How important is Fast Food?

[nekoj]

Hello All. Just started this game, and planning my trade network.

I have been reading as much as I can to learn all that I can. I have seen on these forums to try adn get Beer, Construction and Fast Food as your bonus resources. As if those were the golden trinity of bonus resources one should strive for.

Taking a look at the top players shows many (but not all) following this guideline.

After my own research I have found a number of bonus resources have synergy with each other and construction that may be destroyed by going with beer or fast food.

Construction takes 4 resources. Beer takes 2 and Fast Food takes 4. This leaves an empire with space for two more resources.

Possibly Coal and Lead for Scholars and Steel, or oil and Rubber for asphalt. Taking a deeper look if one was to forgo fast food and free up the 4 resources needed and take Coal, Oil, Rubber, Gold the would lose fast food but gain Asphalt, Automobiles, Microchips, Radiation Cleanup, Scholars, and Steel.

So my question is what does fast food offer that people are willing to give up all those bonus resources for? The only thing the fast food set gives over the other set is population growth (+11%). All the other categories are no change or worse with fast food.

What am I missing here. I do not understand the importance of Fast Food when compared to Asphalt, Automobiles, Microchips, Radiation Cleanup.

Please enlighten me.

Regards.

Nekoj

[der_ko]

Fast food gives you population boosting resources. More bonus resources isn't necessarily better.

[SyndicatedINC]

Well to be honest I do not really know. I have Gold/Oil so I decided to use them for the full 8 bonus combo. I did the math and found that as for direct income I would actually be worse off to go for a population booster set. This of course does not take into account the increased number of improvements that it would allow me. Given that it would be better for me to go for Fast Food, Beer, and Construction.

However again the math is telling me that is only true to a point, and somewhere in the 3000 infra bracket I will have enough pop to support max improvements (at least that I need/want) and the effects of the 8 bonus combo would actually be netting me a higher income.

Therefore as to why the top nations are going for it I do not know. Since I am not a top nation I can not see for myself, but the numbers from the index and wiki say that it is not more beneficial.

[ALFERALFER]

Most of the best sets would not include fast food.

You have 1 great resource and 1 good one.

Aluminum, Rubber

add Iron, Lumber, Marble for the Constuction Bonus.

Oil adds Asphalt.

Wheat & Fish for the 16% population.

Coal gives you Steel & Autos.

2 spots left if you have a harbor.

Lead Scholars

Gold Microchips & Radiation Cleanup.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a better balanced set.

Construction is required to build a large nation. You cannot afford to buy infra at full retail.

With this trade set you get 42% discount on infra.

This link will help you see what different combo give you.

http://www.mrfixitonline.com/cyber_nations...ecalculator.php

[Morey 2k7]

Fast food is regarded as a very good bonus to get not just because of the +2 happiness, but because the seperate resources you need to get Fast Food are also very good and improve your economy.

[Lavo]

Being someone that has gone both paths, the FF/Beer/Construction set is much better.

[Matt Palazzolo]

It's the quality of the resources needed to get the bomus resources, not the bonus resources themselves, that is important. Most bonus resources, though good by themselves, require you to get a crappy resource such as furs or lead. The most important variables are infra cost/upkeep, pop happiness, income, and citizen count. Land and military discounts are largely irrelevant, because you rarely buy them.

[Magicman657]

OP, one thing you need to consider is that depending on your starting resources, each person's best resource set may be different. The 3 BR set is the best one, and unfortunately, the golden rule of CN trading is as follows:

In order for some people to have their individual best resource sets, some others will have to have less than optimal sets.

Your starting resources, Oil / Gold, automatically put you into the 5 BR category for best setup. It's not quite as good as 3 BR, but close enough to work well. Keep in mind it only makes you money if you buy lots of infra, however, because it's infra price and upkeep reduction heavy. Your optimal set includes:

Aluminum | Cattle | Coal | Fish | Gold | Iron | Lumber | Marble | Oil | Rubber | Water | Wheat

This set will give you Steel, Automobiles, Beer, Construction, and Asphalt. I've been doing trades for quite a while (which earned me the nickname of "the Trade Guildmaster" during my time in LoSS) so you can trust me with this assessment, however, if you'd rather do the math, feel free, but you should come up with this same set eventually.

Never underestimate the power of population bonuses. Although having tons of bonus resources looks nice, realize that the resources required to get them are far inferior to the ones required for other sets. 3BR > 5BR > 8BR

[PrinceArutha]

If you get anything other that the beer,fastfood, construction set with a side of fish and something (silver, gems, or uranium if you are higher level) then you are an idiot.

