SM or SSS or Interstate?

[yo mama]

It is my first wonder. I currently have 15 mil.

i have 4,994 infra. what should be my first wonder.

[Gen Beagle]

Either the SSS or the Interstate. It really depends on what you want to do. Are you looking to buy lots of tech/buy another wonder/give lots of money to your alliance? Then go SSS. Or are you looking to grow your nation? Interstate.

[aaannndddyyy]

Stock Market.

[yo mama]

ok, Interstate is eliminated

(SSS) how much per citizen will go up?

(SM) how much is 2% in taxes?

[cjav0]

yo mama SSS makes your tx go up 2 % how much 2% is do the math take your income devide by 50 and see how much that leaves you.

SM also simple 10 extra in total per citizen. take citizen income add 10 divide by 100 * 28 * the number of citizens. edit: dont know how much you make but SSS is probably most beneficial, it was for me at 4000 infra anyway.

Edited January 20, 2008 by cjavo

[TheBFG]

There are some math problems with the above. The real answer is:

Tax rate increase from 28% to 30% means a 7.14% increase in income.

The increase of $10 is at base, with all the modifiers from Improvements that turns to a gross per citizen increase of $20.75

So that means that the SSS gives you more income increase if your gross per-citizen income is higher than $290

At 290 you can see it works out the same:

290 * .30 = 87

( 290 + 20.75 ) * .28 = 87.01

However, I would say that if you're only slightly over $290 I would still choose the SM, because it is so much cheaper - and therefore you can buy it sooner and start the "wonder clock" sooner.

[Boondock]

I would say SM, it takes the least time to pay off.

SM then SSS

[cjav0]

There are some math problems with the above. The real answer is:

Tax rate increase from 28% to 30% means a 7.14% increase in income.

The increase of $10 is at base, with all the modifiers from Improvements that turns to a gross per citizen increase of $20.75

So that means that the SSS gives you more income increase if your gross per-citizen income is higher than $290

At 290 you can see it works out the same:

290 * .30 = 87

( 290 + 20.75 ) * .28 = 87.01

However, I would say that if you're only slightly over $290 I would still choose the SM, because it is so much cheaper - and therefore you can buy it sooner and start the "wonder clock" sooner.

didn't take the modifier in account..my bad .. tbh i ad so much cash after rebuilding from ZI i bought SSS simply because I could

[Fistandantilus]

Usaly the SSS helps you out more.

[Boondock]

SM is cheaper for a marginally smaller benefit. I'd suggest getting it first.

[Count Rupert]

SM is cheaper for a marginally smaller benefit. I'd suggest getting it first.

I agree. The important thing is starting his wonder cycle of buying one every 30 days as soon as possible. The SM is great for this since the benefits are only slightly less than the SSS for $10 million less money. If he already had the money and could buy either right now, then the SSS would be the way to go. But he'll be able the get the SM days earlier and it will make saving for the SSS as his second wonder easier.

[Aeternos Astramora]

There are some math problems with the above. The real answer is:

Tax rate increase from 28% to 30% means a 7.14% increase in income.

The increase of $10 is at base, with all the modifiers from Improvements that turns to a gross per citizen increase of $20.75

So that means that the SSS gives you more income increase if your gross per-citizen income is higher than $290

At 290 you can see it works out the same:

290 * .30 = 87

( 290 + 20.75 ) * .28 = 87.01

However, I would say that if you're only slightly over $290 I would still choose the SM, because it is so much cheaper - and therefore you can buy it sooner and start the "wonder clock" sooner.

Correct. $290.50 is the cutoff point. Below that, SM is better. Above, SSS is better.

[Drai]

That may be true, but you can get the Stock Market earlier and it pays off faster so overall it's better to get the Stock Market first.

[GenderDefender]

Interstate 110%. Because you are approaching the 4999.99 infra jump to 5000 infra the interstate definetely helps out with that. Then I would buy the SSS, then SM, and thinking a little farther ahead, a disaster relief agency

[yo mama]

I might just stay at 4,999 infra. for a while though

Avg. Gross Income Per Individual Per Day: $286.89 so should I get a SM?

