Is Improvement Swapping Overrated?

[SpacingOutMan]

I simply leave labor camps in. I prolly did it wrong, but it didn't really help my nation all that much when I did labor camp swap prior to the 5k infra jump.

[Scorp]

I generally do a short improvement swap for general growth.

[Smallfrog]

I tried this once...my only problem was that after 3 days (I think) you essentially couldn't do anything with your nation, including give aid. I like buying tech (from others) and giving aid to those in my alliance so it didn't work for me.

I do 2 day swaps, so I don't have that problem.

It earns me about an extra 2 mill every two days, about 25% extra. Or another 30 infa.

[Count Rupert]

I do 2 day swaps, so I don't have that problem.

It earns me about an extra 2 mill every two days, about 25% extra. Or another 30 infa.

How did you figure that? You seem to be factoring in the money the Labor Camps save you in bills which is a fallacy since a swap is comparing collecting with and without Labor Camps and you're already always paying bills with the Labor Camps. The whole point of a swap is to get that 5 happiness back when you collect over paying bills and collecting with the Labor Camps.

You have 55,518 citizens paying taxes. The five Labor Camps are worth 5 happiness or $20.75 with full improvement modification which at a 28% tax rate is $5.81 a day in additional income per citizen.

(55,518)*($5.81) = $322,559.58

So a two day swap is garnering you $645,119.16 in extra income over collecting with the Labor Camps in place. The Labor Camps are costing you $750,000 to replace. That means your two swap is costing you $104,880.84 over simply collecting with the Labor Camps in place.

[commander thrawn]

The value of swapping lowers the higher you get, it is better for medium nations (and the really large ones)

[uhohspaghettios]

I'm over 4k and I don't know what I'd do without it. I'm just about always in a swap and I go for 19 days each swap. Regular collection amount would probably be about $40 million before bills but with the swap, it's about $60 million after bills. I'm sure those figures are way off what they actually are, but you can't deny that saving 50% on infra bills each day won't save you money.

[Decomposition]

I'm over 4k and I don't know what I'd do without it. I'm just about always in a swap and I go for 19 days each swap. Regular collection amount would probably be about $40 million before bills but with the swap, it's about $60 million after bills. I'm sure those figures are way off what they actually are, but you can't deny that saving 50% on infra bills each day won't save you money.

I don't think that anyone is saying that you should pay bills without labor camps. The question comes down to whether collecting taxes while holding labor camps reduces your income so much that it is worth going through a full improvement swap (with all the associated costs of re-buying labor camps later and deferring nation growth). The answer seems to be that it is definitely worth it for very large nations, possibly not worth it for nations who have just gotten all happiness boosting imrprovements, and worth it for those nations with lots of happiness boosting improvements still to purchase.

[Count Rupert]

I don't think that anyone is saying that you should pay bills without labor camps. The question comes down to whether collecting taxes while holding labor camps reduces your income so much that it is worth going through a full improvement swap (with all the associated costs of re-buying labor camps later and deferring nation growth). The answer seems to be that it is definitely worth it for very large nations, possibly not worth it for nations who have just gotten all happiness boosting imrprovements, and worth it for those nations with lots of happiness boosting improvements still to purchase.

Agreed. Swapping is not without it's risks as well particularly for the longer swaps. You lose a trade(s) or find yourself in a war and anarchied on day 18 or 19 and that swap isn't going to be very profitable. In general a swap is only going to improve income about 5%. It's really a tool for those looking to squeeze everything they can get out of their nation. Some can't be bothered for what amounts to a couple of percentage points.

[Aeternos Astramora]

So a two day swap is garnering you $645,119.16 in extra income over collecting with the Labor Camps in place. The Labor Camps are costing you $750,000 to replace. That means your two swap is costing you $104,880.84 over simply collecting with the Labor Camps in place.

This illustrates a good point. Don't start with a mindset of, "I'm going to swap every ___ days." You figure out the point you start to pull a profit. If it's within your comfort zone (which is 19 days for me, but for others, it might be less), then do your swap at that many days.

