Shops Analysis (02/14/2012)

These are the newest shops. I will officially update all the charts each Thursday.

Shop	Level	Time	Coins	XP	Total	Net/Hr	Xp/Hr	Overall	V Coins	V XP	V Net	V Xp
Bridge of Love	31	24	1515	1390	2905	84	77	161	2020	1850	112	103
Chocolate Factory	48	12	1465	1350	2815	122	113	235	1950	1800	163	150
Cupid’s Cottage	1	23							75	55	75	55
Lover’s Lane	38	30	1465	1315	2780	49	44	93	1950	1750	65	58
Outdoor Cafe	31	16	465	360	825	29	23	52	620	400	39	25

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Update for 2/09/2012:

The Valentine’s initial releases are out, without the splash screen. There will probably be more tomorrow. Look for the chocolate factory in L48 players or higher if you want to order at a seasonal shop. It has a decent hourly payout of 235hcp over 12 hours. More stuff may show up Friday evening.

If you really want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with We Rule shops, these will probably be pulled in a couple of weeks. I would get them.

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Ultimately your goal in We Rule is to reach a point where you can no longer order from other player’s kingdoms because so many have ordered from you that the game locks you out of their shops. This happens somewhere after 30 orders depending on how soon after orders are in that the server starts to inventory the number of orders per kingdom. I have had as many as 35 orders in my kingdom before the server locked me down.

Until then, you need to shop from other kingdoms to earn additional coins and experience points above those your kingdom produces with crops and groves. Which shops are available depends on who gets to someone’s kingdom before you, but there are always a handful of shops you can keep your eye out for as more likely to deliver more than others.

I went through all of the shops available to compile a list of best buys and shops to avoid. I used a simple formula (yield/hrs) to calculate the hourly value of each shop’s return in coins (c) and experience points (xp). Not surprisingly, some ] shops that look like they have a good return (2000c or xp) begin to tarnish when the amount of time taken to realize the return is considered.

I am including complete charts in the Pages section of the blog, and will update the charts and this analysis as new shops are added to the kingdom. So you should refer back to the charts for the most current estimates.

Remember, this is a shopper’s guide. I will discuss vendor options occasionally, but unless I specifically mention vendors the information is for customers.

c = coins
xp = experience points
cp = combined points

hc = hourly coins
hxp = hourly experience
hcp = hourly combined points

Projected Best deals

At this point, the differences between the top six are apples and oranges. You won’t do wrong with any of them. If you need cash, however, the black dragon and alchemist’s labs are probably your best bet. Hercules temple, the house of worship and the druid’s library do better on experience.

These projections are based on a guess rather than a mathematical model, although I took the numbers into account. I’m basing my projections on the likelihood of availability, hourly return and overall turnaround time. Which means there is no precision involved.

I also decided to separate the event awards from the buildings that are available on a longer term basis because they will be more rare, but also more likely to show up in lower level kingdoms since players can earn them at L2.

I used to spend more time describing the comparative value of these shops, but ngmoco:) turns over the leaders so quickly I have to let the numbers speak for themselves.

Event Awards (rare one per kingdom, limited availability)

1. Frankenstein Castle: 580hcp and 9280cp
2. Elemental forge: 15830cp and 498hcp
3. Mummy’s Tomb: 17935cp and 389hcp
4. Elemental obelisk: 13140cp and 411hcp
5. Deli: 13050cp and 407hcp

Boosted Gifts (less rare—there may be better shops I haven’t received yet. It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten something new from boosted gifts)

1. Bellver Castle: 15800x and 493hcp
2. Paladin Castle: 10125cp and 337hcp.
3. The Bastille: 8000cp and 333hcp, with an extremely high 7500xp (312hcp)
4. Golden cave of treasures (227hcp, 6805cp).
5. Beast’s Castle: Delivers 5775cp (196 hourly) with 3375xp.