I dont really care what the cost is I can get it by the end of january. 2.9 mil after bills and I can get aid

[yo mama]

I am probably gonna get the SM, but if I got the SSS would I be able to get rid of my intelligence agencies and keep like 1 or 2 for spies

[enderland]

I am probably gonna get the SM, but if I got the SSS would I be able to get rid of my intelligence agencies and keep like 1 or 2 for spies

Why?

Get whichever wonder you can get first- the SS or SM.

Becuase the 30 day rule is what will eventually get you with wonders.

[Aeternos Astramora]

I might just stay at 4,999 infra. for a while though

Avg. Gross Income Per Individual Per Day: $286.89 so should I get a SM?

I dont really care what the cost is I can get it by the end of january. 2.9 mil after bills and I can get aid

Yeah, SM. The sooner you buy your first one, the better. ALWAYS buy your next wonder as soon as possible.

[Count Rupert]

No you shouldn't get rid of the intelligence agencies unless you want to lose the cutting of the happiness penalties for having high tax rates they provide.

[TheBFG]

Interstate 110%. Because you are approaching the 4999.99 infra jump to 5000 infra the interstate definetely helps out with that. Then I would buy the SSS, then SM, and thinking a little farther ahead, a disaster relief agency

This is a myth which has been debunked many times before, but I'll repeat myself:

Whatever the price per level of Infra is doesn't matter for any of these calculations, the important thing when comparing these things is the percentage of your total income that you spent on Infra, I'll use this to show that even the SSS is better than the IS (unless under very extreme circumstances), and it was already shown above that the SM is better than the SSS to start with as well, so that gives the normal order of your first 3 economic wonders as SM, SSS, IS

To compare the SSS and the IS we start with the facts:

• IS gives you 8% cheaper Infra (both in upkeep and new purchases)
  
• SSS gives you 7.14% more income.
  

So, after you've bought a hypothetical IS, you can now buy and maintain 8.7% (1/0.92) more Infra than before.

After you would have bought a hypothetical SSS your income increases by 7.14%

The thing to realise here is that the SSS gives you a boost on your total income, the IS only works on the Infra parts, therefore by dividing these 2 things we get to the cut off point and the first important fact:

If you spend more than 82% of your total income on Infra (upkeep and new purchases), then the IS would be better than the SSS.

To show this in a simple example: lets take a hypothetical nation with a income of 1M, outgoings on "non infra" per day of 180K, Infra upkeep of 300K and a Infra purchase price of 17,333. At the moment this nation can spend 520K on infra per day, and get 30 levels of Infra.

After buying a SSS the income goes to 1,071,400, the costs stay the same, so the income increase means an extra 4.11 levels of Infra can be purchased.

After buying a IS the Infra upkeep costs would go to 276K, so 544K can now be spent on Infra, but the Infra price also falls to 15946, meaning that 34.11 levels of Infra can now be bought - just like with a SSS.

So this shows that "82%" is indeed the cut of point where the effect is the same. If you spend more than this percentage of your income on Infra, then the IS gives you better results.

Now we take this further, and look at your total outgoings. A nation that would have bought the IS first, would under normal circumstances 30 days later buy a SSS. This SSS costs 40M to buy, and this money is money that you do not spend on Infra !

So in other words, the spending on non-Infra in the 30 days after buying a IS is at least 40M, and normally more (Military, tech, etc etc).

This 40M is part of the non-infra spending, which means that if your total income in these 30 days is under 222M, you will guaranteed spend more than 18% of this income on non-infra. The 222M over a 30 day period works out at 7.4M per day, which brings us to the next conclusion:

If your income is less than 7.4M per day, the simple fact of buying the SSS 30 days after the IS will already guarantee that the IS was not the the best choice

Normally people starting on their Wonders will not be making this sort of money, so the conclusion is simple: always get the SSS before the IS. (naturally under normal circumstances the cut off will even be more than 7.4M, since you will have many more non-Infra costs than just the purchase costs of new Wonders).

So the conclusion of this story is that the 8% Infra reduction on the IS looks good, but because you are now purchasing Wonders a lot of your money is not spent on Infra. Therefore you are really only a fraction of this 8% better off (usually between 4 and 6%, corresponding with spending 50-75% of your money on Infra).

