Operating Expense Ratios

[Gen Lee]

I am curious what percentage of income is spent on expenses at various infra levels. In theory it could be beneficial to stop buying infra all together at a certain point when the operating expense ratio is best and the amount of income collected is still high enough to purchase those high end items.

So I'm sitting here at 6,922.79 infra and a collection is $11,886,552.92 while my bills are $3,990,240.01. That leaves net income of $7,896,312.91 and results in an operating expense ratio of 33.57%. I really interested to see what kind of ratios nations above 8000 infra have.

So let's see your stats....

[Tryptamine]

14.6k infra and somewhere between 45% and 50% by your method of calculation.

[enderland]

Expenses are about 38% at 8500 infra with a full navy.

[Gen Lee]

Expenses are about 38% at 8500 infra with a full navy.

Well that doesn't sound so bad. If I carried a full navy I might be right there anyway.

[enderland]

Well that doesn't sound so bad. If I carried a full navy I might be right there anyway.

My nation is rather unique; most nations in the 8500 infra range don't have as many wonders or as much land as I do.

[raskull]

Keep in mind while you "operating expense ratio" will keep going up as you buy more infra your net profit will keep going up too (well, for the most part, you'll hit a wall eventually), so trying to keep you "operating expense ratio" low is kind of pointless.

[ecoli73]

49% or so with 15.7K infra, all economic wonders except mining(only give bounus for Uranium anyway for me) full navy, 25 nukes, 3BRTR with uranium. and yes, the net income do increase significantly with infra...until a point I have not hit yet.

Edited February 12, 2009 by ecoli73

[Gen Lee]

Keep in mind while you "operating expense ratio" will keep going up as you buy more infra your net profit will keep going up too (well, for the most part, you'll hit a wall eventually), so trying to keep you "operating expense ratio" low is kind of pointless.

yes that is the point, where is the wall?

At the point I'm at now I can save twice as fast as the nations with a 50% ratio, warchest wise. So is there any point in me purchasing expensive infra to pay higher bills...maybe im just rationalizing not purchasing infra, lol.

[TheyCallMeJeezy]

At 8500 infra now my expense ratio is at 32%

Pre-war, at 13500 infra my ratio was probably around 45%

...but I was forced to buy 4 economic wonders and all for four months.

[ecoli73]

yes that is the point, where is the wall?

At the point I'm at now I can save twice as fast as the nations with a 50% ratio, warchest wise. So is there any point in me purchasing expensive infra to pay higher bills...maybe im just rationalizing not purchasing infra, lol.

I congratulate you sir...if you have net income of > 30 million, which I somehow doubt.

[Tryptamine]

yes that is the point, where is the wall?

This depends on your individual nation... your trade arrangement, wonders, and improvement and trade swaps, among other things. If you want to find the wall for your nation, you will have to either:

1. Pass it (not recommended)

2. Do some math

By the time that you get to a size where it may matter (assuming you've kept up with wonder purchases), you'll most likely find this wall between 16k and 20k infra.

Edited February 13, 2009 by Tryptamine

[Arturion]

44.05% at 18,000 infrastructure and proud of it!

[ecoli73]

44.05% at 18,000 infrastructure and proud of it!

Yes, that is about right...a full navy + nukes will eat about 5-6% into that margin.

[Azaghul]

With 8500 infra, 10 eco wonders, and no nukes or navy (only true for about 2 more weeks), about 14 mill collections per day and lose about exactly a third of it to bills.

The question is not what the ratio is, the question is does your net collection grow, and it does. 14-5 is larger than 10-3 even if 14-5 has a larger percentage lost to bills. The rate of return on investment, how long it takes for your collections boost from new infra to pay back the cost of buying it, get substantially longer especially after 5K and then 8K infra.

Those 10 eco wonders came in very handy building back from 1600 infra (3800 after using warchest) to 8500 infra in about 5 months.

[Chairman Cao]

yes that is the point, where is the wall?

The moment you get the last economic wonder.