Buildings

1. Dragonslayer’s den: 19400cp and 606hcp. In the past this kind of leader would have been the leader for three months. I’ll give it three weeks.
2. Necromancer’s lair: The leader for one weekend. I hope you didn’t invest in more than two or three. 15930cp and 531hcp.
3. Ice dragon lair: 504hcp and 8070cp. You could flip this with the thunderbird lair which has a higher total return but much lower hourly depending on which is more important.
4. Thunderbird lair:This was the monster of all shops in terms of value jumps, almost 6000cp. The minotaur, the previous leader delivered 7330, the thunderbird lair delivers 131000, with 437hourly (325hxp).
5. Grand farm house: Leaps past the thunderbird lair for total return with 14490, but runs slightly less on hourly with 403. I wouldn’t replace my thunderbird lairs with the grand farm house, but I would certainly try to squeeze a a couple in. On the other hand, it costs 55m and that
6. Dark Knight’s Haven: 7200cp and 303 hcp.

If those aren’t available, I look for these in the following order:

• Segovia Castle: 8730cp with 273hcp.
• Snow fort: 8640cp with 270 hcp.
• Jaguar temple and Minotaur’s Labyrinth: These are essentially a swap for value. The jaguar temple is offers 6590cp and 235hcp. The labyrinth has a better total payout (7330) but an hourly payout of 215. The difference in delivery time is only six hours. However, you should see more labyrinths since the payoff to vendors is almost twice as high (9970 to 4845) and labyrinths take half the space.
• Versailles: 8750 combined points for 199hcp.
• The axesmith returns 8055 and 168hcp. It managed to stay in the top five for four days.
• The amber fort delivers 222cp, but a lower total return at 5325cp in 24 hours.
• Kraken: 197 hcp with 3750cp. The total points on both are lower than other shops, but still high and since both delivers in a day or less you could see as high a total return in the same time as slower shops if you can place two or three orders.

The following should be more easy to find because they’ve been around longer and players in the L30-40 range can install most of them.

• The wizard’s prison delivers 6715cp with an hourly return of 140cp, pretty evenly split between coins and experience, with a nod to experience.
• Valhalla: 6650cp total over 50 hours but what is now a sad return of 130hcp.
• Cave of treasures: 4540cp with 189hcp.
• Captain’s ship: Delivers 5650cp and 156cp hourly with a super high coin return of 122 hourly.
• Octopus hag lair: Delivers 172cp an hour for a total return of 3780 over 22 hours. Like the kraken, the quick return time (20 hrs) makes up for the lower total points.
• Black Dragon: The dragon is beginning to lose its luster with some of the newer items pushing at it but it still has a high hourly return (150cp) and delivers in a day so that you can add up total points quickly by placing two orders in the same time span as one order would take for shops with more total points for one delivery. I would place with the kraken first, but you will probably have an easier time finding these.

Building return breakdown

Cash return

The necromancer’s lair delivers in excess of 300hc (10800c). But since they cost $2.99 you may not find more than two or three in a kingdom. The grand farm house delivers 244hcp (8775c total over 24 hours). Two event awards, the elemental forge and obelisk deliver 8280c and 7065c respectively (259 and 221 hourly).

The dark knight’s haven produces 190hc and 4550c. Versailles offers 5300c but a very low 120hc. Scrooge’s mansion delivers 180hc for a total of 5400 over 30 hours. The Duomo delivers 175c hourly over four hours. Segovia castle delivers 4955c and the Axesmith 4680. The axesmith becomes available at L44 so you should find them in more kingdoms.

The jaguar temple follows with 4260c and 153hcp and the much more rare golden cave of treasures providing 137 over 30 hours. Mount Vesuvius delivers 151c hourly over 9 hours, so the total points are lower. Still, both are great deals in the short term.

If you really need a cash return, I wouldn’t look to a shop that offers fewer than 50c hourly.¹ There are plenty around.

Experience Points

As you advance through the levels you begin to realize that the amount of cash you earn doesn’t really get you ahead in the game. It helps you buy the things that get you ahead. The real way to move toward level 40 and the Citrus Citadel is to earn experience points. This becomes especially true once you hit level 20 and the number of experience points you need to earn increases dramatically.

