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Infra cost/benefit gap


Rooman33

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I suppose I should have asked sooner... and I'm assuming only admin can really answer this one:

 

Is there any point at which having 40k infra or more becomes cost-efficient?

 

Because, right now, I'm running a $7 mil deficit a day, and that's with improvement swapping, of course... So, I'm upside down. 

 

Why would there be such a thing as too much infra? And why would I continue to donate to the game if the rewards from each donation make my nation less and less solvent? 

 

Side note: I don't have all three mars wonders because when my moon wonders ran out (for the second time) I went for mars wonders. But because my profit margins are so low at this level of infra, I can't seem to amass enough wealth to pay for the second and third mars wonders - despite the fact that I back collect over a billion dollars on a 20-day cycle... Even if I had them, I'd barely be breaking even, if that. 

Edited by Rooman33
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Income from additional infrastructure goes up roughly linearly; 1 unit adds X additional citizens, contributing X * AVERAGE_INCOME * TAX to your collection.

Bills from additional infrastructure goes up roughly quadratically. The upkeep per infrastructure is a stepped-linear function of total infrastructure, and the per-unit upkeep is multiplied by total infrastructure again. So costs look like (A * INFRASTRUCTURE^2) + (B * INFRASTRUCTURE) + C

There is a point where additional infrastructure will cause more upkeep costs than additional taxes collected. That point varies based on resources, improvements, and wonders. A level of 40k is well beyond the absolute best-case scenario.

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Optimal profit seems to be at 19,999 infra (depending on resource set). But it has not been my experience that the profit margin reduced linearly. Profit margin decreased significantly after passing the 20k threshold but then went up to about 75% its peak somewhere around 30k infra. This sparked my original curiosity to see if there was just one bump in the CN laffer curve or multiple - because I've experienced at least two.

The original hypothesis was that maybe infra jumps - which are just 1k apart at lower levels, - get further and further apart the higher up you go.

What I'd like to know now is if there are any more bumps in profitability past 40k infra.

Edited by Rooman33
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What incentive is there for donating nations if infra upkeep eventually outweighs a nations tax collections? That doesn't make any sense. At 20K infra, I don't donate because it'll just bring my nation's profit margins down. Something needs to be done about the infra upkeep formula to entice people to donate.

 

I'd post something in the suggestion box after you hopefully get an answer from admin here, Roo.

Edited by Samwise
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What incentive is there for donating nations if infra upkeep eventually outweighs a nations tax collections? That doesn't make any sense. At 20K infra, I don't donate because it'll just bring my nation's profit margins down. Something needs to be done about the infra upkeep formula to entice people to donate.

 

I'd post something in the suggestion box after you hopefully get an answer from admin here, Roo.

It seems that caps are part of the game. We've already seen that there's a hard cap on land, it now appears that there is a cap* on infrastructure as well.

 

*Cap subject to intelligence and basic math skills

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Optimal profit seems to be at 19,999 infra (depending on resource set). But it has not been my experience that the profit margin reduced linearly.

That's because it does not reduce linearly. It reduces quadratically. Revenues go up linearly, expenses go up quadratically, therefore overall profit decreases quadratically. The term with the square of infrastructure dominates.

Profit margin decreased significantly after passing the 20k threshold but then went up to about 75% its peak somewhere around 30k infra. This sparked my original curiosity to see if there was just one bump in the CN laffer curve or multiple - because I've experienced at least two.

I'm guessing you saw these bumps around wars. The automatic 2.5 hit to environment from radiation would account for some pretty large swings in income at that level.

The original hypothesis was that maybe infra jumps - which are just 1k apart at lower levels, - get further and further apart the higher up you go.

What I'd like to know now is if there are any more bumps in profitability past 40k infra.

There are more frequent bill jumps at lower levels. First one is at 20, I believe. They get less frequent as you go up, and data I have seen puts the last at 15,000. It is possible there is another, I have not seen much data beyond 25k. All of the jumps increase bills, which means that they reduce profits.

