In my previous post, I mentioned that Basic Homes and Apartments were in a perfect ratio of parameters. There is another pair of cards that have identical numerical values: Cinemas and Shopping Malls.
Both cards have an income of 15, a popularity of 8 and require 20 workers. However, the Malls are prone to being robbed while Cinemas actually reduce the crime rate. In theory, a Cinema should be slightly more expensive than a Mall.
A look at the graph above shows that this is only marginally true, and has been consistently so only in the last couple of months. As of writing, they are both hovering around the 7 HIVE level. The current accumulation of income-cards seems to be the main driving force.
A look at the supply graph shows that there are more Shopping Malls; not surprising as the rarity for Malls is 5% while that for Cinemas is only 3%. However, taking the most recent numbers from that graph gives a ratio of 1.75, which is higher than the expected 1.67. There are few cards on the market, so we can assume that these supply figures do not need to be further adjusted. It may not seem like much, but it is a 5% deviation from the expected ratio of cards.
The DCity market supply of both cards has recently dwindled, so we see some price volatility. However, if the sole reason for buying such cards is their income-generation, then it's worth comparing prices to see that Cinemas, on the whole, should be slightly more expensive.
One side-issue here is not to get too hung-up on the name of each card. The names add some small measure of realism and make cards easier to remember, but the key factors are the numerical parameters plus any other function each card may possess. If your city is filled with Cinemas but has zero Shopping Malls nobody is going to starve!
One reason for writing this series is to see what may happen once such 1st Edition cards stop being printed, and whether existing 2nd Edition cards can fulfill the same functions.
In this case, it seems likely that the whole crime rate algorithm will be adjusted, possibly to include more cards liable to be robbed but hopefully also more cards with downward pressure on the crime rate. This is speculation for now.
However, the 2nd Edition card that comes closest to these two is the Stadium!
This is amusing as Stadiums have been given a recent price boost through the generation of ENTRY tokens. We don't as yet know what ENTRY will do, but "free" makes money and thus Stadiums have also gone to about the 7 HIVE price level.
So, on the one hand, there will be a continuing supply of Stadiums but they are no longer a cheaper option to Malls or Cinemas. With the rather sudden dearth in income-bearing cards, players must ask themselves some serious questions - and you thought this was just for fun!
I suspect some players are surprised at the actual real effect once a new card joins their city. At the most basic level, a card with popularity will increase the city's population and hence also increase social support costs (thus decreasing the expected income), unless that population is used by having more workers. You may, indeed, be looking to raise your DCity Ranking, so this effect is actually beneficial, but if you are looking to maximise SIM income, you may sometimes need to do some juggling, such as selling off the odd Home. One obvious technique is to place unwanted cards on the market at a very high price so that they can be brought back into the city later if needed.
Such effects, because of their feedback, depend entirely on your own city's current size and parameters. But just as an example, a Cinema added to a modest city, with maybe 2000 in population, will effectively increase the population by about 5, income by about 13 and popularity by 8. Notice the increase in population even though a Cinema has zero population value. Notice also that the real income is lower than 15 because of added social costs.
So, what we are really looking for in these cards is a high income with modest population effects. Now, if you actually do want to increase your population, then there are better cards to do so, such as Homes or even Art Galleries. But if we stick to a similar effect to the above three cards, and try to stay below 7 HIVE, and trying to use only 2nd Edition cards, one could, for example, buy a Hotel and a Public Restrooms combo.
Also, keep an eye out for those cards that have an extra feature that only works once per city, such as Law Firms and Hospitals.
Related DCity Posts: Basic Homes and Apartments
- How to Construct a Small dCity With a Big Income
Images from DCity Statistics, created by @rafalski.