在前两篇文章中，我探讨了《CityVille》中的房屋建造和装饰物经济学。（请点击此处阅读本系列第4篇）

但是，有个元素仍未被顾及，那就是玩家如何在能量有限的情况下做出游戏选择。这正是第3篇博文的主题：如何高效率地玩游戏。

玩家每5分钟可以获得1点能量。无论你是否登录游戏，能量都会随时间增长，其最大值与你的等级相关。1级时最大能量值为12点左右，随着等级逐渐提升，能量最大值逐渐升至30点。

规则1——设定登录时间计划

在玩《CityVille》时，你需要周期性地登录游戏并操作。你需要做出的首个决定是登录游戏的频率。就个人而言，我觉得每天2次，每次10分钟正合适。这意味着，在玩过1次游戏后，我会等待8小时后再进入游戏。之所以制定这样的时间计划，部分原因是其与我的日常生活时间相契合，但主要原因在于8小时的等待时间可以让建筑和作物的循环效率最大化。因而每次登陆我都能收获建造的建筑和作物。

但是有时我需要做点其他的事情，比如建造新建筑或开展某些特别项目。在这种情况下，我会在常规登录的等待期间额外添加登录次数。在常规登录两个小时后，大部分能量恢复，便足够我建造新的建筑。而且，在我的下次常规登录时，能量值依然能够回满。为满足特殊需求而打破常规的房屋租金和商店盈利收集计划会打乱游戏进程，因而你需要尽量恪守时间计划，只在特殊的时候做出改变。这就类似于保持家中的清洁，即便在家中召开聚会，洗盘子和洗衣等常规保洁工作也不可被遗忘和推迟。

错误1——偏爱商店而回避房屋

人们犯的首个大错误就是，点击那些表现较差的房屋和商店。每次登录游戏后的点击次数是有限的。Upscale Condos和Country Homes确实能够显著提升金币每小时的产出量，但是它们需要消耗大量的金币和能量。除非你有大量的能量可供浪费，或者你每天每小时登录游戏并坚持1年时间，否则你应当坚持建造Terraced Brownstones。

许多人会点击那些早期建造的表现较差的房屋，而有些人主张不收集房屋的租金。这是个值得商榷的想法，因为游戏的能量机制决定你需要在每次登录时找到足够的事情来花费这30点能量。

Sushi Bars的金币产出率最高，110个货物可以换得605个金币。这个产出率是Terraced Brownstone的4倍，但是获得这些货物会让你付出更多的成本。你可以从火车处用4个金币的单价购买货物（游戏邦注：最低的兑换率）或以栽种豌豆的方法以1.8货物/金币的兑换率（游戏邦注：最高的兑换率）获得货物。让我们来研究下上述这些情况：

如果用1200个金币从火车处购买300个货物，那么Sushi Bars的货物供给就需要花费440个金币和5分钟的等待时间。再等待5分钟左右，Sushi Bars的货物售光，点击后可获得605个金币。那么，在这个过程中，利润为165个金币。

如果你选择栽种豌豆或谷物，你只需要花费约62个金币，就可以实现Sushi Bar的货物供给。那么，你的利润为543个金币！但是这并非你的每能量利润，因为收获作物还需要1点能量。所以，你的每能量利润只有271.5。这比从火车处购买货物要划算得多，但是与收取房屋租金的利润差不多。栽种作物和供给商店确实能够让你获得更多金币，但是你需要付出更多精力才能实现这种利润的增加。

错误2——纵向而非横向发展

或许你曾经见过有些人使用付费道具让Tower Eats获得逾800%的增收，这是游戏中金币产出率最高的建筑。他们单次点击就可以获得8000个金币！

当然，这些人需要每5分钟登录游戏来获得点击的机会，而且他们需要不时管理货物收入。而且，刚开始他们还要花数百万金币来创造出这幅景象。

这些人做的就是最大化建筑（游戏邦注：通常是电影院或Tower Eats）盈利性的装饰奖励。但是他们只是将全部注意力放在单个地方，并没有利用游戏中的各种建筑，将城市构建成金币产出机器。我将此称为纵向发展，与之相对的是横向发展。

以下是我所建造的城市截图，采用的便是横向而非纵向发展：

CityVille(from strangedesign)

正如你所看到的那样，我只在左下角建造些许商店，多数是由好友提供的，只有些Sushi Bars是我自己建造的。剩下的全部是房屋，用最优化的装饰点缀。我每天登录游戏，只需要收集租金和那些Sushi Bars的盈利，就可以获得数十万金币。纵向发展较为简单且高效。

