_{Logo dcity owned by https://dcity.io/ - Font used is Open Source - edit by @libertycrypto27}

Hello hivers,
I started my adventure on dCity just over five months ago.
In these months I have received the following questions from several users and friends of Hive:

What is dCity?
Is it worth playing on dCity?
How much should I invest in dCity?
How much time does dCity take?

In this post I want to show you a practical example to make you understand the mechanism behind a game like dCity and to answer in a clear and simple way to the questions I have received until now from dear friends of Hive.

What is dCity

To answer the first question I report the definition that @gerber, the creator of dCity, gives to his game:

Dcity is mathematical and trading game based on non fungible tokens available on Hive-Engine. Players build their own cities with tokens representing buildings, citizens, technologies, and earn income in the form of hive (based on ranking) and SIM token (based on city income).

Players build their cities with tokens representing buildings, citizens, technologies, and earn income in the form of HIVE (based on the ranking) and SIM tokens (based on the city's income)*.

The address of the dCity website is: https://dcity.io/
The page with the main information is: https://dcity.io/info
I wrote a Tutorial on dCity, you can find it at the following address:
https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@libertycrypto27/dcity-tutorial-for-beginners

A simple practical example

To start building your city and start receiving income in SIM tokens you need to buy at least two types of cards:

cards that have the income attribute
cards that have the Population attribute

The Income attribute indicates the SIM token number that a card produces each day.

A card with the Income attribute always also has a Workers attribute.

The Workers attribute indicates the number of workers needed to allow the card to begin producing the Sim tokens indicated by the Income attribute.
So without the number indicated by the Workers attribute, the cards do not produce any income.

Cards that have the Population attribute satisfy the Workers attribute requirement.

For example, if I buy the card Restaurant

I will earn 10 SIM per day but only if I have a number of workers equal to 10.

To reach a number of workers equal to 10 I can buy, for example, one Basic Home card and two Luxury Home cards.

The three cards in the image above have the Population attribute and the total of the Population attribute values is 10 which corresponds to the number of Workers needed to allow the Restaurant card to produce 10 SIM tokens per day.

Is that clear?

How long will I recover the cost of purchasing the cards?

Now I evaluate costs and revenues and calculate the time needed to recover the cost incurred for the purchase of the 4 cards.

To do the calculations I need to know the quotation today of 1 HIVE and the value of 1 SIM in dollars (or HIVE).

Today 28 November 2020 the lowest price of card Restaurant is: 1023 SIM.

The card can also be purchased using SWAP.HIVE tokens but as you can see from the calculations in the next picture the most convenient purchase is obtained using SIM tokens.

I calculated the INCOME/$ ratio using the two payment methods and the best ratio is in favor of purchasing using SIM tokens.

I make the same calculations to evaluate the best purchase of Basic Home and Luxury Home cards.

As you can see from the calculations in the following image, it is also convenient to use SIM tokens when purchasing Basic Home and Luxury Home cards.

The total cost is 1407 SIM.

The sum of the value of the Income attributes of the four cards is 15 SIM (10+1+2+2) and so every day I will have 15 more SIM on my Hive Engine wallet.

If I divide 1407 SIM (total cost) by the daily gain in SIM (15) I get the result of 93.8.

In 93.8 days I will have recovered the total cost and from the next day I will only have profits.

NOTE:In the dCity game there is a variable that produces the decrease in income produced by cities: the taxes.
Taxes are decided by the governor of dCity who is a player voted by the other players.

The current governor is @d-pend, a very magnanimous governor who has set very low taxes (3.4%).

So the precise calculation to determine the break-even point is as follows:

1407 / (15 - 3,4%) =
= 1407 / 14,49 = 97,10

With current taxes at 3.4% and after 97.10 days, the total cost of purchase will be fully recovered and from the next day you will only have profits.

With taxes at 30% the days needed to recover the cost would become 134.

Conclusion

In this post I deliberately simplify the dCity game with a very simple example but there are many variables to consider before buying a card.
In fact there are cards that produce besides SIM other tokens (WEED and BEER for example)
There are technology cards that do not produce SIM but have the ability to modify the attributes of other cards.
There are cards, such as Bank, which have high Income attribute values but also produce negative effects (higher probability of theft).
There are many other fun aspects to consider and the strategic and investment choices on a game like dCity can be many different.

I hope that this post of mine is useful to those who asked me for advice about dCity, to those who have just started playing and to those who are simply curious to know the basic mechanisms behind a good game like dCity.

Important note:

dCity more than a game is an investment and mainly as such must be treated.
In every type of investment there is always a risk factor to evaluate and consider.

I am happy and satisfied to have invested in the dCity game but I cannot predict the future (unfortunately) and therefore this post of mine is not meant to be in any way an invitation to invest in dCity.

My previous post on dCity

Dcity: Tutorial for beginners (Jun 20, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@libertycrypto27/dcity-tutorial-for-beginners
Is Dcity a good investment? 1 month later ... (Jul 22, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@libertycrypto27/is-dcity-a-good-investment-1-month-later
dCity: SIM, Active Users and Considerations (Oct 09, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-146620/@libertycrypto27/dcity-sim-active-users-and-considerations-sim-utenti-attivi-e-considerations-eng-ita
Dcity: How to choose the cards to buy? (Oct 13, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-146620/@libertycrypto27/dcity-how-to-choose-the-cards-to-buy-come-scegliere-le-carte-da-comprare-eng-ita
Is Dcity a good investment? 4 months later ... (Oct 21, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-146620/@libertycrypto27/is-dcity-a-good-investment-4-months-later-dcity-e-un-buon-investimento-4-mesi-dopo-eng-ita
Is Dcity a good investment? 5 months later ... (Nov 24, 2020):
https://peakd.com/hive-126009/@libertycrypto27/is-dcity-a-good-investment-5-months-later

If not otherwise indicated the images are screenshots taken from:
https://dcity.io/
The font used in the calculation images is Open Source
the images containing formulas and calculations are my property