Guide to improvements

Background to improvements

Improvements are available each time an additional 1,000 citizens is acquired. Citizen numbers can be increased by the resources available, on a temporary basis (a month) from events or from purchasing infrastructure.

Improvements are not lost in wars, although you can destroy them yourself. If you destroy an improvement, you do not get back any of the cash you purchased it with.

Improvements provide benefits to the nation, but also have a daily tax, which starts out at $500 per improvement but does rise as more improvements are added, up to $3,000.

Improvements provide different benefits. They fall into the following categories

• Increasing income
• Decreasing costs
• Increasing population (some will give other benefits but decrease population as a consequence)
• Increasing happiness (some will give other benefits but decrease happiness as a consequence)
• Military benefits
• Special (Harbor gives an extra trade slot and Foreign Ministry gives an extra aid slot)

Details of the improvements and their costs are found at this link. http://www.cybernations.net/about_topics.asp#Improvements

You can generally purchase up to 5 of each improvement, except for:

• Harbor, Foreign Ministry and Hospital - limited to 1 each
• Universities - limited to 2

If more than 1 improvement is purchased the benefits they give are stacked - ie added together (example: banks give +7% income, so 2 banks give +14% income). The extra income % is applied to the base income - ie income without these multipliers

Different improvements that increase income are compounded (example: banks give +7% income and a school gives +5% income, so 1 bank and 1 school will give 1.07 * 1.05 = 1.1235, or 12.35% increase - ie the increase is greater than just adding them together (the effect of which is significant when dealing with multiple improvements).

What improvements to choose?

First improvement

The best choice for the first improvement will be the Harbor - this allows an extra trade slot, giving you access to 2 extra resources. The benefits from these 2 extra resources in addition to getting bonus resources should outweigh the benefits of any other improvement

The next improvements

The principle of choosing improvements after the harbor is simple - what maximizes income (whether by increasing income, by lowering costs or by getting the most value from aid funds).

If you are a tech dealer, you will want to buy a Foreign Ministry so that you can earn roughly $1.8million more each cycle by opening up a fifth aid slot.

Otherwise, after a harbor the choice is usually between factories, banks and stadiums. The reason is simple - banks give the highest income increase (+7%), and factories lower infrastructure purchase costs (-8%) and stadiums give +3 happiness (which equates to +$6 income, increased by multipliers such as banks). At the early stages - infra is the primary target as this determines population, which determines income, which determines growth. So again, if you are a tech dealer, buy five factories now because most of your income will come through aid transactions, but if you do not sell tech (a mistake), then you should be buying banks or standiums.

Depending on resources, income levels, aid levels and expected spending (as not everything goes on infra) a bank, factory or stadium will usually be the best choice after the harbor - to find out which will be best you need a calculator (ie work it out).  Aid levels make a difference as this is not generated by income levels but is simply there to be spent, so maximizing the value for money is important.

The maths: First you should look at your income levels and divide by the multiplier. Since harbors give a 1% boost, if you had one harbor you would have a multiplier of 1.01. If you had one bank, the multiplier would be 1.07 (7%). Having both, it is 1.01 * 1.07 = 1.087.

As previously mentioned, same improvements multipliers stack, so two banks and one harbor gives you 1.14 * 1.01 which gives 1.1514. Now, take your income per day, and divide by your current multiplier for banks. Say the income is $130.00 and you have one bank and one harbor. $130 / (1.07*1.01) =  $120.29. This is your income unmodified by banks. To see how much your income will increase if you buy a bank, multiply your base income by 0.07. In this case, one bank will give you an increase of $8.42. Compare this to a stadium.

One stadium gives you +3 happiness, which equates to +$6 * (multiplier) income. Your multiplier is 1.0807 (1.01*1.07). So, 1.0807 * $6 = $6.48. The bank gives you more income at this time. Buy a bank.

If you have significant aid cash (significant in relation to earnings) then factories may make sense as you are simply going to spend a lot on infra and can benefit enormously from the lower cost.

The Foreign Ministry is a special case and may be needed early if you are planning to make money from the extra aid slot (eg if you are running a tech shop or a bank).