规则2——最大化装饰奖励，而不是建筑收入

为何我要将房屋排成整齐的列呢？因为这是最大化装饰奖励的最高效方法。每个Arboretum都可以为8个房屋提供加成，其加成值为16%，也就是说每个Arboretum的加成比例为128%。有些人将16个Arboretum放在单个商店旁边，使该商店获得256%的加成。但是，如果这16个Arboretum像我这样排成长列，那么提供的总加成比例为2048%！确实，这个比例分属于多个建筑，并没有集中于1个点。但是如果你只是想要赚取大笔金币的话，这是最高效的方法，而且还无需频繁登录游戏。

如果你掌握了用Arboretum加成8个建筑（游戏邦注：这些建筑的面积应为3X3）的技巧，那么使用Pink Flowers等2X2装饰来加成4个建筑就变得毫无意义了。

联合加成

那么，装饰会让商店和房屋间的相对价值发生何种改变呢？建造商店无疑有助于增加其金币产出率。如果你的Sushi Bar有128%的加成奖励，那么产出率就变为每能量660个金币。带有同等比例奖励的Terraced Brownstones的产出率为330个金币。换算成栽种和收获作物所需的额外能量，你能够让每次点击的收入翻倍。我建了个中型农场，它完全可以供给城市中6-8个商店的货物。扩展农场自然可以让产出量获得些许提升，但这只是个人偏好问题而已。需要记住，这种做法的目标并非尽可能地赚取更多金币，而是让产出与投入比例达到最高。最大化房屋的产出率以及让装饰加成影响到更多房屋，这可使你可以花最少的精力获取最大的回报。

专一化的好处

专注于某些类型的房屋和商店还有个好处，那就是你的收藏品（游戏邦注：收藏品在游戏中的掉落是随机的）获取速度很快，让你获得额外的经验值、能量和金币。当然，收集物品来换取金币确实显得有点事倍功半。从“City Living”收集中我可以得到3点经验值。我目前已经完成了逾200次收藏，这些奖励经验就可以让等级提升数次。而这正是因为我只建造高效的建筑类型，而不是在城市中建造各种各样的建筑。

个人偏好

当然，是否采用上述方法完全取决于个人爱好，或许你想要建设的是外观出众的城市，并非以盈利最大化为目标。这种情况完全有可能出现，我也支持你自己的选择。就个人而言，从美学体验上看，我更喜欢Blue Flowers这种1X1的装饰物，即便它们的成本较高。你或许会发现，我的城市中多数房屋面朝“错误的”方向。我在它们背后建造人行道，然后在房屋前面建造公路，然后我删除公路，于是看起来就像它们前面什么都没有。这些房屋仍然可通过背后的人行道连接起来，只是你看不到而已。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年4月26日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Considering: CityVille economics Part 3

I started by explaining which CityVille housing options were best and then discussing the best business and decoration options. (Update – I’ve written a 4th article! to update my charts & analysis)

But there is still one element missing – not about the choice players have for which building or business, but rather how to play the game in light of the scarcity of energy. So that’s what my third (and final?) post will be about – how to play the game efficiently and effectively.

You gain 1 energy every 5 minutes of real time. This builds whether or not you are logged in and playing the game, up to your maximum level. At level 1 your energy maximum is ~12 or so (I don’t recall anymore) and eventually it reaches 30.

The first rule – Setting a Schedule

In order to play CityVille, you need to periodically log in and do things. The first question you should decide for yourself is: How often will I log in? Personally, I find that 2 good sessions of 10 minutes is about right for me. This means that after playing, I typically wait 8 hours before playing again. Part of this is my schedule, but a lot of it is the fact that waiting 8 hours between sessions allows the most efficient buildings and crops to cycle fully. So each login allows me to collect from all of my optimally selected buildings.

But sometimes I have other things to do, like new buildings to construct, or some special-case project. In those cases, I add an extra login in between my regular sessions. Two hours after my regular session I have most of my energy back – plenty enough to build a few structures. And I’ll still have full energy again at my regular time. Interrupting your regular rent / business collections for special needs throws everything out of wack – so keep to your schedule, and do special things at special times. It’s like keeping your house clean – just because you have a special event doesn’t mean you put off the basics, like dishes & laundry.

The first mistake – eschewing housing in favor of businesses

The first big mistake people make is clicking on their poorly-performing houses and businesses. You only have a few clicks each time you log in, and clicking on something that is efficient only if you click on it every hour is going to sap your resources in no time flat. Yes, Upscale Condos and Country Homes are incredibly effective in terms of coins/per hour, but they are TERRIBLE in terms of coins/energy! Unless you somehow have gobs of energy to waste, or you’re a gold-farmer who literally logs in every 60 minutes every day for a year, you should really stick with Terraced Brownstones. Refer to my link at the top for the analysis which shows why this is so.

So many people go broke clicking on their early poor-performing houses, that many people actually advocate not collecting rent from your houses! This is a very bad idea, because the flip side of energy is that you need to have enough things to spend your 30 energy on each time you log in.