Look at all the top nations in CN and see what they have as a set up.

[Noob Cake]

Remake; rubber is "trash" (second tier)

Go FF/Construction/Beer with Gems (Wine/Silver)

then eventually

FF/Construction/Beer with Uranium

Edited November 29, 2007 by Noob Cake

[nekoj]

Prince Arutha, thank you so much for that great explanation of why someone would be an idiot to do otherwise to what you suggest.

To the rest. I give many thanks for trying to explain the reasoning of why go with fast food. Thanks alot for the resource calc page. That makes it a lot eaiser than the spreadsheet I was using. Now some observations that some of you can help explain.

Not looking at Land or Miltary bonus. Focusing on happiness, pop growth and income, infra, and tech. Bear in mind my starting resources are Alum and Rubber.

going with the 3BR set (FF, Const, Beer) you recieve the following bonus (keep in mind I have rubber in this set as it is a starting resource).

+9.5 Happy, +19.5% Pop, -36% Infra cost, -18% Infro upkeep.

You have room for one more resource. perhaps fish for 8 pop, Oil for 1.5 happy and -5% infra upkeep, or Gems for 2.5 happy and +$1.50 income.

Now compare the above options with a full 8BR set not including FF or the related base resources.

+11 Happy, +$6 income, +8% population, -42% Infra cost, -23% Infra Upkeep. and -13% tech cost.

Comparing the two (3BR with Gems) the 8BR set has 1 less happiness, $4.50 more income, 11.5% less population, 13% better infra cost, 5% better infra upkeep, and 13% cheaper tech (may not be a big deal with tech trades).

So is 11.5% better population and 1 more happiness outwiegh $4.50 less income, and more expensive infra cost, upkeep and techs?

If 11.5% better population is better, please explain why. I appreciate all replies, but really value replies that offer more insight than "your an idiot if you dont".

The reason I am so curious is I want to set up the "best" resource trades I can before I start trading.

Thanks again, and I look forward to your response.

Nekoj

Sorry for any missed spelling errors, I have not downloaded the spell check addon.

Edited November 29, 2007 by nekoj

[Barrmozz]

OP, one thing you need to consider is that depending on your starting resources, each person's best resource set may be different.

Your starting resources, Oil / Gold, automatically put you into the 5 BR category for best setup. Your optimal set includes:

Aluminum | Cattle | Coal | Fish | Gold | Iron | Lumber | Marble | Oil | Rubber | Water | Wheat

This set will give you Steel, Automobiles, Beer, Construction, and Asphalt.

Follow this advice!

From my experience, THE BEST IS ENEMY OF THE GOOD, I mean: as everybody seems to follow the BEST resource guide, you'll find it hard to find trades and get the 3BR (just because you have RUBBER), on the other hand it will be much easier to get the 5BR or the 8BR!!

In any case, if you manage to fill ALL your trade slots, even without bonus you'll be fine and would be much better than having them empty just because you're looking for something special that you don't find (you can always change it later).

I'm in top 1000, 3,5% nations without any problems, higher nations are there mainly because of tech trading and buying donations not because of the trade set, and once there it's easier to keep on top with cheaper infra cost and upkeep than with higher pop.

If I were you I would start trading (for anything) NOW!!!, you're wasting more time and money than you think, just start playing and you'll have plenty of time to try for yourself.... But it's your decision!!!

[Matt Palazzolo]

the most important differences between the 3 BR set and the 8 BR set are pop increase, infra upkeep, and infra cost.

I'll use me as an example.

11.5% pop increase is about 4500 citizens, times $90 per citizen is roughly 450k extra taxes.

5% infra upkeep is about 80k.

13% better infra cost is about about 5.5k.

Also, many improvements, such as factories and labor camps decrease infra cost and upkeep by 8-10%.

[Bob Sanders]

So is 11.5% better population and 1 more happiness outwiegh $4.50 less income, and more expensive infra cost, upkeep and techs?

If 11.5% better population is better, please explain why. I appreciate all replies, but really value replies that offer more insight than "your an idiot if you dont".

The population is better because it gives you more improvements and lets you grow faster. Improvements are the best deal in the game. They have a far better return on investment than tech, infra and wonders. The sooner you get those improvements the better. Another key point is that you will be paying less bills for the same amount of population and improvements than you would with the 8 bonus set because you will achieve that population with less infra.