Other improvements

After the harbor/factories/banks/stadiums - the principle of maxing income remains the same - (buying a guerilla camp at an early stage because you get more soldiers is the sure way to stunt your nation and watch it get bypassed by everybody else).

Each time - work out what is best given your resource mix, population size and the multiplier effect of improvements. Some examples:

• A Stadium gives +3 happiness. This gives +6 to base income, but more with banks (assume 2 banks, which is +14% income and a harbor so +1% to income). With a tax rate of 28% (which everyone should have...) the stadium would usually be worth +$6 * 28% = $1.68 per person per day. However, with other improvements this would equate to +6 * 28% * (1.14) * (1.01) $1.93 per person in taxes, every day. The question to ask is whether this would give you more or less than adding another bank - if it gives more, get it and if it gives less get the bank

• A clinic increases population by 2%. This will immediately increase the income by 2% (and help get closer to the next improvement, but only by a small amount). The "value" of the 2% will depend on the income levels - work out if this is worthwhile. The increase in population itself is usually so small in the early stages that the number of additional people it gives is less valuable than getting a higher income.

The best advice is to work through the improvements (5 at a time if this is the best result) that give the maximum benefit, then move to those with less benefits, then less etc. Eventually you will have (in no particular order) all the factories, banks, schools, universities, clinics, hospitals, churches and intelligence agencies, police headquarters, stadiums as well as the harbor and foreign ministry. Labor camps are special use (see below) as are military improvements (see below)

Border walls should be considered much like other improvements - what is the net benefit. Generally, they are not very useful. The +2 happiness and +1 environment are good, but is outweighed by the -2% population. At the early stages, although the -2% is not so significant there are other improvements that give more than border walls. When the other improvements have been acquired, the -2% can be significant. They are unlikely to be very beneficial.

Military improvements

Leave them to later (a lot later - if ever). Satellite systems and Missile Defense are useless to you in the early stages as you will not be buying cruise missiles and will not be attacked by someone who has them. Even when you get into this range of nations, income generating improvements far outweigh any improvements that have marginal value and only when at war. Once the economic improvements are obtained, you can buy Satellite systems and Missile defence each time you need them (ie war).

Improvements such as the barracks are misleading because the other economic improvements will let you achieve the same by buying soldiers when you need them.

Guerilla camps lower income a great deal. If these are ever used to boost soldier numbers it should only be when you have collected taxes and are about to go to war. To be able to do this you need the funds available and the improvement slots to freely buy and delete improvements - ie you need to be a significant nation. The surest sign of someone who does not understand CN is a guerilla camp in a smaller nation.

Labor camps

Labor camps lower the infra upkeep cost (the main cost in bills at higher infra levels) but also lower happiness by -1 (so lower income). However, once you get to daily infra upkeep bills of over $1,500,000, the saving on this cost is more than the cost of the labor camp ($150,000). One possibility this gives is to delete the labor camps before collecting to get the happiness back, then buy them again before paying bills. This is more effective if you pay 2 days bills at the same time as you only have to buy the labor camps once in 2 days (but not more than 2 days as if bills are unpaid for over 2 days you cannot buy anything until they are paid)

Depending on specific circumstances, it may also be beneficial to "improvement swap" - ie delete the labor camps before collections and then buy 5 new improvements that increase happiness, collect on the higher income levels for 2 days and then delete these improvements to buy labor camps again. To know if this is worthwhile - you need to work it out!

An Improvement Build Order

This is a possible improvement purchase order. Generally, you will buy improvements in this order, but please take the time to do some maths to ensure the greatest result for your nation.
1 Harbor
5 Factories, 5 Banks, and 5 Stadiums (order chosen by checking the maths. It may be best to buy factories successively, as their benefits stack while banks alter the affects of stadiums.)
3 Schools
2 Universities
2 Clinics
1 Hospital
1 Foreign Ministry (might be needed earlier in special cases such as tech shops. buy the Foreign Ministry second, after the harbor, in this case)
2 Schools/3 Clinics/5 Police Headquarters (order depends on which gives the most benefit - do the maths)
5 Churches and 5 Intelligence agencies (order does not matter as they give the same benefits)

Labor camps are a special case - see above. Same with Border walls - only after the other improvements and only if they make sense