New Property - Bar

This week Kabam added a new revenue property to the game: the Bar. It costs about $2500 and pays $250 per hour - that's a 10-hour payoff. There is nothing so good among the previously available properties. Oh, and the buildout takes only 30 seconds. I don't know what that is in metric, but it's fast.

You are only allowed to buy 3 (well, you buy one, and upgrade it twice). Every player, especially every beginner, should get these three as quickly as possible. $750 of income per hour in a couple of minutes, for 7500? Run, don't walk, to your device and buy them.

Another unusual thing about the Bar is that the image changes as you upgrade it. As if you bought a run-down bar and spruced it up. I suspect that the bar was used as an example of how this graphic adaptation might be used as a general feature of properties. Over time, I expect more bar upgrades, and more graphic changes in other properties.

This is how the bar looks when you buy the first one. Barrels stacked high. 

27 more seconds til it's ready!

After you have two, no barrels

So you buy it ...

Now it looks more like a night club. So fancy your original customers don't like it anymore. 

At Paradise cove, the merchants change every 3 or 4 levels, and the ships about the same. UWE may eventually use 3-4 images to show the progress for properties through 10 levels as well.

In Hay Day, houses start at level 1 and go to level 4. Each level is visually different from the others. If you saw them side-by-side, you could tell the differences.

It's common to give visual feedback about the status of your progress in leveling up properties in several games, and it appears that UWE is about to become one of that group of games.

Some users will complain that they wanted something else for Christmas, so to speak. I'm not trying to suggest that introducing the bar this week was the best thing that Kabam could do, but just to describe what has happened, and how you might use it in your game.

The Great Wiki

One of the best reference resources for the game is the wiki [link]. Squiffle and his minions do a great public service describing the game.

If you find things that aren't right, or are missing, just volunteer. There are instructions on the home page. If you can help make it better, then be a good scout and just do it.

Help make the UWE world better.

Seven surprising things that happen in UWE

Some things in the game just pop up and you say, "Why in the heck did THAT happen?"

• Sometimes you level up, and click on stamina/bosses, and you have zero health. Leveling up refills your health. Where did it go? It went to some boss, who was pounding on you when you weren't even in it. If you join a boss fight, your health is on the table at all times. Which is cool. You only need it while you're hitting them. And if it's zero the rest of the time, people can't attack you. 
• Sometimes you look at your achievements (that trophy icon in the upper left of the screen) and if you scroll through them, you find one that you have earned but not collected. 
• The game gave me the achievement for $200,000 in hourly property income, when I only had 194,000 in property income. Apparently, just starting the next Caribbean Island was enough. 
• Sometimes you look at your profile and you find that you have a scratcher that you haven't used. 
• If the turn you take to level up puts you over the XP target for your current level, the extra XP is applied to the next level. Playing this angle makes it possible to level up repeatedly at the low levels. Some players will shuffle different lieutenants into the inner circle to maximize this effect by increasing the max Stam and Energy for the next level.
• The Personal Armory property adds +1 attack to each of your lieutenants. If that LT is seated, and gets a bonus such a double attack, the armory point is doubled, too. The same goes for the Boxing Gym and LT defense. If you buy all 10 of each, you'll be adding 10 attack and 10 defense to every LT, and if you have all five seats open, an additional 26 attack and 15 defense to your seat bonuses.
• Sometimes, when you have an alt, and you get to an EvE game late, they don't have the same number of tokens. What made one of them wake up sooner? Getting shot. 

Glossary of Underworld Terms

GLOSSARY

Many games have their own languages. UWE is no exception. I'll collect these for a while, then attempt to organize them. Please offer suggestions in comments.