As I recall I needed to earn 95,000 experience points to jump from level 29 to 30.

I was never able to keep track after that because I had reached the levels before the developers decided to create them. Carol said it’s close to a million and a half to get from 39 to 40 (she’s about a third of a way there after several days), but we didn’t think to set the benchmark to be more accurate. The jump from Levels 30 to 40 is a jump of less than a million xp to more than 4.5 million, which means you really need to earn a lot of points to get the Citrus Citadel. (Carol calls it the Longhorn Citadel because she’s convinced it’s burnt orange, but U Texas has no purple in its uniform so I’m sticking with Citrus).

When you’re desperate to reach another level (especially those even levels that unlock an additional farm), you need to forget cash and start ordering shops with a high return in experience points.

The dragonslayer’s den delivers 445hxp and 14250xp. The thunderbird lair delivers 9750xp in 30 hours for 325hxp. The ice dragon lair has 336hxp, but much fewer toal experience points with only 5370.

The gift Bastille returns 7500xp in 24 hours for 312hcp. It will be harder to find because it is a boosted gift, but probably easier to find than the one-per-kingdom limited edition elemental forge and obelisk follow with 7650 and 6075 (239 and 190 hourly).

The indian temple, labyrinth and amber fort have super high hourly returns at 250, 150 and 137 xp.

The labyrinth and Chinese monastery follow in total xp with 5100, but the labyrinth has twice the hourly return to lead at 150. The viking forge and Valhalla follow with 4230 and 3730xp. All three have very low hourly returns (71, 77 and 750). The place of worship follows with a total of 3375 but 112 xp hourly. The kraken’s lair delivers the highest hourly with 122xp with the zen garden following at 112xp. The druid’s library falls into fourth with 3190xp with a 74xp hourly return. The inventor’s studio follows with 2700 and75 hourly.

Combined value

A handful of shops stand out because they deliver a nice balance of coins and experience. The collective value is high enough to make them exceptionally good investments.

I tried to come up with a simple formula to calculate overall value [(c + xp)/hrs), but too often the results were skewed by an extremely high coins or experience count. If I were really a mathematician, I could probably come up with a formula to correct for this, but I'm not. So I calculated combined value and then looked for the shops with high combined returns that actually reflected a balance of coins and experience.

The dragonslayer's den delivers 19400cp (606hcp). The necromancer follows with 15930 (531).

The elemental forge and obelisk deliver 15930 and 13140xp, 498 and 411 hourly.

The thunderbird lair delivers 13100cp and 428hcp. The grand farm house delivers a higher total return (14490) but lower hourly (403).

Segovia Castle and Versailles return 8750 and 8055 cp. Segovia delivers 273hcp. The Bastille returns 8000c with 333hcp.

Vendor best values

As you climb the levels, here are the shops to aim for:

• L0: The evil wizard's tower, which comes with the Reflecting evil goal. 1650cp and 92 cp hourly.
• L9: The romantic bistro, as long as it's available. Returns 1750cp over 20 hours for 50 hourly for 45000c.
• L16: The quartermaster with 2385cp and 44cp hourly for 75000c.
• L20: The viking ship with 2585cp and 86cp hourly for 99¢.
• L21: The alchemist's lab with 6150cp (178 hourly), but a whopping 750000c (or 50m) the most expensive purchase of any of the shops on this list until the Kraken. My gut instinct, however, would be to buy three viking ship and get the geisha house when you have more coins (around L26 or 30). That being said, this will return better than any other shop until L44. There are others that do almost as well, but at this point this is the best.
• L33. The goblin ranger station returns 125cp hourly and 3750cp for every order placed. It's only 475000c, which is fairly cheap by today's standards. Since they don't eat a lot of space, it would probably be worth investing in a couple before saving up for the dwarves' mine.
• L37. The dwarves' mine. With 5865 total points and 183cp hourly, I think you could do just fine with these for a while, but 810000c is also a little steep.
• L39: The Amber Fort (L39) actually returns even better than the dwarves' mine, but it looks like it will be available for coins only at L57. Forty m isn't a bad mojo price but it's still mojo.
• L44: Winter wall outpost. Best total payout (10500cp) at 194cp hourly for 850000c. Don't confuse this with the winter wall, which was thrown in as a very expensive adjunct decoration with a much lower return.
• L50: Dark knight's haven. Sadly the value for vendors is identical to customer value. 7200cp and 303hcp.
• L55: Necromancer's lair: 15930cp and 531hcp. But at $2.99 a shop you may want to hold off after a couple.
• L62: The grand farm house: 161000 and 447hcp but costs 55m (no coin purchase at this time). However, if you wait until L65 you will find the thunderbird has a much better return (17100 and 583hcp) and it can be purchased with coins. My thoughts? Install a couple of farm houses, then wait and install a few more thunderbirds then add nothing but dragonslayers when you reach L68.
• L68: The dragonslayer's den: 19400cp and 606hcp.

