mattfish

In finance, net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) are two common methods to help determine whether/which projects should be taken on from a cost-benefit perspective. Specifically, these methods rank all investment alternatives in order of best "bang for the buck", or help you determine if a project you're considering makes any economic sense at all. I've always found it interesting to think about the best deal I can get for the simoleons I've saved up, whether for an addition to a city or an upgrade to services provided. I've found multiple spreadsheets online that (attempt to) help players find a balance in RCI demand and employment, but has anyone seen any spreadsheets or algorithms out there attempting to calculate in-game NPVs or IRRs, or data collections of values for some of the inputs required for making building/upgrading decisions in this fashion (tile cost, revenue per tile, payout frequencies, etc.)? Aside from the obvious, such as the gameplay speed, RCI demand, and disasters, what hurdles do you think I'd encounter in attempting to create usable models for estimating the value of hypothetical simoleon investments? Thank you for any help you can provide!

Thank you for your insight and references, MagicChicken! Unlike RCI demand calculators, an NPV/IRR calculator would be merely providing estimates used for ranking potential projects and justifying the plopping and maintenance costs associated with a project; thus, if all potential projects deal with the same macro issues (i.e. timing of export cash flows, traffic congestion, etc.), a simple way to think about it is that they can be negated when determining which project is the best. Perhaps a table of constant multipliers on specific projects can be applied based on exposure to specific macro variables would be the next step once the basic fundamentals are ironed out, allowing for a quasi-accurate future value to be estimated.

What guides are you referring to? I've been working on something similar. RCI demand balance has always been a critical element to success in every game in the SimCity franchise, but given the most recent iteration's city size restrictions, optimizing space and resources has never been more important. Perhaps equally as critical as RCI demand being in balance is the marginal revenue and costs associated with additional zoning, whether they stem from new shoppers, or more services and road tiles being required. Here is my post on calculating marginal value added:

Don't forget: you can shut off the unprofitable towers until you think you've raised land value or built up demand enough to support them, preventing you from going totally bankrupt while you try to diagnose the problem. You can get a quick read of what is likely to happen in the next few game hours by reading the comments of your tenants on each level (i.e. "We love it here!" is a good indication that profits in that level are on the rise).

In finance, net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) are two common methods to help determine whether/which projects should be taken on from a cost-benefit perspective. Specifically, these methods rank all investment alternatives in order of best "bang for the buck", or help you determine if a project you're considering makes any economic sense at all. I've always found it interesting to think about the best deal I can get for the simoleons I've saved up -- whether for an addition to a city, or an upgrade to services provided -- especially given SimCity's 2013 city size constraints. I've found multiple spreadsheets online that (attempt to) help players find a balance in RCI demand and employment, but has anyone seen any spreadsheets or algorithms out there attempting to calculate in-game NPVs or IRRs, or data collections of values for some of the inputs required for making building/upgrading decisions in this fashion (tile cost, revenue per tile, payout frequencies, etc.)? Aside from the obvious, such as the gameplay speed, RCI demand, and disasters, what hurdles do you think I'd encounter in attempting to create usable models for estimating the value of hypothetical simoleon investments? Thank you for any help you can provide!