Toon - a slang term for your character.
Army code - your individual player ID. Can be viewed on the Allies page, the My Allies tab. Many players who want more allies put this code in their profiles, so other players can add them easily.
X - in Empire games, execute. As in "X in B5."
BR - Battle Rank. Your rank in PvP duel and war.
BP - Battle Points. The statistic that determines your Battle Rank. You get more or less from each Battle, depending on the relative BR of the combatants, and whether you win or lose.
SP - Stat points - the points you use to increase your stats. You get 5 when you level up, one when you complete a district job, and others as rewards for achievements.
XP - Experience Points. These are what you acquire to reach the next level. There are several kinds of experience points. The general ones affect your level in the game. But there are also Class XP - which impact your class level.
PM - Private Message. Looks like a 1-1 chat or message board.
Stam - Stamina. You get a stamina unit every 5 minutes, and your stamina refills when you level up.
EvE - Empire vs Empire, or Empire Games, or Empire War, or Battles
PvP - Player vs Player. Two forms of fighting are categorized as PvP.
Fortress Properties - the properties introduced in late 2013, including a Fortress, Dojo, Science Facility, etc.
LT - Lieutenant.
Inner Circle - the five seats that you use for LT's to help you in fights.
Farm. To perform a task repetitively. Ex: "I just want to farm some CC's."

EMPIRE SLANG

Back door - In EvE, a building on your opponent's back row which can be clearly seen by assassins. Often called "Building 9" "B9" or simply "9."
Stack tokens - In EvE, an order to wait, and to save up your tokens as the armory issues them.
Caller - the person coordinating action in EvE - calling the shots.
Start your timer - when an EvE game begins, all players are asleep, with "ZZZ" displayed above their images. When sleeping, you get half as many "action points" or "tokens" from the armory as when you are awake. By taking a single shot, a player tells the game that she is awake, and receives action points every time the armory cycles (between five minutes and nothing flat, depending on the level of your empire's armory).
CC's - Class Coins. These are acquired by playing empire games. They are necessary for buying Class Skills and upgrades to Class Skills.

Property Basics

There are three good reasons to buy properties.

1. Income. Cash helps with many facets of the game. I like to buy properties that have a payback within 60 days as income properties. 
2. Skills. Some properties will increase the skills of your toon or your LT's.
3. Class coins. I'm a big fan of the dojo, because I love the boost in CC's. 

There is a property that doesn't impact any of the above - the safe house. Still you gotta buy 'em. I try to plan to get a safehouse when the amount of money it holds is 10 times my hourly property income. This is just the first example of a class of properties that you will need to buy, but the reasons for it aren't as easy to justify as the others. I get those when I have to, as late as possible.

Like everything else in the game, I use a spreadsheet to plan property acquisition, and to track my progress on my plan. Here are some suggestions that you might use in your plan.

THE FIRST 30 PROPERTIES

• Tier 1: the "less than three days paybacks." These are the first 8 restaurants. They cost $10,000, plus an additional $1,000 for each level after the first one. They each produce $250 per hour of income, and only take half an hour to build. So you spend 10k, 11k, 12k, etc up to 17k, a total outlay of $108,000, to achieve a return of $2,000 per hour in income. 
• The layer of icing between Tiers 1 and 2 is the first safehouse upgrade. I wanna say it's free, and will protect up to $40,000 in undeposited funds. It will cost you an hour of waiting. So, until your hourly income exceeds $4,000, you're okay with this level. 
• Tier 2: "safehouse 1." In this tier, you will buy Restaurants 9-10, and Condo's 1-3. That will take your income to $4,000. 
• Then you need to save a bit, and sped $120k on Safehouse 2, which will protect your income up to $80,000 an hour. 
• The next tier is Hospital 1, Condo 4, Hospital 2, Condo 5-6. 
• Safehouse 3, costs $240,000, protects $150,000.
• Acquire properties with the biggest cash return for the money you put in. If it looks like we're just randomly jumping around from Hospital to Condo to Clubs, that's the reason. Condo 7, Hospital 4, Condo 8, Hospital 5, Night Club 1, Condo 9, Hospital 6, and Condo 10. By this point, you'll be making almost $15,000 per hour in income. 