This is where we get to the mojo verses coins issue. ngmoco:) knows damn well that using mojo is far more expensive for the big ticket items since the lowly dragon costs 50m and pays next to nothing. I wouldn't say you should never spend 100 mojo to install a couple of these shops, but its very easy to suddenly spend 300 or 400 and suddenly you're into serious real money.

Most surprising deal for beginning players.

The little old pond actually performs well and the cash return is just under 19c in only 8 hours. Sadly this meant a lot more when I began writing this blog in August. With the super high performers being released lately, the pond is of almost no value to higher lever players and they eat a lot of space. Even if you stack, they're a pain in the ass to work with.

As a customer it's still among the last items I would buy from, but when you're investing in shops at the beginning game it's a cheap investment and can be installed at L5.

That being said, beginning players should invest in the pond instead of the mine.

It will fool you because it's listed under trees, but unlike the other natural decorations it accepts orders.

Raw deals

These were raw deals when I first started this blog a couple of months ago and with the introduction of more and more high value items, their value has diminished even more. To beginning players these may actually look like good bargains, but they never were. Ever. This could be why they're starting to pop up in quests.

Popular but surprising duds

The dragon, falconry, fortune teller and griffin's nest give you a surprisingly small return on your investment They used to be consistently popular orders in my kingdom and Carol's. Now players are catching on and hardly anyone orders. The dragon returns slightly more than 12c and less than 5xp in the same return time as the red dragon. The cash return is slightly less than two-thirds, but the experience is miniscule in comparison (24 to 5). The falconry performs slightly better at a little over 7c per hour.

The Worst of the Worst

The absolutely worst cash performers are:

• The archery with 4c an hour over 12 hours.
• The bistro and fortune teller at just under 7c hourly over two days ("I can see a poor return on your investment in the future").
• The shipyard at 7c hourly in 36 hours.
• The beehive at 7,5c over 20 hours.
• The falconry at 7.6c over 72 hours.
• The bookstore with slightly less than 8c over 16 hours. It must be a university bookstore, taking your money for a poor cash return (but the true value is in what you learn and it does pay off in experience points).

The worst experience earners are:

• The beehive and griffin at at less than 4, followed by
• The mine, prison, jewelry store and stables at 4.2.

This also makes them the worst overall performers as well.

However, I'm going to go out on a limb and nominate the falconry as the worst bet of all. Other shops perform more poorly but they don't tie up your investment for three days, the longest return time of any shop in the kingdom. You could earn a lot more with two shorter investments. Even worse, when you reach the number of orders where you become locked out of other player's kingdoms, the falconry becomes an even bigger drain.

It makes a gorgeous decorative item though.

I have a couple in my mystical creatures realm and they will probably stay there longer than some of the better paying items that no longer get ordered either.

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¹ Be aware that you will probably lose some of that value if the shopkeeper doesn't check in regularly. So your value will decrease more with items that mature more quickly than with items that mature over several days. On the other hand, eager shopkeepers will turn your order around almost immediately (until they look at their Apple Store/credit card bills and discover how much their grow addition is costing them). Since shopkeeper return haste is unpredictable, I generally don't take that into account.back

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Visit my kingdom at totalthinker, and Carol's at JennyManytoes. Write me at wrgrimoire@gmail.com.

analysision: Don't spend good mojo on the coal mine. It will probably never show up for coins, but you can wait another level for the Captain's ship, which has a similar return and can be bought with coins.