[PrinceArutha]

Prince Arutha, thank you so much for that great explanation of why someone would be an idiot to do otherwise to what you suggest.

Scroll through the forums. Someone starts a topic about this/like this at least once a week. And you want the side of fish for the extra citizens.

[SilverHawk]

I get the vaulted 8 BR Group with Beer instead of Fine Jewelery.

[Jarlaxle]

I guess the best way to look at the beer construction fastfood vs the other sets is the following, 11% more population = 11% more income at no additional upkeep costs, since the hapiness extra money vs the 3 ressources build compared to the 8 ressource build is almost on par the defining factor is what is more benificial the 5% infra upkeep reduction and the 13% infra costs or the 11% income boost. IF you are looking to grow and starting a nation i would definatly recomend the 3 ressource build rather than the others because of the extra improvements, as your nation ages the differences are less noticible because you reach a point where you run out of meaningfull improvements to buy. But i think there is a point where eventually the 5 ressource build is better because you eventually max out on the money you make per citizen/ day ( the rate anyways) where as the upkeep costs keep increasing per level of infra. I beleive there is a point where the 5 ressource build is better but my nation is too young to say so with absolute certainty and its hard to say what that level would be but i would imagine it would be around 8-9k infra if not a little higher(this is just a rough estimate here).

Sorry for the bad spelling my english is horrible

Edited November 30, 2007 by Jarlaxle

[Myalam]

The best industrial build (5 BR with fish and sugar/pigs) is also better for small nations if they are being boosted with a large amount of cash. The 3-3.5% (base) population boost from the 3BR trade set is not as good as the infra reduction costs from the industrial set.

[agafaba]

Most important is getting those pop % increase, then reducing infra upkeep %. For the most part bonus resources are crappy compared to the original ones. I went with the 8 build (replacing any open spots with wheat, fish and the sort) because I was selling tech. That and I have gold/oil.

BTW I dont care who you are... I want Iron and Marble, even if its just a temp trade.

[Magicman657]

Follow this advice!

From my experience, THE BEST IS ENEMY OF THE GOOD, I mean: as everybody seems to follow the BEST resource guide, you'll find it hard to find trades and get the 3BR (just because you have RUBBER), on the other hand it will be much easier to get the 5BR or the 8BR!!

In any case, if you manage to fill ALL your trade slots, even without bonus you'll be fine and would be much better than having them empty just because you're looking for something special that you don't find (you can always change it later).

I'm in top 1000, 3,5% nations without any problems, higher nations are there mainly because of tech trading and buying donations not because of the trade set, and once there it's easier to keep on top with cheaper infra cost and upkeep than with higher pop.

If I were you I would start trading (for anything) NOW!!!, you're wasting more time and money than you think, just start playing and you'll have plenty of time to try for yourself.... But it's your decision!!!

You didn't read a damn word I said, did you? I'm not advocating the 5BR set because it's "easy" to get, I said he should get it because it's the best set for his individual nation. Starting with Oil and Gold automatically dictates that he shouldn't get the 3BR set because there are 10 needed resources for it, and he doesn't have 1 of them as a starting resource. For him to get it, he'd have to give up both Gems and Fish, which is a huge hit to the set. He'd actually get a higher population bonus from the 5BR set than the 3BR set because of this.

As a general rule of thumb, if you start with Coal, Oil, or Rubber, and your second resource is NOT a required resource for the 3BR set, 5BR is usually the way to go.

[sparta]

well it really depends on your nation. if your nation is built for having lots of bonus resources then it is. and it depends on your main resources

[Steelrat]

In short without explanation.

New nation get FF + as many citizen boosting resources = Max out your Income, don´t care about Infra reduction or other stuff.

If you have less then 1k infra don´t but any factories go for pure income boosting Improvements.

~ 4999infra switch to 3BG (FF/Cons/beer) if possible + as many citizen boosting resources and use it as long as you buy Infra. If don´t want/need to buy infra anymore go for FF + as many citizen boosting resources.

If you are making Backcollections at early stages go for 5BG while you do the Backcollection.

[Drai]

Being someone that has gone both paths, the FF/Beer/Construction set is much better.

Seconded.

[SilverHawk]

My main Resoruces force me to get the 8BR Set, otherwise, I would have Odd Resources out for a 3BR or 5BR and waste half a trade.

[Syzygy]

3BG > 5BG >> FFonly >> 8BG

and there is no discussion about that