[GenderDefender]

The point is you do spend about 80% of your income on infra, it's not like you buy nukes everyday. Or tech by those means. And to purchase improvements you have to buy INFRA. That's pretty much the only way older nations grow, other than wonders once a month or a very constrained amount of tech with at max 6 FA slots. And at the level nations at around 4999 infra can make a fair amount of money per day, you can purchase an IS fairly quickly. It's more for short term rather than long term especially for the 5000 infra jump

[+Zeke+]

Stock Market followed by the SSS.

After that it gets more murky depending on your nation size, alliance commitments, frequency of war.

But getting those first two should keep you occupied for a while.

[TheBFG]

The point is you do spend about 80% of your income on infra, it's not like you buy nukes everyday. Or tech by those means. And to purchase improvements you have to buy INFRA. That's pretty much the only way older nations grow, other than wonders once a month or a very constrained amount of tech with at max 6 FA slots.

Absolutely agreed that you should be spending as much as possible on Infra, but what I tried to show is that you just won't be spending >80% of your income on it - because you're now buying quite expensive Wonders. Even if you don't spend money on anything else, the money spent on a SSS is easily more than 18% of a monthly income at these levels.

Therefore you're always better off buying a SSS before a IS, unless you are already making so much money that you should really have started on Wonders a lot earlier.

[x Tela x]

For the record, I'm at 5800 infra, without an IS. I don't buy infra. I get 200 per month, from a donation and save the rest of my money.

I ran the numbers, and since the infra cost reduction is useless for me, the IS saved me somewhere around ~200k in bills. The 5/10 wonders (SM, Internet etc) raise my taxes by nearly 300k. (Like 270k iirc)

So, IS isn't always the best choice. Though, I have a feeling I play this game a bit different than most. Infra is made for destroying in my eyes. Having too much is just silly. Past 6-7k or so, you're just building a buffer so it takes you longer to get completely owned in a war. A lot will agree with me, but will say 8k is where you should stop. Others will say "Go all the way to 13k!", which is really silly. When a single attack from a single rogue can effectively cost you a month or more of collections, ur doin it rong.

I won't be getting an IS for a few months at least. A couple military wonders are on my to-do list before that. Unless I happen to lose a boatload of infra in a war (like 1k or more) I won't even consider it for awhile.

*EDIT*

Oh, BFG, your numbers that you posted on page1 are incorrect as well. You have to factor in existing modifiers from resources and improvements. An 8% reduction in infra costs is actually less than 8% and a $10 boost in income is actually MORE than $10, as is a +5 happiness modifier.

Negative factors receive a rate of diminishing returns.

.9 * .9 = .81

Positive factors are the exact opposite.

1.08 * 1.08 (fish and wheat for example = 16.64% (1.1664)

Edited January 24, 2008 by x Tela x

[TheBFG]

Oh, BFG, your numbers that you posted on page1 are incorrect as well. You have to factor in existing modifiers from resources and improvements. An 8% reduction in infra costs is actually less than 8% and a $10 boost in income is actually MORE than $10, as is a +5 happiness modifier.

Negative factors receive a rate of diminishing returns.

.9 * .9 = .81

Positive factors are the exact opposite.

1.08 * 1.08 (fish and wheat for example = 16.64% (1.1664)

Not sure which post you think is wrong, but I'd disagree that these factors impact on my posts (although in itself your statements are of course true).

In my first post I compared a 7.14% increase (going from 28% to 30% tax) with a +$10 rise (SSS against SM). This is coming from a certain base, and the 7.14% is always 7.14% - regardless of how you came to the level that is working from. The +$10 always comes to $20.76 as long as you have all the relevant Improvements (and you shouldn't even be buying Wonders if you don't have all the income percentage boosting Improvements).

In my 2nd post on the first page I compared a 8% rise in income, with a 7.14% drop in Infra costs (IS against SSS). Again both of those percentages work on whatever your current level is at that moment. How you got to that doesn't matter. For example, if your income "at base" is $50 and due to all sorts of factors (improvements, trades, wonders) this is increased to 300%, then the resulting income in $150, if you started at $75 and this is increased by a other set of factors to 200% then again the resulting income is $150. If you then buy something hypothetical that increases your income by say 10%, then you will always go to $165, whether you're in scenario A ($50 x 3.00 x 1.1 = $50 x 3.3 = $165), or in scenario B ($75 x 2 x 1.1 = $75 x 2.2 = $165) doesn't matter.

I'd be happy to see how I went wrong, if I did indeed