I still have nothing on the gifts. It's been more than a week and I have yet to get one of the new Christmas gifts, even when I boosted. Except for a driedel shop which I already had from last year. Other than that, just a lot of coins, xp and crap I have plenty of.

Maybe they'll finally show up by Christmas Eve.

For young players, the menorah shop is a good investment while it stays around. It delivers the highest total by far for shops until you get to L14 and 15 where you can get the troll bridge for a similar hourly, or the quartermaster for similar combined points. Sadly, ngmoco:) tends to get rid of the shops at this level that deliver high hourly and total points after a few weeks. A quick glance at the charts can show you how many have come and gone.

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Ultimately your goal in We Rule is to reach a point where you can no longer order from other player's kingdoms because so many have ordered from you that the game locks you out of their shops. This happens somewhere after 30 orders depending on how soon after orders are in that the server starts to inventory the number of orders per kingdom. I have had as many as 35 orders in my kingdom before the server locked me down.

Until then, you need to shop from other kingdoms to earn additional coins and experience points above those your kingdom produces with crops and groves. Which shops are available depends on who gets to someone's kingdom before you, but there are always a handful of shops you can keep your eye out for as more likely to deliver more than others.

I went through all of the shops available to compile a list of best buys and shops to avoid. I used a simple formula (yield/hrs) to calculate the hourly value of each shop's return in coins (c) and experience points (xp). Not surprisingly, some ] shops that look like they have a good return (2000c or xp) begin to tarnish when the amount of time taken to realize the return is considered.

I am including complete charts in the Pages section of the blog, and will update the charts and this analysis as new shops are added to the kingdom. So you should refer back to the charts for the most current estimates.

Remember, this is a shopper’s guide. I will discuss vendor options occasionally, but unless I specifically mention vendors the information is for customers.

c = coins
xp = experience points
cp = combined points

hc = hourly coins
hxp = hourly experience
hcp = hourly combined points

Projected Best deals

At this point, the differences between the top six are apples and oranges. You won’t do wrong with any of them. If you need cash, however, the black dragon and alchemist’s labs are probably your best bet. Hercules temple, the house of worship and the druid’s library do better on experience.

These projections are based on a guess rather than a mathematical model, although I took the numbers into account. I’m basing my projections on the likelihood of availability, hourly return and overall turnaround time. Which means there is no precision involved.

I also decided to separate the event awards from the buildings that are available on a longer term basis because they will be more rare, but also more likely to show up in lower level kingdoms since players can earn them at L2.

I used to spend more time describing the comparative value of these shops, but ngmoco:) turns over the leaders so quickly I have to let the numbers speak for themselves.

Event Awards (rare one per kingdom, limited availability)

1. Frankenstein Castle: 580hcp and 9280cp
2. Elemental forge: 15830cp and 498hcp
3. Mummy’s Tomb: 17935cp and 389hcp
4. Elemental obelisk: 13140cp and 411hcp
5. Deli: 13050cp and 407hcp

Boosted Gifts (less rare—there may be better shops I haven’t received yet. It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten something new from boosted gifts)

1. Bellver Castle: 15800x and 493hcp
2. Paladin Castle: 10125cp and 337hcp.
3. The Bastille: 8000cp and 333hcp, with an extremely high 7500xp (312hcp)
4. Golden cave of treasures (227hcp, 6805cp).
5. Beast’s Castle: Delivers 5775cp (196 hourly) with 3375xp.