There may be people with very infra and still impressive ratios, but if they dropped some of that infra their ratio would be better yet.

[Veritas]

My ration is about 46% at 18700 inf. Keep in mind i maintain an extremely limited military though. I'm still netting 21m so even if my ratio is higher i still net a very nice amount, which means that purchasing things like a navy, nukes, etc... is relatively less expensive. I'm not interested in war whatsoever so there was really no reason for me to stop buying inf. until i hit my wall (it was at about 18,500 inf but somewhere somehow something changed without me knowing and it's now about 19,100). I would recommend at least getting enough inf. so that you can purchase all the economic wonders but after that there is really no point in buying more unless you just want a higher ranking.

-Veritas

[ecoli73]

The moment you get the last economic wonder.

There may be people with very infra and still impressive ratios, but if they dropped some of that infra their ratio would be better yet.

The wall comes when you buy the next infra and your net income(tax-bill) drops, not when you buy your last wonder(available at 14k infra). This number varies due to different trade sets for everyone.

Again, one should look at "net" income rather than a ratio for economic performance.

[Firebolt]

The question is not what the ratio is, the question is does your net collection grow, and it does. 14-5 is larger than 10-3 even if 14-5 has a larger percentage lost to bills.

This is what I was going to say.

Operating Expense Ratio is important for nation efficiency, but more net cash = more growth and faster.

[Kippa Tarxien]

I have a ratio of 34.31, a similar infra level to Gen Lee: I have 7080, he has slightly less.

My income is 10.681M and bills are 3.66, looking at Gen Lee, you'll see that he makes 1.2M more than me and that is caused by the 8 eco wonders he has, while I only have 3, so the ratio story doesn't hold unless you take the wonders in the calculation.

I can only keep up with his 5 extra wonders because I pay bills/buy infra with Lumber, Coal, Iron, Marble, Uranium, Rubber, Aluminium and Oil and collect taxes with AP, MC and sugar/cattle/wheat

[Chairman Cao]

The wall comes when you buy the next infra and your net income(tax-bill) drops, not when you buy your last wonder(available at 14k infra). This number varies due to different trade sets for everyone.

True, it might come well before 14k infra. What I was meaning is that once you buy that last wonder this ratio will only drop.

[TheDave]

15,409.99 Infra

$28,519,663 income

$15,247,794 bills

[Gen Lee]

Let me try to rephrase what i am getting at here - and im still not sure whether it makes sense so bare with me.

So far I don't think anyone has posted a ratio lower then mine, that means that I can save for example a 50 day warchest faster then another nation. If you have the same military wonders/military ability can this make a nation with less of an expense ratio more effective?

Now there are some factors that are definitely positives for the large nations like the cost of war equipment compared to warchest total, the advantage of greater population (assuming conventional warfare), and the ability to hit relevent nations and not opposing cellar dwellers, this weighs in favor of a large nation. Both nations would take considerable damage to infra lowering their bill payments.

The increase in net income is obvious but you have to weigh the cost of depleting your warchest compared to the benefit of higher collections in the future. This is why I wanted to figure out if there is a point where you can maximize your infra purchase advantages while still keeping your operating expense ratio as low as possible.

not sure if im making sense or answering my own theoretical question

[ecoli73]

Sure, that makes sense...

BUT maintaining a war chest for a relatively peaceful nation is a small task once the initial chest is built, then daily net income becomes more important.

Things are different however for people who likes to go to war...but you'll find that less and less at higher NS nations because at some point, going to offensive war is just not profitable, unless you are sure your opponent will just not fight back.

[Vladimir Stukov II]

I'm at about 40% with 14.8k infra and I net 20mil.

[raskull]

Ah, I think I see what you're saying Gen Lee. You're measuring wealth in terms of days of bills you can pay. Indeed using this metric having a smaller expense ratio would be better. However, once you have an epic (relative to your size) warchest then what? Sitting on boatloads of cash for the rest of your CN career is no fun. Big nations continue to buy infra not because it is a good investment, but because there is nothing else to spend it on (and to increase the size of their e-peen).