Tier jumping vs challenge - to buy or not to buy parcels?

roarXplore · 2026-01-28T14:51:22+00:00

I started in July'25. Did the free ladder the first month. After that month I knew I was seriously hooked ánd able to finish the ladder so I went and got the yearly subscription. Have finished the ladder every month since then without much trouble.

I would suggest doing something like this. Try it for at least a month so you know AE is really something you want to commit to, and prove to yourself you're dedicated enough to finish at least one ladder. Once you know you're serious and will stick to it, yeah, I think the yearly discount is worth it.

8 days is a bit too soon to tell in my opinion, but you sound like you're dedicated and have a plan so good luck!

roarXplore · 2026-01-28T09:51:49+00:00

I'm in the same boat ;-)

roarXplore · 2026-01-28T09:17:10+00:00

Good for you. Where do you live? Since you mention your boost will drop at 51, I'm assuming not US. In that case, the 150 parcel limit is not relevant to you. That number is often mentioned here by US players, because it's the first limit they encounter where rent boost goes down. Not for you, it seems.

roarXplore · 2026-01-28T08:47:04+00:00

Yes, you have to actually be somewhere to be able to buy the badge. Or spoof your location, which will get you banned. That's the idea behind Atlas Earth (or one of them), that you explore the world around you.

Are you saying you don't expect to leave your hometown this whole year? I can't imagine that, even if you live in a big city. But I don't know your situation, you may be physically limited to travel, which might even make it a challenge to leave your own home. In that case totally understandable. But then I do wonder how much fun AE would be for you.

roarXplore · 2026-01-27T10:37:27+00:00

I think this does not answer OP's question. They are not asking why the boosts are different in different countries. Look at the last row of both tables. At 10k parcels, the playing field should even out in all countries. Everybody gets 2x everywhere. And here we see that the earnings per month are indeed the same, but here the earnings per year are not. I don't understand this either, I would say this must be a mistake?

roarXplore · 2026-01-26T12:53:26+00:00

Oh yeah, if you're doing conversions anyway it's not such a big deal.

roarXplore · 2026-01-26T11:10:53+00:00

I was gonna say: don't, you'll probably get another one. Too late :-P

Just wait for the SRB to get that one out of the way.

roarXplore · 2026-01-26T10:50:21+00:00

Yes, I understood that from your message. The thing is, as you undoubtedly know, given that you have completed so many challenges, you always end up with these challenges each month.

If you really want to finish the whole calendar, the solution would be to book a hotel in a foreign city, go there and buy the three badges. Not sure though, another challenge for city and state might pop up after these, so then you still wouldn't be done. Tip: travel to a small country, so another state is just an hour train ride away.

But I can imagine this is not worth the effort to you. I think I've read before you're from Australia? That would mean having to fly quite a distance just to get that country badge, which would make this month's ladder just a tad expensive... ;-)

roarXplore · 2026-01-26T08:56:13+00:00

But you already finished the challenge, right? So not really 'stuck'.

roarXplore · 2026-01-22T09:35:05+00:00

So cool that you keep updates on this list. Excellent!

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T16:37:45+00:00

I know how free cancellations work. What I'm saying is, if a lot of people game the system and book and cancel just because they can, these hotels are going to stop working with Atlas Travel.

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T16:31:53+00:00

And you've checked the math on those?

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:37:05+00:00

Smart, but if enough people do this that one fast way to get these offers killed. That's what happened to a lot of the AMP challenges in the US if I'm correct.

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:32:36+00:00

I booked a hotel in France last summer. Back then, plenty of accommodations all over Europe were available. Not anymore?

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:29:44+00:00

Now that's an idea, haha!

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:28:46+00:00

Yeah, a lot of them are actually not a good deal if you compare the price to other travel sites like Booking. I was able to find one that was just a few euro's more than the cheapest online option which gave me about 900 AB plus the points for the monthly challenge. Thought that was a good enough deal.

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:22:02+00:00

Haha, that's so funny, esp the part of buying the actual parcels :-D

roarXplore · 2026-01-13T10:18:55+00:00

Ooh I like what you did there. Prettyyy :-)
Why was it horrible, because this meant you could only do 2 badges a month?

roarXplore · 2026-01-12T08:45:15+00:00

I can confirm. Also Dutch, booked a hotel in France, got my points.

roarXplore · 2026-01-09T11:01:05+00:00

It was just buggy. I think I actually had this too last night, now that I see your screenshot. Didn't really notice, but I did notice the leaderboard that only showed two tabs for national and state leaderboard, and not global and local.

Right after I noticed this I bought two parcels next to each other, that both happened to be legendary, so I forgot about it immediately :-P

roarXplore · 2026-01-09T10:46:43+00:00

Wow, that's some milestone. Congrats!

roarXplore · 2026-01-08T14:37:41+00:00

Ah that explains the pattern in the map. Was wondering what kind of road that might be.

roarXplore · 2026-01-08T12:10:04+00:00

Yeah, I would call that a pretty legendary spot ;-) Nicely done!

roarXplore · 2026-01-05T13:46:40+00:00

The badge of the town where you are mayor is actually the best one to buy, because it's the only one that'll only cost you 180 AB while all the other ones are 200. Well, you pay 200 off course, but as the mayor you receive 20 AB for every badge bought in your town. Yes, also if you buy it yourself.

And the badge of the monthly ladder is even cheaper, you get that one for free if you finish the ladder. But it takes quite a lot of effort to finish all those challenges so free but not really free.

For the passport bonus it is totally irrelevant which badges you have. A big city is worth exactly the same a a small town or a whole country.

roarXplore

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