Based on some previous calculations, and considering your trades and the lack of space wonders, I would estimate your maximum profitability point is somewhere in the 18k region, and break-even is somewhere around 36k. Beyond that you'll be in the red, until you're forced to either sell off some infrastructure or some enterprising individual decides to pad out their casualty and XP stats.
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Yeah, I know what quadratically means... Change on profit in the static environment you describe - whether quadratic or not - would be constant. What I'm telling you is that my profit did not decrease in a constant (linear) way. I hit max profit at around 20k infra, then it began to decline at a steady rate until I got near 25k (I think, I'd have to check my notes) then it went back up to about 75% of my max profits, then it started going back down again after around 30k infra. These were pretty steady changes irrespective of environment changes and war. Picture the laffer curve with multiple apexes, the latter ones each smaller than the last. That's what I believe we're looking at here and what I need to know from admin is if there is another peak in profitability after 40k like there was after 20k. If there isn't, then why would I keep donating to a system that's punishing me for growing?

And this isn't the same as a land cap - it's literally made my nation insolvent. Capped land has no active negative effect - just no positive effect either. Totally different.

Edited by Rooman33
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For those interested, this is loosely how my profit margin played out (lots of negative events mixed in towards the end):

 

I averaged a 500 bump in infra every month (because of donations), if you want to track this relative to a timeline of wars. 

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Sooo... you hit a local minima right in the middle of the Dave War, then your revenue went back up once the global radiation went back to "normal" levels, then dropped sharply again during the Equilibrium War. Not to mention losing effects of space wonders somewhere in there (those are pretty significant to income). Or the problems of remembering highly specific data from 2+ years ago.

I imagine the curve would look something like this if environment and events are held constant (note used an ellipse and cropped because **** drawing a hyperbola without a tablet, actual curve would be more gradual, and probably shifted to the left a fair bit) :

ifaoie.png

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Considering the Dave War ended August 2012 and the bottom of that first valley took place roughly two years ago (June 2011), I hardly think so.

 

Moreover, I think we can all agree there is no scenario in which global radiation from a war in which I did not participate could negatively impact my profit margin to such an extent that it would cut the profits in half of a nation my size - for four months, and then take another half year to completely recover. That's ridiculous.

Edited by Rooman33
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Alright. I think I have this mapped out correctly. I'm going to work backwards to show where wars were at your stages of infra.

 

  • July, 2013
    • 39,500 infra levels
  • June, 2013
    • 36,000 infra levels
  • May, 2013
    • 35,500 infra levels
  • April, 2013
    • 35,000 infra levels
  • March, 2013 (Equilibrium War Ends)
    • 34,500 infra levels
  • February, 2013
    • 34,000 infra levels (+500 from donation; +1,000 in-game purchases)
  • January, 2013 (Equilibrium War Starts)
    • 32,500 infra levels
  • December, 2012
    • 32,000 infra levels
  • November, 2012
    • 31,500 infra levels
  • October, 2012
    • 31,000 infra levels
  • September, 2012
    • 30,500 infra levels
  • August, 2012 (Dave War Ends)
    • 30,000 infra levels
  • July, 2012
    • 29,500 infra levels
  • June, 2012 (Dave War Starts)
    • 29,000 infra levels
  • May, 2012 (**when admin doubled the donation bonuses**)
    • 28,500 infra levels

 

The GRL theory would support the Equilibrium war, however, if you dive deeper, when the Dave war took place is actually when you hit your 2nd peak in collections therefore disproving that theory.

Edited by Samwise
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I don't have any data to try answer. In fact, nobody can have that data, save maybe Hime (IIRC she has been at an infra level comparable/slightly higher than your current one).

 

I too think that it would be interesting to have an answer from Admin.

Edited by jerdge
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1. Admin created the decreasing income after some point of infra (i think max income is at 22k infra with trade swaps, at least i experienced that and some other guys too) to balance the game, to prevent having nations with super high infra. There's already too much gap between low, mid and high tier, no need to widen the gap by giving even more income to high tier nations. You can have reasonable income until the 25k infra jump, and it's good.

