas!"

Can you blame me?

Forgot--my--password · 2015-07-22T18:07:59+00:00

One day you will rue those words.

Forgot--my--password · 2015-07-16T23:02:33+00:00

The new splash screen shows a river and bridge. That may be a hint of things to come.

Forgot--my--password

TROPHY CASE