THE NEXT 30 PROPERTIES

The next 30 properties are a mix of Night Clubs, Hospitals, Construction Companies, Mansions, and a Casino. I promote the construction companies ahead of where their calculated return puts them, becuase they build faster. Mansions take 24 hours and Casinos take 48. Construction companies take 1. Getting a $1,000 hourly income on $1.5 million isn't a great return, but since it shortens the build times for the longer properties, and since it is $1,000 an hour after all, I push them up a little bit. Note: you must have the

Downtown district open to build a Casino. The first casino puts you over $100,000 per hour, a fine milestone for your first 60 properties. 

You have a choice for the next 30 properties. I play to maximize property income, but some players might prefer to strengthen their LT's sooner. That means you are going to want to build the Personal Armory and the Boxing Gym. They start at $10 million, and go up a mil per level, for ten of them. Each one adds one attack or defense to each of your LT's. That's a big boost in boss fights, and it's a nice boost in EvE, especially if you are a leveling build. Adding 10 attack and 10 defense to each of your seated LT's give you a nice boost in empire fights. You must have the Westside District open before you can build Armories and Gyms. 

One cool thing is that these additions to LT powers are factored into the seat bonuses. So, if you add 5 attack to your LT's, and you put an LT in the assassin seat to double their attack, the LT bonus is doubled too. For example, if you have a 1* Epic with 60 attack in the assassin seat, and add 5 personal armories, they will have 60+5 attack, and their bonus will be 65 more points for being in the Assassin seat. It will display on the LT page as Attack 60 bonus +70. I do these after finishing the first level of Fortress jobs, but some players will want to do them sooner, like ... here. 

Another possibility for the 60-90 property approach is to start on Fortresses. I like to wait on this until I get the property income above $200,000 per hour. These properties cost a lot, and I'm a patient man. 

The 90-120 properties include all ten of the real estate agencies, which take an hour, yield $1,000, and lower the cost of other properties by 10%; the rest of the casinos and construction companies, and the last three begin a new era: The first Fortress, Dojo, and the 11th restaurant. Note: You must have the Meat Packing district open to build Real Estate offices.  

THE FORTRESS PROPERTIES

You can approach the fortress properties two ways. 

• Rush the Dojos. In this approach, you build the fortresses and the dojos as fast as you can. The game doesn't allow you to build them one after the other. The requirements for each Fortress are a different property from the previous level. You can skip about a third of these if you want to rush to dojo 10. 
• A balanced approach, between Fortress job development and more property development. In this approach, I do all of the Level 1 Fortress properties (Fortress, Dojo, Bio Lab, Airport, Space Program, Steel Factory, War Factory, Defense Facility, Stock Market), then do the Level 2 Fortress and Dojo. That gets me a 10% boost in Cc's, and a 1% boost in Attack, Defense, Energy, Stamina, Health, and property income.

Some notes about fortress properties. These come after your first 60 (or 90) properties, so I'll be brief about them until I can devote a full post to them.

• Fortress 1 requires a Level 6 safehouse. That's the one that costs $7 mil and protects 1.25 mil. 
• Building a Fortress allows you to build another Restaurant, Condo, Night Club, Casino, and Caribbean Island. The first four are terrific sources of cash, and at this point I do 11th and 12th properties from Restaurant to Casino, and build the first four Caribbean Islands. That gets me up over 200,000 income per hour. 
• The first fortress takes 24 hours. After that they take another 24 hours for each level. So, the second one is 48 hours, the third one is 72, and so on. Dojos are the same way. This isn't all bad. Since they cost an arm and a leg, it takes a while to save up for them. 
• Then I build the Armories and Gyms. That boosts my LT's, gets me another 20,000 in hourly income, and they only take an hour each. After waiting several days on a fortress and Dojob, a one-hour property is like a vacation.
• After that, I alternate building a level of Fortress properties with a level or income properties, but I don't build the Islands after level 7. The cost and return are so bad that I just push them out until all of the fortress properties are done. 
• Building the fortress properties through level 10 will add 10% to your energy and Stamina. Some LSI players look at the 2000 energy refill limit, and the 1000 stamina refill limit, and only build these skills to 1818 and 909 respectively, before turning to Attack and defense. Those players are dying to get stronger, and the fortress properties give them a chance to get a max refill and perhaps get their toon stronger than Mia at the same time. 