[TheyCallMeJeezy]

I tend to swap every 4-5 days actually, rather than 10 or more just for the fact that if I were to lose a key trade it could mess up my income/bills more than I would want. This way I'm playing it safe.

Also, it saves me roughly $6.5 million a day and increases my income about $600k everyday that I back-collect after swapping

[LegendKiller]

How did you figure that? You seem to be factoring in the money the Labor Camps save you in bills which is a fallacy since a swap is comparing collecting with and without Labor Camps and you're already always paying bills with the Labor Camps. The whole point of a swap is to get that 5 happiness back when you collect over paying bills and collecting with the Labor Camps.

You have 55,518 citizens paying taxes. The five Labor Camps are worth 5 happiness or $20.75 with full improvement modification which at a 28% tax rate is $5.81 a day in additional income per citizen.

(55,518)*($5.81) = $322,559.58

So a two day swap is garnering you $645,119.16 in extra income over collecting with the Labor Camps in place. The Labor Camps are costing you $750,000 to replace. That means your two swap is costing you $104,880.84 over simply collecting with the Labor Camps in place.

I never considered this. Very smart.

I'm pretty sure it's still worth it for me so long as it's more than a few days that I'd be doing the swapping. I wouldn't say it's overrated as long as the length is enough each time that it offsets the $150,000 x 5 for labor camps.

[Decomposition]

I never considered this. Very smart.

I'm pretty sure it's still worth it for me so long as it's more than a few days that I'd be doing the swapping. I wouldn't say it's overrated as long as the length is enough each time that it offsets the $150,000 x 5 for labor camps.

It also has to offset the hit you take on income for delaying your nation growth (can be quite substantial as a proportion of total income for small to medium size nations).

[SoxNation]

Usually I pay bills every day while swapping, and I think most other people do too, so I don't think it's an issue.

Given the 50% bill reduction, improvement swapping is definitely worth it.

yeah i'm schocked syz doesn't pay his bills everyday (cheap germans )

You don't pay the interest on your bills but get interest on your collections, i mean it's free money

[SoxNation]

It also has to offset the hit you take on income for delaying your nation growth (can be quite substantial as a proportion of total income for small to medium size nations).

i'd say this is false, depending what level you are at you DON'T WANT TO, grow every day

you should be able to get to each *999 level in one day, and you should go past it till you can get past the jump (infra costs shoot up at each level and in the early part of each level you make less than at the 999).

I haven't bought infra every day probably for a year.. i save up buy my wonders and then make jumps... then secondly at the level i'm at now, going higher in infra doesn't actually help me monetarily (might change with the new wonders), because i'm burning so much to get infra, that the extra income takes months to recoup.

[SoxNation]

I tend to swap every 4-5 days actually, rather than 10 or more just for the fact that if I were to lose a key trade it could mess up my income/bills more than I would want. This way I'm playing it safe.

Also, it saves me roughly $6.5 million a day and increases my income about $600k everyday that I back-collect after swapping

get in a long term stable trade circle..

i've lost 1 trade in the last 6 months, because he left for another alliance and had to change his color...

[SoxNation]

Agreed. Swapping is not without it's risks as well particularly for the longer swaps. You lose a trade(s) or find yourself in a war and anarchied on day 18 or 19 and that swap isn't going to be very profitable. In general a swap is only going to improve income about 5%. It's really a tool for those looking to squeeze everything they can get out of their nation. Some can't be bothered for what amounts to a couple of percentage points.

don't swap during war maybe?

[Count Rupert]

don't swap during war maybe?

That's not what I was implying. You could be at peace and then on day 18 or 19 find someone has declared war on you and/or your alliance and you're sitting in anarchy. Doesn't happen as much as maybe lost trades happens, but it does happen. All I'm saying is running very long swaps runs the risk of something happening that interfers with the swap. I tend to run shorter swaps as they give you a margin of error to correct a problem like a lost trade should it come up.