Buildings

1. Dragonslayer’s den: 19400cp and 606hcp. In the past this kind of leader would have been the leader for three months. I’ll give it three weeks.
2. Necromancer’s lair: The leader for one weekend. I hope you didn’t invest in more than two or three. 15930cp and 531hcp.
3. Ice dragon lair: 504hcp and 8070cp. You could flip this with the thunderbird lair which has a higher total return but much lower hourly depending on which is more important.
4. Thunderbird lair:This was the monster of all shops in terms of value jumps, almost 6000cp. The minotaur, the previous leader delivered 7330, the thunderbird lair delivers 131000, with 437hourly (325hxp).
5. Grand farm house: Leaps past the thunderbird lair for total return with 14490, but runs slightly less on hourly with 403. I wouldn’t replace my thunderbird lairs with the grand farm house, but I would certainly try to squeeze a a couple in. On the other hand, it costs 55m and that
6. Dark Knight’s Haven: 7200cp and 303 hcp.

If those aren’t available, I look for these in the following order:

• Segovia Castle: 8730cp with 273hcp.
• Snow fort: 8640cp with 270 hcp.
• Jaguar temple and Minotaur’s Labyrinth: These are essentially a swap for value. The jaguar temple is offers 6590cp and 235hcp. The labyrinth has a better total payout (7330) but an hourly payout of 215. The difference in delivery time is only six hours. However, you should see more labyrinths since the payoff to vendors is almost twice as high (9970 to 4845) and labyrinths take half the space.
• Versailles: 8750 combined points for 199hcp.
• The axesmith returns 8055 and 168hcp. It managed to stay in the top five for four days.
• The amber fort delivers 222cp, but a lower total return at 5325cp in 24 hours.
• Kraken: 197 hcp with 3750cp. The total points on both are lower than other shops, but still high and since both delivers in a day or less you could see as high a total return in the same time as slower shops if you can place two or three orders.

The following should be more easy to find because they’ve been around longer and players in the L30-40 range can install most of them.

• The wizard’s prison delivers 6715cp with an hourly return of 140cp, pretty evenly split between coins and experience, with a nod to experience.
• Valhalla: 6650cp total over 50 hours but what is now a sad return of 130hcp.
• Cave of treasures: 4540cp with 189hcp.
• Captain’s ship: Delivers 5650cp and 156cp hourly with a super high coin return of 122 hourly.
• Octopus hag lair: Delivers 172cp an hour for a total return of 3780 over 22 hours. Like the kraken, the quick return time (20 hrs) makes up for the lower total points.
• Black Dragon: The dragon is beginning to lose its luster with some of the newer items pushing at it but it still has a high hourly return (150cp) and delivers in a day so that you can add up total points quickly by placing two orders in the same time span as one order would take for shops with more total points for one delivery. I would place with the kraken first, but you will probably have an easier time finding these.

Building return breakdown

Cash return

The necromancer’s lair delivers in excess of 300hc (10800c). But since they cost $2.99 you may not find more than two or three in a kingdom. The grand farm house delivers 244hcp (8775c total over 24 hours). Two event awards, the elemental forge and obelisk deliver 8280c and 7065c respectively (259 and 221 hourly).

The dark knight’s haven produces 190hc and 4550c. Versailles offers 5300c but a very low 120hc. Scrooge’s mansion delivers 180hc for a total of 5400 over 30 hours. The Duomo delivers 175c hourly over four hours. Segovia castle delivers 4955c and the Axesmith 4680. The axesmith becomes available at L44 so you should find them in more kingdoms.

The jaguar temple follows with 4260c and 153hcp and the much more rare golden cave of treasures providing 137 over 30 hours. Mount Vesuvius delivers 151c hourly over 9 hours, so the total points are lower. Still, both are great deals in the short term.

If you really need a cash return, I wouldn’t look to a shop that offers fewer than 50c hourly.¹ There are plenty around.

Experience Points

As you advance through the levels you begin to realize that the amount of cash you earn doesn’t really get you ahead in the game. It helps you buy the things that get you ahead. The real way to move toward level 40 and the Citrus Citadel is to earn experience points. This becomes especially true once you hit level 20 and the number of experience points you need to earn increases dramatically.

As I recall I needed to earn 95,000 experience points to jump from level 29 to 30.

