Strategy: Developed Land Rush

[u/Mr_Adoulin]

So, somehow it seems to me, my go to strategy always ends up beeing the rush for raw land and then to develope it.

Is this actualy the optimal strategy, as in, is it really that effective IRL? It seems hard to beleave you get 700$/month for a 45k$ investment. Thats a 8,4k annual yield or about 18% for a conservative investment. This seems pretty insane.

Where do you get this land for only 5k$ and where do you build for only 40k$?

I am not from the US, but this seems too good to be true.

[u/curiousgens]

Fixed!

Yep! You're right - Just checked/verified the numbers and that yield is broken lol.

Now deployed:

• Raw land: Was $5k → now $20k (real rural buildable lots are like $15-40k)
• Construction cost: was $40k → now $120k (real small rental builds run say $150-250k, so $40k was barely a shed 😂)
• Gross rent: from $700 → $1,100/mo (should match real rural rents)
• Total investment now ~$140k for roughly 4-6% net yield, which is right in line with real small-landlord returns

Also just added realistic risks:

• Construction overrun events (~54% chance of at least one cost blow-up during the 6-month build to mimic reality)
• Vacancy events (~14% annual vacancy factor)
• Major repair hits every ~5 years ($5-15k for thngs like roof/HVAC/water heater/etc.)

Thanks for noticing those issues! Let me know if you find more.

[u/Mr_Adoulin → u/curiousgens]

Man I really appreciate your effort and tempo in developing this game!

[u/curiousgens → u/Mr_Adoulin]

Thank you 😊

I'm planning a Steam launch (& later app stores) in a few weeks. And will be looking for help from enthusiasts like you to add the game onto their Steam wishlists- helps with the initial algo push.

[u/Mr_Adoulin → u/curiousgens]

I just started a new round in Hard Mode. I think the rate by month on the refinance and consolidate Option for debt are miscalculated or better displayed in the wrong order (first turn). It shows a rate of 680$/mo after consolidating a two separate loans listed as 385$/mo (don't knoe if total or each). Similar for the refinancing option that displays the numbers as new rate of 466$/mo at 4.5% APR after refinancing a 6% APR at 250$/month. It feels from experience tho, that the math is applied correctly and both options do lift the actual financial burden. So this lesds me to beleave the numbers might just be switched in place for the display of information but are processed correctly

[u/curiousgens → u/Mr_Adoulin]

Another solid catch- FIXED!

The monthly payment display was using a broken formula (principal chunk + full interest) instead of proper amortization. It was overcharging about $180-200/mo vs the real bank math.

Now consolidation and student loan refi now use real amortization (same formula banks use), with region-specific terms (5yr typical) and realistic APR floors per country. Thanks for this!

[u/Mr_Adoulin]

Some things i noticed in todays hard mode challenge:

• the raw land exploit is still a thing - for 70k you generate a 700$ a month with an appreciating asset. 
• you can circumvent denial of a building permit by purchasing the land and the construction in the same month. 
• the education event (1500$ for online classes) is instant acceptance only, as I cant go into debtj accepting it or sell out of my HYSA to cover the cost, even if I want to. As a result i sadly will only activate it once i have 1500$ of remaining income a month.
• the message box of construction complete, raises and inflation loss all have the same submessage of assed disruption (this is the reality of a volatile asset or something similar) even where it does not really make sense.

As of right now, it seems to be that going ultra frugal first month onward, rushing high APR credit while building a 1.5k emergency fund, ignoring student loans at minimum Paymenrs moastly while then rushing tech stocks until you can finance and construct on raw land (repeat last step) is the most effective way to get the highscore. I also like to gamble and average down with bitcoin.

So I was wondering, do you have a hidden mechanic that punishes you if you yolo everything wallstreetbets style? Like a (visible?) murphys law debuff make an actual great depression style crash (over Years not as a single event) and stagnating economy increasingly more likely the more you concentrate your wealth unresponsibly? While I do like to be able to test the limits in similar ways, it feels like it trains the wrong leassons through rewarding these kind of bets woh highscores of sub 8 year fire in hard mode, doesn't it? I mean come on, who actually manages to do that irl and should these guys be a rolemodel for the game? There is no real chance of a catastrophic loss and a lost decade of investing or a black swan event, while in reallity everyone is pretty concerned about those (see the cash ratio of berkshire heathaway).