 

2. Why is it good tobuild up shitloads of infra? What's the point?

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1. Admin created the decreasing income after some point of infra (i think max income is at 22k infra with trade swaps, at least i experienced that and some other guys too) to balance the game, to prevent having nations with super high infra. There's already too much gap between low, mid and high tier, no need to widen the gap by giving even more income to high tier nations. You can have reasonable income until the 25k infra jump, and it's good.

 

2. Why is it good tobuild up shitloads of infra? What's the point?

If you are involved in a war at that level and have a decent tech ratio the damages would be astounding...probably more than what a large percentage of nations actually have right now.   :ehm:

 

Rooman, If you had the moon wonders before then that would explain the slow decline.   What is causing your current deficit is likely the combination of:

 

Your mars colony and mars mine have expired or you haven't purchased them yet?  

Also something to pay attention to is the bonus resource from the moon and mars wonders, they can be a big boost too.  

Your naval bills are probably pretty high

Your set of resources may or may not be the best ones for a nation of your size.  

 

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions, I know quite a bit about these types of things.   :)

Edited by William Bonney
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If you are involved in a war at that level and have a decent tech ratio the damages would be astounding...probably more than what a large percentage of nations actually have right now.   :ehm:

 

Rooman, If you had the moon wonders before then that would explain the slow decline.   What is causing your current deficit is likely the combination of:

 

Your mars colony and mars mine have expired or you haven't purchased them yet?  

Also something to pay attention to is the bonus resource from the moon and mars wonders, they can be a big boost too.  

Your naval bills are probably pretty high

Your set of resources may or may not be the best ones for a nation of your size.  

 

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions, I know quite a bit about these types of things.   :)

 

What is causing his deficit is his infra upkeep bill. Given his current resource set, his naval bills are a drop in the bucket to what his infra bills are. True, being able to purchase the mars mine and colony would help reduce his deficit, as well as changing his resource set, however the reason for this thread is to find out if he continues to make infra purchases, would his tax collections ever outweigh his infra upkeep bills again.

 

We've heard about the laffer curve and we know that you lose profits as you pass a certain infra level. However, through Roo's findings we've been able to see that his profits did not steadily decline, and we're looking for an answer as to if they would ever go up again if he continued to make donations to the game and gain in infrastructure. If not, there's no reason for him to keep making donations to the game when it's going to drive him further into a hole. An answer before the next calendar month would be appreciated.

Edited by Samwise
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Exactly right, Samwise - with one minor caveat. My resource set is the most cost-efficient for the (some would say excessive) amount of military I choose to permanently keep on hand. The best alternative (which I sometimes pursue) is to swap out one or two of my bill-reducing trades for population-boosting ones for a back collect. But none of that gets to the heart of the matter. As Samwise said, we're just looking for an answer as to whether or not the profitability curve goes back up. Not all the way to the peak - or even 75% of it - but at least above breaking even. Otherwise, there's literally no point for me to donate to this game any more. 

Edited by Rooman33
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Buy donations for other people in exchange for them sending you tech and cash. You still grow, but without hurting your income, and you help others grow, assuming you still want to donate.

 

Also looking at your nation, your trade set can be improved, and I (and probably others) would be happy to knock off some infra for you (serious, not in a snarky way) because guessing at your wc levels, losing as much as you are losing is not insignificant.

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Buy donations for other people in exchange for them sending you tech and cash. You still grow, but without hurting your income, and you help others grow, assuming you still want to donate.

 

Also looking at your nation, your trade set can be improved, and I (and probably others) would be happy to knock off some infra for you (serious, not in a snarky way) because guessing at your wc levels, losing as much as you are losing is not insignificant.

 

Actually it might benefit all of us to work out a bit and reduce our infra levels - and gain some of that tasty XP which can provide some nice economic boosts. Though at our tech levels even a slap fight is gonna hurt... :huh:

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PMed you a number, thank Nik for it.

Edit/
Though that analysis did not take into account the bump you seem to have noticed at 30k; maybe it is possible that peak income occurs around then, though, tbh, I doubt it.

Edited by Caladin
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