The sequence for building the fortress properties, and the requirements for each level, are complicated enough to justify a post devoted to the topic some other time. Beginners won't be building Fortresses very early. 

Secret Jobs

In each District, there is a building that is grayed out when you start. After you 5-star the district, that building takes on its color, and can be entered. It contains 8 jobs, each similar in cost and reward to one of the jobs in the district. They follow themes, and when you finish them, you get a crate roll. 

They are not always easy to find. At this time, the secret jobs are only available for the first 5 districts. 

Slums - Skulls Screte Hideout. Bottom left of the map, huge haunted house. 

Tracks - Union Station. Center of map, large columns on building. 

Midtown - Casino. Bottom left of map, on the beach.

Meatpack - Sports Arena. Top center, open stadium. 

Downtown - Entertainment District. Top center, near the subway. 

These are a great deal. By the time you reach them, you generally have enough energy to get through them quicker than the districts they are from. They are a great source of 40 SP - 8 jobs, 5 stars each - and a free crate roll besides. You can do these jobs as many times as you like, but you only get one crate roll for each district. 

After you 5* a district, pile up some cash and SP doing the secret jobs. And I hope you get an Epic LT on every roll!

How big are the districts?

A few notes about the size of the districts. 

The number of jobs in each district:

6 Slums, Tracks

9 Midtown

10 Meatpack

11 Downtown, Westside

15 Russia

17 Italy, Hong Kong, France, Mexico

The approximate amount of energy needed to complete one trip through each district:

Slums 488

Tracks 1,410

Midtown 4,030

Meatpack 6,111

Downtown 5,581

Westside 7,376

Italy 9,858

Russia 13,041

Hong Kong 19,623

France TBD

Mexico TBD

The XP/Energy payoffs decline from 1.32 in Slums to 1.15 in Downtown. The next three are between 1.07 and 1.10, until you reach Hong Kong, where it plummets to 0.78. Yes, you put in more energy than you get back in XP. 

For some reason, it seems like it takes a month to 5* Italy (for an LSI build, longer for BSI), and only a couple of weeks for the next three. I think that's because by that time, an LSI is climbing up above 1500 Energy, and a refill or level-up gets you two stars. When I was at the end of Italy, it seemed like a level would only get me 1 star of progress. 

This game is more fun if you are patient. Set your expectations realistically. Then enjoy the journey, instead of dashing to the destination. 

The Best Paying Jobs

You don't play for long before you realize that different jobs pay different amount of money and XP. You put in energy, and you get back some of both money and XP. 

And then sometimes later you find that you need some quick cash. Here's where you can get the most money for your Energy. I just calculated the average payout for each job, and the amount of energy you put in per roll, and calculated a Return on Energy - RoE. 

Final Stop, Hong Kong $3518

Stock Exchange, Hong Kong $3240

Baja, Mexico $3180

Final Relic France $3125

Retrieve the Relic, Russia $3107

Those are the only jobs that give $3000 for each Energy unit put in. You might notice that they are from the last four districts in the game at present. If you are not that far along, here are the best-paying jobs in each of the other districts.

Italy. Ambush $2673

Westside. Armored Takedown $2500

Downtown. Steal a Rival's Protection Fees, $1575. NOTE: Downtown has a secret job DJ, that pays $1750. If Downtown is as far as you've gotten, you'll want to be able to use that job to get more case. 

Meatpack. Open a Strip Club, $766

Midtown. Move Stolen Goods $590

Tracks. Bank Robbery $284. NOTE: Secret Job Movie Set gives $383.