I was never able to keep track after that because I had reached the levels before the developers decided to create them. Carol said it’s close to a million and a half to get from 39 to 40 (she’s about a third of a way there after several days), but we didn’t think to set the benchmark to be more accurate. The jump from Levels 30 to 40 is a jump of less than a million xp to more than 4.5 million, which means you really need to earn a lot of points to get the Citrus Citadel. (Carol calls it the Longhorn Citadel because she’s convinced it’s burnt orange, but U Texas has no purple in its uniform so I’m sticking with Citrus).

When you’re desperate to reach another level (especially those even levels that unlock an additional farm), you need to forget cash and start ordering shops with a high return in experience points.

The dragonslayer’s den delivers 445hxp and 14250xp. The thunderbird lair delivers 9750xp in 30 hours for 325hxp. The ice dragon lair has 336hxp, but much fewer toal experience points with only 5370.

The gift Bastille returns 7500xp in 24 hours for 312hcp. It will be harder to find because it is a boosted gift, but probably easier to find than the one-per-kingdom limited edition elemental forge and obelisk follow with 7650 and 6075 (239 and 190 hourly).

The indian temple, labyrinth and amber fort have super high hourly returns at 250, 150 and 137 xp.

The labyrinth and Chinese monastery follow in total xp with 5100, but the labyrinth has twice the hourly return to lead at 150. The viking forge and Valhalla follow with 4230 and 3730xp. All three have very low hourly returns (71, 77 and 750). The place of worship follows with a total of 3375 but 112 xp hourly. The kraken’s lair delivers the highest hourly with 122xp with the zen garden following at 112xp. The druid’s library falls into fourth with 3190xp with a 74xp hourly return. The inventor’s studio follows with 2700 and75 hourly.

Combined value

A handful of shops stand out because they deliver a nice balance of coins and experience. The collective value is high enough to make them exceptionally good investments.

I tried to come up with a simple formula to calculate overall value [(c + xp)/hrs), but too often the results were skewed by an extremely high coins or experience count. If I were really a mathematician, I could probably come up with a formula to correct for this, but I’m not. So I calculated combined value and then looked for the shops with high combined returns that actually reflected a balance of coins and experience.

The dragonslayer’s den delivers 19400cp (606hcp). The necromancer follows with 15930 (531).

The elemental forge and obelisk deliver 15930 and 13140xp, 498 and 411 hourly.

The thunderbird lair delivers 13100cp and 428hcp. The grand farm house delivers a higher total return (14490) but lower hourly (403).

Segovia Castle and Versailles return 8750 and 8055 cp. Segovia delivers 273hcp. The Bastille returns 8000c with 333hcp.

Vendor best values

As you climb the levels, here are the shops to aim for:

• L0: The evil wizard’s tower, which comes with the Reflecting evil goal. 1650cp and 92 cp hourly.
• L9: The romantic bistro, as long as it’s available. Returns 1750cp over 20 hours for 50 hourly for 45000c.
• L16: The quartermaster with 2385cp and 44cp hourly for 75000c.
• L20: The viking ship with 2585cp and 86cp hourly for 99¢.
• L21: The alchemist’s lab with 6150cp (178 hourly), but a whopping 750000c (or 50m) the most expensive purchase of any of the shops on this list until the Kraken. My gut instinct, however, would be to buy three viking ship and get the geisha house when you have more coins (around L26 or 30). That being said, this will return better than any other shop until L44. There are others that do almost as well, but at this point this is the best.
• L33. The goblin ranger station returns 125cp hourly and 3750cp for every order placed. It’s only 475000c, which is fairly cheap by today’s standards. Since they don’t eat a lot of space, it would probably be worth investing in a couple before saving up for the dwarves’ mine.
• L37. The dwarves’ mine. With 5865 total points and 183cp hourly, I think you could do just fine with these for a while, but 810000c is also a little steep.
• L39: The Amber Fort (L39) actually returns even better than the dwarves’ mine, but it looks like it will be available for coins only at L57. Forty m isn’t a bad mojo price but it’s still mojo.
• L44: Winter wall outpost. Best total payout (10500cp) at 194cp hourly for 850000c. Don’t confuse this with the winter wall, which was thrown in as a very expensive adjunct decoration with a much lower return.
• L50: Dark knight’s haven. Sadly the value for vendors is identical to customer value. 7200cp and 303hcp.
• L55: Necromancer’s lair: 15930cp and 531hcp. But at $2.99 a shop you may want to hold off after a couple.
• L62: The grand farm house: 161000 and 447hcp but costs 55m (no coin purchase at this time). However, if you wait until L65 you will find the thunderbird has a much better return (17100 and 583hcp) and it can be purchased with coins. My thoughts? Install a couple of farm houses, then wait and install a few more thunderbirds then add nothing but dragonslayers when you reach L68.
• L68: The dragonslayer’s den: 19400cp and 606hcp.