Sushi Bars have the best payouts per good – 605 coins for 110 goods. That’s 4x the payout of a Terraced Brownstone! Except that getting those goods actually cost you a lot more than that. You can buy goods for 4 coins each from the train (worst exchange rate) or get them at 1.8 good/coin from farming peas (best exchange rate). Let’s look at both of these cases:

If you buy 300 goods for 1200 coins using the train, you’ve spent 440 coins to supply your Sushi Bar, and spent 5 minutes waiting for it. Wait another 5 minutes or so for the Sushi Bar to give a payout, and click once to earn your 605 coins. Net profit? 165.

If you grow peas or corn, you spent just about 62 coins (slightly better for peas) getting the goods to supply your Sushi Bar. So your net profit is a whopping 543 coins! But that’s not your net profit per energy, because you spent 1 energy harvesting the crops. Your net profit per energy is just 271.5. That’s a bunch better than buying goods off the train, but it’s suddenly in the neighborhood of what you could earn just from rent. The extra effort of growing crops and supplying businesses CAN pay off, but you’re absolutely putting in a bunch of effort for that increase.

The second mistake – vertical growth instead of horizontal

Maybe you’ve seen that some people (with paid items) can get more than 800% increases to a Tower Eats – which is the biggest payoff building in the game. They earn 8000 coins a click!

Of course, they have to log in every 5 minutes to get that click, and they need to constantly manage their goods intake. Not to mention the millions of coins they spent to create that scenario in the first place.

What these people have done is to maximize the decoration bonus to their star earner – usually a cinema or Tower Eats. But they have put all of that effort into a single place, rather than spreading their attention around to making their entire city a powerhouse earning location. I call this vertical growth instead of horizontal growth.

Here’s a picture of my city – which has grown horizontally instead of vertically:

As you can see, I have just a few businesses in the bottom left corner – mostly franchises provided by my friends, plus a few Sushi Bars I built myself. The rest is just housing, lovingly interspersed with optimized decorations. I earn a few hundred thousand coins a day just logging in to collect my rents, and tapping those Sushi Bars. Easy, efficient, horizontal growth.

The second rule – maximize $/decoration, not $/building

Why are my houses laid out in neat rows? Because it’s the most efficient way to maximize my $/decoration. Each Arboretum touches exactly 8 houses. At 16% bonus each, that means I’m getting 128% payout for each Arboretum. People maximizing their bonuses sometimes advocate placing 16 Arboretums around a single business – giving that one business a 256% increase. But if all 16 of those were put to work in long rows – like I’ve done, you’re looking at a total increase of 2048%! Yes, it is spread across many buildings instead of being concentrated all in one spot – but that broad efficiency actually works in your favor if you just want to make tons of money, and not spend your life logged in to CityVille.

Once you’ve mastered the simple technique of covering 8 buildings (3×3 buildings only) with each Arboretum, it’s pretty trivial to see how you can use 2×2 decorations like Pink Flowers to cover 4 buildings each.

Combined Arms

So how do decorations change the relative worth of business vs. housing? Building up business bonuses absolutely helps increase their efficiency. If your Sushi Bar has 128% bonus on it, you end up getting almost 660 coins/energy. Terraced Brownstones with identical bonuses pay out just about 330. So in exchange for the extra effort of growing and harvesting crops, you can just about double your income/click. I have a modest farm (you can see it at the top of my screenshot) and it keeps my 6-8 businesses humming along well enough. If I were to expand it I could increase my production slightly – it’s really a matter of personal preference. Remember that the goal should not be to earn as much money as possible – but rather to earn as much money as you can with the level of investment you want to put into the game. Maximizing housing payouts and spreading your decoration bonuses between as many houses as possible gives you huge earnings for essentially no effort – you can grow from there.

Specialization has its rewards

The other benefit of specializing in just a few types of housing and businesses is that your collections (the random drops) will come quickly, and give you an alternate source of experience/energy/coins. (ok, the coin benefit of the collections is awful. Seriously not worth the effort.) I get 3 experience for my “City Living” collections. I’ve probably turned in 200 of them so far – that’s a few extra levels, just because I stuck with a single efficient building type, instead of spreading myself thin.

What’s wrong with all of this?

Of course, this may not be up your alley at all – maybe you want to build a good-looking city instead of maximizing your profits. That’s a totally valid style, and I support your right to choose it. I personally opted for all “Blue Flowers” for my 1×1 decorations, even though they cost a bit more – that was entirely an aesthetic decision. In fact, you may notice that most of my houses in that screen shore are facing the “wrong” way. I deliberately built a sidewalk behind them, then a road in front so that they would face the road – then I deleted the road, thus leaving them “facing” nothing. They are still connected via sidewalks in the back – but you can’t see that.

Please leave comments, and pass this information around. It always makes me a little sad to see so many people settling on a single solution, when there are so many viable alternatives. (Source: Strange Design)