Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-6016076-20140720081239/@comment-6016076-20140729021945

Hi Otter, thanks for giving my long post a thorough look and taking the time to write up your own lengthy reply. I checked my numbers and just realized my Excel data cites respectively the 2/3 and 2/4 base numbers for all the Bank and Advisory upgrades. I messed up with my $ signs in the copy and pasting. That sucks.

Here's my feedback with the new numbers:

Assuming you start from the efficient stepping stone of 2/0, I am still not sure it's worthwhile building a 2/3. I think a 1/3 would suffice, namely because the 1400$ in upgrading to Banana Plantation won't be recouped in the first collection cycle and actually result in a loss of ~400$. Unless you plan on having the 2/3 around for two collection cycles (10 rounds), it's not worth it. Even as a stepping stone, it would be a loss in money after one cycle. In the case of the Advisory, the 2/4 is indeed better. Also, in either instance of a 2/3 or 2/4, you do have the advantage of collecting a round earlier, so that's maybe an ameliorating factor worth considering.

In response to the *bottom line* remarks, I would not phrase the Monkey Banks as "decent stepping stones;" I would call them undesirable, because a 3/0 should be better in every case if you account for the cost of the upgrade. A 2/3 needs 10 rounds to pay for itself; a 3/0 only needs ~6. An actual profit advantage won't even show up until the third collection cycle. A 3/0 or 3/2 should be better. The exception is when you don't have a tier 4 upgrade and are forced to sit around for 15 - 17 rounds with a Monkey Bank. Even then, it shouldn't be worth it for two reasons:

1. It's highly doubtful the match will even last that long.

2. Because you can build the 3/0 faster due to its lower initial investment, your time and money will be better spent maxing out 3/0's, followed by upgrading them to 3/2's, rather than trying to force 2/3's.

If you have time at the end of the match, you may consider converting your Republics to Banks, but the payoff will take another 20 rounds to be worthwhile. This is because the profit per round of a 3/2 is 144$ less than a 2/3; however, the cost of replacing a 3/2 with a 2/3 is 2880$ (selling the 3/2 and building a 2/3). This comes out to 20 rounds for the superior profits of a 2/3 to pay off for the replacements. These 20 rounds wouldn't be worth initiating of course until after you have built the maximum number of 3/2's available.

I'll now attempt to show it's just the opposite case for Advisories, which is why I disagree with the bottom line for Advisory as well.

For tier 4, we have the following results:

Propagate refers to the minimum number of rounds it must exist before it generates enough cash to build a second one. The banks can propagate once after 5 rounds (except 0/4 isn't quite there), but if you wait 8 rounds, then you can collect and build two straight away. This double propagation is available after 7 rounds for the 2/4, if you build two 0/4's.

After 5 rounds with a 4/2, you can build a second 4/2. The deciding factor will be how much sooner the lower cost of the 2/4 allows it to be built than the 4/2.

Let's say you build a 2/4 two rounds before building a 4/2. This means after 5 more rounds, the advisory will have generated 27.5k, enough to build two 0/4's. Meanwhile, the 4/2 would have generated enough money to build a second 4/2. You now face the proposition of having either three Advisories after 7 total rounds or two Research Facilities. The Advisories grant greater profit, even if they are only 0/4. So, assuming the lower cost of the 2/4 facilitates building it two rounds earlier than the 4/2, you are better off maxing your collection of Advisories before converting to 4/2's.

For the time scale of Monkey City matches, even the extended ones for CT, I don't think this conversion will ever be practically feasible. The difference in average reward between a 4/2 and a 2/4 is about 600$ per round. A 4/2 costs 23400$. You gain 12720$ from selling a 2/4. The price difference is 23400 - 12720 = 10680$. This is the amount you would need to invest to replace a 2/4 with a 4/2. After building the 4/2, you would need to play for an additional 10680 / 600 = 18 rounds to repay the amount invested. These 18 rounds would come after you have finished building all your 2/4's.

But this might be irrelevant because I am not sure there is a scenario where the 2/4 is available two rounds before the 4/2, since the price difference between a 0/4 and a 4/0 is actually pretty small. If you have six 2/0's and save for ~two rounds, you can build a 2/4, assuming you earn 1500$ from bloon kills each round. If you wait a third round, you get an additional 2340 from your farms, and with bloon kills you should actually have enough for the 4/0.

Another point maybe worth making is that the profit difference of 3 Advisories vs. 2 Research Facilities is 2700$ per round, or about 50% of the Research Facility. Even if you were to build the Advisory one round more quickly than a Research Facility, I'm not sure you'd be worse off.

This is similar to what I did before, only with my wrong numbers I came out to four rounds minimum. Hopefully, the numbers and analysis are right this time! At any rate, I would disagree with the bottom line for Monkey Bank being a decent stepping stone and the bottom line for Advisory being to always stop at one. If the Advisory was worth building in the first place, then you should shoot for building as many as possible.