Join the new world

In my previous article I explored the myriad options for obtaining gold, that most precious of metals, for new players. Hopefully some of you have taken my advice to heart and have created a nice little nest egg in the past week.

Well, now is the time to learn how to spend that gold wisely. Buying companies and upgrading stuff frivolously may as well spell the end of your character. A carefully thought out plan though will lead to the gold coming in faster and faster. So let's start out by listing the ways in which you spend gold.

Health Kit


Actually, this is the one thing you NEVER want to buy with gold. It's absolutely worthless for the price. If you wanted more health just use RL money to buy candy bars. But really, don't do that either.

Creating Parties and Papers


Creating a party costs 40g. In return you get to be the Party President until someone comes along on the 15th and takes it away from you. Then they will use it to try and take over the country and besmirch your good name. Don't bother.
A newspaper on the other hand costs 2g and can be pretty worth it if you like writing and communication. The media can be pretty lively, although you have to deal with the ahem, international, flavor of the US.

Companies


No you can't make a company that makes more gold. But the big mid-term goal for a new player in eRep is self-sufficiency. You want enough food production to get 2000 wellness a day, a bit short of the maximum of 2400 since you will lose some when you sleep. You will need the food raw material production to support that. Then you will want to upgrade your town center so you don't have to log in every 2 hours. Anything on top of this is gravy.

The easiest way to get to this point is to have 5q1 food companies. This will produce 5x200 q1 food for 5x200x2=2000 wellness. You can mix it in with q2 good if you can, for example I have 2q2 and 1q1. Definitely grab a q1->q2 upgrade when it goes on sale to upgrade your town center. You will also need 1000 raw materials to produce this food. Q4 raw companies are the best bang for the buck. If you lack the currency this is the time to use the money market and put your gold up for sale. To get the 8500 USD you'll have to spend ~4g which is way less than the 10 you would have to spend on a q3. The gold cost of a q5 is too prohibitive for you as well so stick with q4 raws. You will need 3 of them to supply your food companies.

Training Facilities


Remember I talked about the super soldier medal as a consistent way to get 5g? Well, increasing the rate of your strength gain also means you are increasing the rate of that 5g you get! With just your basic training you get 5g every 27 days. Invest 20g to upgrade your basic training facility to q2 and this drops to ~21 days. To make back your 20g investment would take almost a year, but you would make the investment back. It is a real acceleration in your gold gain. The key though is to wait for a sale. Any drop in the price makes your break even point all the smaller. The upgrades to your free training are the best, but the first gold facility is very economical for new players as well.

So what is your priority? Really, getting your food production up and running is very important. Your goals might be less than mine if you happen to be in a Military Unit that helps new players with food. But as you move up in levels and game time you will find that most people make their own food. The next thing you should spend gold on is your training when a sale is on. This will not only get you more gold faster, but accelerate you past the rest of the players who haven't bothered to upgrade. Once you are reasonably sufficient go ahead and buy and upgrade other training facilities. With the first one built you will be gaining strength and gold faster than it is going out to training.

To summarize you need.

1 - Q2 Food Factory (27g from the company market)
3 - Q1 Food Factory (One free from starting, 2x10g for the others)
1 - Q1 Weapons Factory (Don't bother working it, just to upgrade town center, keep it around for the far future, 10g)
3 - Q4 Food Raw Material (3x~4g each or 8500 USD)
1 - Q2/3 Training Ground (20/50g but buy it on sale for 44% off!)

Total - 80 gold minimum

Optional Q2 Climbing Center (20G - Buy it on sale! It will cost 0.19g per day but shave days off your Super Soldier medal, which makes up for the cost of training!)

Once you get to this point what you spend gold on is largely up to you! Concentrate on building that weapons factory up if you want. Or invest MORE into strength. From here you have a solid base to build upon.

Thanks for reading,

Dokomo