Does anyone else use spreadsheets to compare game elements?

Grid2finish,

Yes. I have a book of seven spreadsheets that track everything:

Assets: buildings/road upgrades/simoleans/simcash/trade/taxes, Growth: population/population forecast/wealth per person/taxes per person, Experience: points per level, points per person, Level, Keys, City Services: city services forecast, Production: pricing/critical path, Raw data (time vs. $'s per hour) and so on.

These tools have helped me immensely but should be a necessity for all game players because of EA's constant and on going obstacles concerning game play.

If I could secretly say this without EA changing the rules to place more restraints upon us: Level 35, 400K Sims, 1.45 million Simoleans, 205 Simcash, no hacks, not one dime spent with EA.

So like you Grid2finish, I have also been in manufacturing for over 40 years (Just gave away my age) and while that knowledge is valuable SImcity Buildit needs other characteristics applied to the game scenario as well as manufacturing. Those being of: commonsense and creativity.

I have “re-organized” my larger city three times to see if I could tweak out just a little more Sim population by placing the big ticket items in the center of their “world”. Kind of like the book I read many years ago: Muddling Towards Frugality. In this book; the author talks about urban development that takes place as mentioned above by having: Schools, Churches, Shopping, Entertainment and Jobs all centered in close proximities to the population. So in fact we as players should set up our cities with many “centers” so that we can drive up the population near those centers. (Buildings now show population potential when moving)

And while having said that we as city planners need to have city services and road infrastructure in place BEFORE people move in. This sets the foundation of your cities happiness and you’re success as Mayor.

I use the spreadsheets to forecast city services by:

City Service Demand ÷ Current Population = City Service per Person

Then take this value:

City Service per Person * City Service Capacity = Population Forecast

This helped me track the needed city services to keep Sims happy in the early stages of the game. Now I could double my population (currently at 400,000) without spending another Simolean dollar on city services. You can even apply this method for Fire, Police and Health by using “the cost per area” to see which building is more cost effective for your city.

This is the “commonsense and creativity” side of the game. Using these ideals as a foundation will help you concentrate on the “business/manufacturing” side of the game without having to worry about them.

For the business side: I would suggest for everyone get to know the “theoretical maximum value” of every product that you can manufacture within your city. This “TMV” is the highest price you can sell a product for on the GTHQ. Then when the “in game offer bubbles” pop up you can make a decision to accept or to decline that offer based on your knowledge of this pricing. I always decline if under the TMV, period. You can always sell it for the maximum price on the GTHQ's anyway.

Food for thought here: if an offer comes up, let’s say 10 Cement for $5,940 and you do not have the items in stock, don’t extinguish the bubble. Try to buy them on the GTHQ’s and then accept the offer. Why? Because you can make Simoleans off of items that you do not have in stock. Economically, if you look at the TMV for the 10 cement; which is $4,400, a sell price at $5,940 (if you waited) this is 35% over the TMV. Even if you had spent the full TMV amount for the item on the GTHQ's that equates to a profit of $1,540 Simoleans for products not in your cities storage. I cannot tell you how many times this scenario has played out in my city. Offers of profits are not that un-common but 38% has been about the highest. Even if you “make” a 10% profit over the TMV on your production items that’s better than selling them on the GTHQ’s. (EA keep your hands off of this game plan)

Humbly speaking; I’m sure there are many power players engaging in this kind of commerce. I’m not the only one. And of course if you do have the items in your city storage then use this “cat and mouse” plan to make the most off your products. Never sell below the TMV.

I have had great success with fast producing items to make needed Simoleans to pay for EA’s new theme of road upgrades. In fact I have spent $500,200 for this useless idea since 5/19/2015. That’s $33,346.67 Simoleans per day for this absurdity. I would tell every one of these “fast items” but fear EA will change that somehow.

As a final thought this time around, the new feature of the game is if you are at the GTHQ’s looking for an item to purchase, don’t forget to “pop” that opinion bubble when visiting another city. I have received many “valuable items” that can be used for building upgrades or be sold for Simoleans and they do not count against your maximum city storage when collected.