Slums. Skull Market $211

You can do these jobs over and over, if you've completed the boss job for that district. It's always a good idea to "5-star" a district so you can get more Stat Points (SP). I usually try to complete the following district before I 5-star a district, in case I run low on cash in the next district and need to use the previous one. 

But even after you have 5-starred a district, you can return and roll on jobs you like. 

WHAT ABOUT THE MOST XP PER JOB?

I mentioned above that you get two things when you do a job: money and XP. Perhaps you are close to leveling up, and you'd like to know how to get the most XP for a job. Here are the five jobs that give the most XP for a job. NOTE that if you have Penelope, you will get one more XP for each job (and in some conditions, more than that). This list assume that you have Penelope seated somewhere in your inner circle. 

Slums, Find Leads. Costs 2 energy, gives 3 XP, 1.50 XP per E. This is the tappingest job you can do. I know people including me, who have tapped this baby 500 times in a row to get to a new level.

Tracks, Escort Duty. Costs 8 energy, returns 11 or 12. I call it 11.5, and that's a 1.44 ratio. 

Tracks, The Shakedown. Costs 6, returns 8 to 10. This is the job where luck can take you above the Find Leads return. It averages just short of 1.5 - you get the 8 more than the 10 - but sometimes you get the 10, and 10 for 6 is the best return anywhere. 

Midtown, Rob a Jewelry Store. Costs 8, returns 11. That's a 1.38 ratio.

Downtown, Prepare for War. Costs 18, returns 24, 1.33 ratio. If the return is important, but not critical, this one will save you some tapping. If you have a baron, it will take 54, and return 72, and catch you up pretty fast. 

Honorable Mention: Italy's Warm Welcome gives 1.30, and $1000 per Energy. A fine balance. 

SUMMARY

Most of the time, you're going to want to get SP for your jobs. Once you've 5-starred a job, you would only want to go back and do it again under unusual conditions, such as if you are trying to level up quickly, or need cash to heal or buy property. But some players have 5-starred all of the properties. Those players generally spin the dice jobs, which give a little money and a little XP but lots of LT's. Dice jobs are a different animal, and we'll talk about them another time. 

Gifting

Gifting only sort of works. I have been told that about 25% of gifts are actually received. My own tests indicate that it's hit or miss. This introduces an element of frustration and difficulty, but you have to just turn a blind eye to it. Gifting is very important. 

Why?

Because gifting is the only way to get certain items. If you get the parts to make a diamond in the Techlab, for example, you will add 1 attack to Sin - if you have her and if you keep the diamond. You can also use the diamond to start the Red Phoenix Core job. 

In some cases, you can't do the dice job for a district unless you have a skull medallion, for instance. I try not to use my last skull medallion (you use them to start the Skull King boss job) so I can do the dice job it permits. Plus, medallions count as gear in PvP War. 

But the best reason to gift is to be able to try to build the Sara LT. Sara has 5 parts, and four of them come from Boss Drops where you need a TechLab item to start the job. 

The rule of thumb for gifting is that if your intended recipient has accepted your previous gift, you can gift them again. It seems to me that you can gift about 15-20 people every 15 minutes, but I don't know the exact specification.

I try to gift a page of my allies every half hour or so. I only get one or two gifts back. Since you know it's a leaky process, and you want a lot of stuff back, gift early, gift often, and try to get all of the people in your empire to help. 

Don't be discouraged. This game is about persistence, if nothing else. 

6 Quests to Do in the First Week.

The game can be a bit overwhelming to the new player. Here are a few things for the "first-week" player to focus on.

1. Complete 25 Jobs to 100%
2. Own 5 Property
3. Gain 5 allies
4. Send 5 Gifts
5. Pay Respect 5 Days
6. Win 25 Duel / War

There is lots more that you will need to decide about later. But the first week, you might try to do these things.