dCity Investments - what cards should you buy on the market?
For quite some time I have wondered what cards to buy on the market. As I could not believe that all cards were overpriced on the market, but yet it seemed like it was best to always buy random 1st edition cards.
It was only when I started using a spreadsheet that I found that not always should you buy random cards. Even though that is still a good way to grow and you could be lucky and get that Social Aid Office, at which point you can make a seriously good profit or save yourself a lot of sim for buying one.
What I am working with is averages. I use the 30 day average prices from the Cityhelper discord bot. I compare those with the expected SIM income increase from buying random 1st edition cards in the game. Also I look what you pay on average per 1 SIM income increase. So Luxury homes at a price of 222 SIM on the market that have 2 SIM income gives a price of 111 Sim per 1 SIM increased income for your dcity.
When you don’t have any technologies, then you pay about 120 SIM per 1 SIM increased income for your dcity. If you want to calculate if a price is right for a card on the market, all you have to do is take the SIM income of the card and multiply it by 120. If that is a higher number, then the lowest price on the market then you should buy from the market.
With cheap technologies like Basic Automation and GMO Farming this changes by the way. If you have Basic Automation, then you should multiply not by 120, but by 117.
Let’s look at the cards. I will give you the ones that I think are best. Do note however that I only look at the SIM income you get in return for the price you pay on the market.
the Farm
Farm’s are really quite overpriced on the market, unless you have the GMO Farming technology. This turns Farms into the best card you can get, as long as the price is below 1100 SIM roughly. If you can get it for less than 1000 SIM, then you definitely should. Also because it has population included, so if your popularity rating is high enough, it takes care of its own workers.
the Hotel
If you can pick up an Hotel for about 1000 SIM or less, then this is also a very good card for your dcity and more profitable than random cards. Just like the Farm it has the potential to take care of its own workers.
the Casino
Casino’s increase crime and can be robbed for 400 SIM, but when you have reduced crime in your dcity, then Casino’s are actually really cheap compared to the SIM income they generate. If you have a low crime rate, then if you can pick one up for less than 2600 SIM, you have a pretty good deal. That is without the calculations for the Gamer tokens they create. The price of Casino’s did go down, so perhaps you can get them even for a lower price.
the Weed Dispensary
The Weed Dispensary card is quite popular and for good reason. It has a good worker to income ratio, it gives a nice popularity boost and you can find it on the market for a good price usually. If you can get it for 1050 SIM, then you have a really good deal. I really don’t understand why anyone would sell them.
the Restaurant
The Restaurant is pretty similar to the Weed Dispensary. The only difference is the Popularity. So if you can pick one up for 1050 SIM or less, then you have a good deal.
the Ad Agency
The Ad Agency is a card that is often overlooked I think. But if you can get it for 1000 SIM or less, you actually have a very profitable card for your dcity.
the Stadium
The Stadium is a card that didn’t get a lot of attention, until the moment they started producing Entry tokens. They are still not expensive and if you can get them for 1650 SIM or less, then they are really awesome.
the Night club
The Night club is another card that doesn’t get a lot of attention, but they are really quite inexpensive when looking at their SIM income. If you can get one for 850 SIM or less, then that is really good.
the Cinema
Cinema’s have dropped in price and this is great, because they have decent income and lower the crime rate of your dcity. Also the worker to income ratio is nice. So a really nice allround card.
Previously the Wind turbine was an interesting card, but they have become way too expensive. You better buy random cards instead. The Zoo, Gym, Job center, Circus and Forest aren’t bad, but they aren’t a really good deal either.
A final thought: since Casino’s are quite cheap and Cinema’s and Gym’s are not expensive either, you could create quite a profitable Casino dcity. If I were to start a 3rd dcity, I would probably try this just for fun :)
If you have any other cards that you would like to hear my opinion on, then do let me know.
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A big thank you from a newbie.
I made a spreadsheet of my own calculating the “value” per SIM but it would give only which card was the most profitable at a certain time.
You give clear guidelines always applicable !
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Ah thanks, that means a lot to me. I’m glad to help and in the process help more Pellegrom have fun with the game.
More people I mean, not Pellegrom..
is there a good ratio between swap.hive prices on the cards versus SIM? I see in markets often there are more cards selling at swap.hive prices but not sure how to correlate between swap.hive and SIM. thanks.
Well, since random cards can be bought in the game for 800 sim or 4 hive/swap.hive the price of 1 sim is loosely pegged to 0.005 hive. Or 1 hive is about 200 sim.
However, most of the time there is quite a high selling pressure on the sim token so in reality the sim price usually is between 0.004 and 0.005 hive.
I think this is because a lot of people like to sell their cards on the market for swap.hive.
The price competition then makes the swap.hive price for the cards lower than the sim price, causing people to sell their sim for swap.hive on the market to get their cards cheaper.
In general the sim price is lower than 0.005 swap.hive and the prices for cards on the market are lower in swap.hive.
But this is not always the case, so it is always best to quickly check the prices.
I’m pretty sure that there are people who do arbitrage on the market by buying cheap cards with swap.hive and selling them for sim at a higher price.
That’s is a really good break down for sure. Kinda puts some things in perspective. On thelogicaldude’s city, I have done a combo of random buys and market buys when I am trying to grow a particular area. With the HiveHustlers dcity, I am really only market buying to try and keep a good unemployment balance. Trying to keep it as close to zero as possible. So far doing that I have kept the over a 50% ratio of population vs income.
Thanks!
In terms of profitability nothing beats farms below 1000 sim and gmo farming tech.
But there are other interesting ways to make profit. Like mining tech.
Yeah I did pick up a Hive miner card for the hivehustlers account and have an ETH on thelogicaldude. I like weed farms too because it pays out in WEED as well. But yeah, I just picked up a gmo card for the hivehustlers city and it really helps the income. Farms are one of my favorites
Ah yes, those hive/ETH/btc moving cards are very nice to boost the income
And weed farms are quite profitable too I’ve heard. Never made calculations myself.