Is it profitable to roll 3rd edition dCity cards? Let's buy 1000 and find out!

I have been thinking about trying this again for awhile, but then I got totally embroiled in the new citizens and experimentation stuff, even making two different hive-engine tokens. So that sas November and now getting back into some more regular play - could it be profitable to roll dCity 3rd edition cards?

Well I have saved up 800,000 SIM to test it out, we will calculate the EVs and see how I do, and we will talk about why its so important to have buying new cards for SIM be perceived as a smart economic decision in dCity (and any game).

In order to really know what we get with so many, first must take a look at what we have, I can take a screen shot to make this easier. Then we can compare the same screenshot after the purchase like so:

---

These are the cards of 3rd edition, and they all have predetermined drop rates to make this easier. Let's make a table so this is all easy to see and laid out properly:

Name	Expected %	EV(1000)	Start	Finish	Difference	Skew
Construction Site	20%	200	1733	1925	192	-8
Office	10%	100	742	838	96	-4
Barracks	10%	100	401	499	98	-2
Power Line	7%	70	656	730	74	+4
Train Station	5%	50	746	805	59	+9
Parking	4%	40	44	82	38	-2
Ice Cream Shop	5%	50	39	95	56	+6
Pizzeria	5%	50	116	183	67	+17
Barber Shop	4%	40	24	56	32	-8
Church	5%	50	590	636	46	-4
Warehouse	0.1%	1	1	3	2	+1
Prison	0.1%	1	14	15	1	-
Fire Department	5%	50	581	635	54	+4
Constr. Company	1%	10	145	154	9	-1
SpaceSIM	0.1%	1	13	14	1	-
Spa	1.2%	12	179	187	8	-4
Military Base	0.5%	5	70	76	6	+1
Court	2%	20	310	327	17	-3
Music Store	5%	50	94	151	57	+7
Car Dealership	4%	40	291	328	37	-3
TV Station	2%	20	317	332	15	-5
Graveyard	3%	30	464	494	30	-
Ruins	1%	10	22	27	5	-5

Okay so that table took a lot longer to make than I thought! But my initial impression is that we did pretty well compared to the Expected Value, what we need now is another table to analyze the prices for both the expected and the resultant, and see if there is any paper profits!

I'll see you after the next table for more analysis.

Name	Market Price	EV(1000)	Total EV(1000)	My Roll	Total(My Roll)
Construction Site	110 SIM	200	22000	192	21120
Office	879 SIM	100	87900	96	84384
Barracks	750 SIM	100	75000	98	73500
Power Line	499 SIM	70	34930	74	36926
Train Station	685 SIM	50	34250	59	40415
Parking	799 SIM	40	31960	38	30362
Ice Cream Shop	650 SIM	50	32500	56	36400
Pizzeria	666 SIM	50	33300	67	44622
Barber Shop	745 SIM	40	29800	32	23840
Church	1675 SIM	50	83750	46	77050
Warehouse	79500 SIM	1	79500	2	159000
Prison	41500 SIM	1	41500	1	41500
Fire Department	597 SIM	50	29850	54	32238
Construction Company	1475 SIM	10	14750	9	13275
SpaceSIM	33000 SIM	1	33000	1	33000
Spa	1249 SIM	12	14988	8	9992
Military Base	26000 SIM	5	130000	6	156000
Court	1100 SIM	20	22000	17	18700
Music Store	790 SIM	50	39500	57	45030
Car Dealership	795 SIM	40	31800	37	29415
TV Station	1999 SIM	20	39980	15	29985
Graveyard	339 SIM	30	10170	30	10170
Ruins	995 SIM	10	9950	5	4975
Totals:	-	1000	962378 SIM	1000	1051899 SIM

---

Wow! So as we can see from the chart, the Expected Value (EV) of rolling 1000 cards is over 960k SIM, which means the EV of rolling any card is better than +20%! This is great news, and you should all be rolling, we will talk about this in a second.

We can also see here that I personally did even better than the EV with a whopping 1.05M SIM in value, or 131.4% of what I spent.

Why is it so important to roll cards?

Rolling new cards is the original and most important SIM sink. As we continue to watch the SP float - trying to limit the excessive printing which forces players to play towards tax-rebate meta strategies (which also burn SIM) - it can only help to notice and celebrate that the number one SIM sink is profitable right now!

According to the stats, we are growing in SIM POWER by 1.3 Million SIM each day currently. I would like to see that at least trending back towards zero if I can help it before my presidential reign ends.

I hope that players consider buying a card or more with their income because it just could be your lucky day by landing a Military Base or a Warehouse. These are rare, true, other nice wins would be the a church, spa or TV station. You can also lose out with some other cards, true, maybe rolling new cards is for the big boys....

You hear that big boys?

I want to see that printer spinning overtime! Let's get to work 😅

Taxes

We opened up recently to around 4%, I am slowly restricting that back again over time. Its kind of fun to watch the numbers change. One number that has not changed is the War Tax Lobby. I'm not sure if I should be miffed or muffed but the one number I said several times I would like to see grow...has not.

So in kind, I have lowered the War Tax another point, to 3%. If you guys really want war, show me. Otherwise maybe its time to wrap up the whole thing and bring our boys home.

I have also switched from Education Tax to Creativity Tax! Enjoy the bonus background mining chances for the next several days :) The police tax remains on, although we might unfund them for a day or two over the next week just to check our crime numbers.

We are now down to about 1.38% Tax Free Income with Law Firm (TFILF), what do you guys think about these tax levels? When was the last time you rolled new 3rd edition cards?

Let me know what you think for an upvote!

Freedom and Friendship