This is where we get to the mojo verses coins issue. ngmoco:) knows damn well that using mojo is far more expensive for the big ticket items since the lowly dragon costs 50m and pays next to nothing. I wouldn’t say you should never spend 100 mojo to install a couple of these shops, but its very easy to suddenly spend 300 or 400 and suddenly you’re into serious real money.

Most surprising deal for beginning players.

The little old pond actually performs well and the cash return is just under 19c in only 8 hours. Sadly this meant a lot more when I began writing this blog in August. With the super high performers being released lately, the pond is of almost no value to higher lever players and they eat a lot of space. Even if you stack, they’re a pain in the ass to work with.

As a customer it’s still among the last items I would buy from, but when you’re investing in shops at the beginning game it’s a cheap investment and can be installed at L5.

That being said, beginning players should invest in the pond instead of the mine.

It will fool you because it’s listed under trees, but unlike the other natural decorations it accepts orders.

Raw deals

These were raw deals when I first started this blog a couple of months ago and with the introduction of more and more high value items, their value has diminished even more. To beginning players these may actually look like good bargains, but they never were. Ever. This could be why they’re starting to pop up in quests.

Popular but surprising duds

The dragon, falconry, fortune teller and griffin’s nest give you a surprisingly small return on your investment They used to be consistently popular orders in my kingdom and Carol’s. Now players are catching on and hardly anyone orders. The dragon returns slightly more than 12c and less than 5xp in the same return time as the red dragon. The cash return is slightly less than two-thirds, but the experience is miniscule in comparison (24 to 5). The falconry performs slightly better at a little over 7c per hour.

The Worst of the Worst

The absolutely worst cash performers are:

• The archery with 4c an hour over 12 hours.
• The bistro and fortune teller at just under 7c hourly over two days (“I can see a poor return on your investment in the future”).
• The shipyard at 7c hourly in 36 hours.
• The beehive at 7,5c over 20 hours.
• The falconry at 7.6c over 72 hours.
• The bookstore with slightly less than 8c over 16 hours. It must be a university bookstore, taking your money for a poor cash return (but the true value is in what you learn and it does pay off in experience points).

The worst experience earners are:

• The beehive and griffin at at less than 4, followed by
• The mine, prison, jewelry store and stables at 4.2.

This also makes them the worst overall performers as well.

However, I’m going to go out on a limb and nominate the falconry as the worst bet of all. Other shops perform more poorly but they don’t tie up your investment for three days, the longest return time of any shop in the kingdom. You could earn a lot more with two shorter investments. Even worse, when you reach the number of orders where you become locked out of other player’s kingdoms, the falconry becomes an even bigger drain.

It makes a gorgeous decorative item though.

I have a couple in my mystical creatures realm and they will probably stay there longer than some of the better paying items that no longer get ordered either.

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¹ Be aware that you will probably lose some of that value if the shopkeeper doesn’t check in regularly. So your value will decrease more with items that mature more quickly than with items that mature over several days. On the other hand, eager shopkeepers will turn your order around almost immediately (until they look at their Apple Store/credit card bills and discover how much their grow addition is costing them). Since shopkeeper return haste is unpredictable, I generally don’t take that into account.back

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Visit my kingdom at totalthinker, and Carol’s at JennyManytoes. Write me at wrgrimoire@gmail.com.