[Aeternos Astramora]

Improvement swapping formula:

Days needed to save for a profit = ( 2 * [ Total cost of improvements used in swap ] ) / ( [ Total infra upkeep without labor camps ] - [Average profit of buying infra every day] + 5 * [Daily upkeep of each improvement] )

[SoxNation]

That's not what I was implying. You could be at peace and then on day 18 or 19 find someone has declared war on you and/or your alliance and you're sitting in anarchy. Doesn't happen as much as maybe lost trades happens, but it does happen. All I'm saying is running very long swaps runs the risk of something happening that interfers with the swap. I tend to run shorter swaps as they give you a margin of error to correct a problem like a lost trade should it come up.

if you are large enough to be improvement swapping for a profit, it's unlikely you will be randomly tech raided or attacked.

I've been attacked once in my 2 years in CN, when i was a n00b....

[tschreiber725]

Can you buy improvements when you are 19 days inactive with bills unpaid, or do you have to pay bills before buying them?

[Drai]

it changes a lot later on, because once you are above 7,999 infra, more infra does not significantly increase your income.

For example I could burn 200 MILLION cash in new infra, and would increase my daily profit by only 200k.

Precisely why I've stopped at 8,999.99 (don't know why I didn't stop at 8k) and have just been building a warchest since. I may as well use the mass amount of money I make now to rebuild from a war where I can buy cheaper infra, rather than spending it on expensive infra now and hardly increasing my net income.

I am still buying wonders and doing tech deals of course

[johnsweaver]

Can you buy improvements when you are 19 days inactive with bills unpaid, or do you have to pay bills before buying them?

I'm pretty sure you can't. I don't think you can buy anything once you're past about 3 days unpaid bills.

[Count Rupert]

if you are large enough to be improvement swapping for a profit, it's unlikely you will be randomly tech raided or attacked.

I've been attacked once in my 2 years in CN, when i was a n00b....

Agree, you're not likely to be techraided if you're in an alliance at that size. However ask any of the the nations in any of the recently attacked alliances (NADC, GPA, etc.) who were swapping. I didn't say it was likely or even very probable, in fact I said it wasn't, but it is a risk never the less. And that it happens with the margin of profit is only around 5% it only takes once for it to really mess up the overall profits for quite a while. I'm not arguing not to swap, afterall I swap. I just think that going for 19 day swaps takes unnecessary risks. A shorter swap, even ten days allows time to wait out replacing a lost trade (you're focused on war when I stated I consider the lost of a trade the more likely of the two) or anarchy that 19 days doesn't if it happens on day 18 or 19 which Murphy's Law tells you is when it's going to happen.

[SoxNation]

Agree, you're not likely to be techraided if you're in an alliance at that size. However ask any of the the nations in any of the recently attacked alliances (NADC, GPA, etc.) who were swapping. I didn't say it was likely or even very probable, in fact I said it wasn't, but it is a risk never the less. And that it happens with the margin of profit is only around 5% it only takes once for it to really mess up the overall profits for quite a while. I'm not arguing not to swap, afterall I swap. I just think that going for 19 day swaps takes unnecessary risks. A shorter swap, even ten days allows time to wait out replacing a lost trade (you're focused on war when I stated I consider the lost of a trade the more likely of the two) or anarchy that 19 days doesn't if it happens on day 18 or 19 which Murphy's Law tells you is when it's going to happen.

i agree waiting 19 days is not a good idea... i typically do 10-15 days, leaving a window open if i lose something.

[Veritas]

But you shouldn't be tank swapping in the first place. Tanks are just fake ns. Idk about lc swapping at 3,999 inf because i didn't discover the idea until i'd already purchased the max amount of improvements but it is certainly worth it for high end nations. I make about an extra 9 mill every 10 days which translates into about 25 extra inf. If you desire to catch up to the top ranked nations you must operate at the epitome of efficiency and that includes lc swapping.

-Veritas