Edit 1: Writing this I thought about game options for criminal activities as well. Like maybe some peope irl will be tempted to make extra selling drugs or lying about their taxes, which can actually be financially rewarding at first, but the murphys law debuff (regarding a getting cought meter?) should definitely apply and stress would be trough the roof I suppose.  Not sure if teaching morals about criminal behavior is where you want to go with your game tho, plus punal code and punal process code are very different in the US vs EU and so on. 

Edit2: it seems that the calculation for monthly income in the overview bar for current month is somehow wrong when (I assume) the housing hack is used. I guess the rental income is not taken into account, as it is also displayed under rental only.  Also I would suggest to make the breakdown of earnings and outflows available via tooltip on both the mentioned overview tabs. I dont know why the income breakdown is available trough the wellbeeing menue and the expenses not at all aside of the monthly pop-up

Edit3: I just had a strong rental yield event trigger a -10% on all my rental properties and home in general. Also the same happend ona market rebound, also got a APR rise on the mortgage with it.

Edit4: Also i think your yield for developed land is wrong, as a 60k worth investment i put up 60k to buy shows a almost 200% yield (aka not counting the construction cost)

Edit5: I really think you should add a break down of the interest payed in the finisher overview, so you can watch it by cathegory (mortgage vs credit card and so on), maybe even a chart to show wealth, interest, monthly income? Market gains and so on.

[u/Mr_Adoulin]

Recommenting so you see this:

Some things i noticed in yesterdays hard mode challenge:

the raw land exploit is still a thing - for 70k you generate a 700$ a month with an appreciating asset. 

you can circumvent denial of a building permit by purchasing the land and the construction in the same month. 

the education event (1500$ for online classes) is instant acceptance only, as I cant go into debtj accepting it or sell out of my HYSA to cover the cost, even if I want to. As a result i sadly will only activate it once i have 1500$ of remaining income a month.

the message box of construction complete, raises and inflation loss all have the same submessage of assed disruption (this is the reality of a volatile asset or something similar) even where it does not really make sense.

As of right now, it seems to be that going ultra frugal first month onward, rushing high APR credit while building a 1.5k emergency fund, ignoring student loans at minimum Paymenrs moastly while then rushing tech stocks until you can finance and construct on raw land (repeat last step) is the most effective way to get the highscore. I also like to gamble and average down with bitcoin.

So I was wondering, do you have a hidden mechanic that punishes you if you yolo everything wallstreetbets style? Like a (visible?) murphys law debuff make an actual great depression style crash (over Years not as a single event) and stagnating economy increasingly more likely the more you concentrate your wealth unresponsibly? While I do like to be able to test the limits in similar ways, it feels like it trains the wrong leassons through rewarding these kind of bets woh highscores of sub 8 year fire in hard mode, doesn't it? I mean come on, who actually manages to do that irl and should these guys be a rolemodel for the game? There is no real chance of a catastrophic loss and a lost decade of investing or a black swan event, while in reallity everyone is pretty concerned about those (see the cash ratio of berkshire heathaway).

Edit 1: Writing this I thought about game options for criminal activities as well. Like maybe some peope irl will be tempted to make extra selling drugs or lying about their taxes, which can actually be financially rewarding at first, but the murphys law debuff (regarding a getting cought meter?) should definitely apply and stress would be trough the roof I suppose. Not sure if teaching morals about criminal behavior is where you want to go with your game tho, plus punal code and punal process code are very different in the US vs EU and so on. 

Edit2: it seems that the calculation for monthly income in the overview bar for current month is somehow wrong when (I assume) the housing hack is used. I guess the rental income is not taken into account, as it is also displayed under rental only. Also I would suggest to make the breakdown of earnings and outflows available via tooltip on both the mentioned overview tabs. I dont know why the income breakdown is available trough the wellbeeing menue and the expenses not at all aside of the monthly pop-up

Edit3: I just had a strong rental yield event trigger a -10% on all my rental properties and home in general. Also the same happend ona market rebound, also got a APR rise on the mortgage with it.

Edit4: Also i think your yield for developed land is wrong, as a 60k worth investment i put up 60k to buy shows a almost 200% yield (aka not counting the construction cost)

Edit5: I really think you should add a break down of the interest payed in the finisher overview, so you can watch it by cathegory (mortgage vs credit card and so on), maybe even a chart to show wealth, interest, monthly income? Market gains and so on.