DFI per Trillion (Golden Rainbow)

I'm getting what I think must be wrong results when calculating DFI points per money. And I've compiled some data that might be useful for myself and others, once somebody points out what else needs to be taken into account.

The Points, Soldiers, and Officers columns are taken from the documentation. The Weapon Cost and Ammo Cost are recent Golden Rainbow market prices. The Ammo Count is taken from the automatic suggestions of ammo in garrison blueprints for land-based units and from the ammo in a wing for air units.

Weapon	Points	Weapon Cost (M)	Ammo Cost (M)	Ammo Count	Total Direct Cost (M)	Points/$T	Soldiers	Officers
Anti Aircraft Missile Batteries	.002220	22.03	13.09	40	545.6	4.1	4	2
Missile Interceptor Batteries	.004350	24.28	22.24	40	913.9	4.8	5	2
Defensive Missile Batteries	.002150	25.48	18.77	40	776.3	2.8	4	2
Armored Vehicles	.000242	7.88	4.31	40	180.3	1.3	6	2
Defensive Helicopters	.002250	217.27	14.89	30	646.0	3.4	10	4
Defensive Interceptors	.003640	333.65	12.55	30	710.2	5.1	12	5
Defensive Artillery*	.000248	12.82	0.13	120	28.4	8.7	7	2
Light Tanks	.000406	16.10	0.13	120	31.7	12.8	7	2
Nuclear Defense Batteries	?	4440.0	2950	2	10340.0	?	?	?
Defensive Jeeps	.000248	5.33	na	0	5.3	46.5	4	2
Defensive Radar Planes	.039700	876.81	na	0	876.8	45.3	90	50
Defensive Fortifications	.045800	952.52	na	0	952.5	48.1	1800	360
Defensive Military Airport	.206000	835.94	na	0	835.9	246.4	3000	600
Defensive Military Base	.206000	852.65	na	0	852.7	241.6	2400	480

*Light Artillery is referred to in some places in the game; Defensive Artillery is referred to in other, mutually exclusive places. I assume they are the same thing.

OK, so I've noted the personnel needed without really taking into account the direct or opportunity costs of having those soldiers and officers in the military. I'm sure airports and bases lose <i>some</i> of their appeal when you look at the whole picture. But they may still be a good buy, if you're only looking for DFI as opposed to actual defense.

And it does indeed appear that if you're not going to deploy them (so they won't use gasoline and use up ammo, or am I wrong about that?) jeeps are indeed very economical.

It also seems that if you're going to get actual weapons, tanks, rather than interceptors, are the way to go.

So what have I totally screwed up in this? (Aside from skipping naval units, because I'm landlocked.) And do Nuclear Defense Batteries get you anything in the DFI? It doesn't say so in the documentation.

jeeps are cheep and give decent DFI since thy are so stupid cheap. 362k jeeps is 87 points i belive and its only 1-2T.

oh my bad i ddnt notice you had them on there im sorry.

Nice chart, i was gunna do something like that, but very nice.

I'm impressed. Think this chart will be helpful to a lot of people. I don't know the formulae, but bases and airbases are necessary for holding weapons which are not deployed. A base can support something like 1000 weapon systems, same with airbases. I don't know if inactive status (as opposed to active but not deployed) plays into it or not.

BTW, you are allowed to build Navies even if landlocked. The best offensive players maintain navies because their movement is virtually unlimited, giving them the ability to project power anywhere on the globe.

I would hazard a guess that nuke defense counts for something, since it is a weapon system that utilizes manpower. Don't know what the number is myself.

Bases and airbases can hold up to 20,000 weapons. 1000 is the minimum, without which they'll shut down.

Interesting, kudos on the chart Dvd!

One note: I know the documentation says 20,000, but I'm fairly confident bases and airports can hold up to 40,000 weapons.

OK< the reason those numbers were so out of whack is that the staff make a big difference. So I came up with a rough guess of carrying that many soldiers and officers.

The usual price for a million people is five gold coins. And the usual price for a gold coin on Golden Rainbow is $580M. That makes the cost of one person %2.8M. That includes children, retirees, and all levels of workers. Those in the military are already educated and have many working (and possibly reproducing) years ahead of them. It's hard to see how even low level soldiers of that age are below average in value. And officers, of course, are worth more. If someone has better numbers I'll be happy to use them, but for now, I'll call soldiers $3M and officers $6M.

And that's before salaries. How do you figure the current value of salaries you'll pay forever? In real life, the prevailing interest rate, combined with a little math, would give you an answer. But here, the nominal interest rate is kept artificially low while additional cost of borrowing is sometimes felt in other ways.

So for those of you who haven't plateaued and who therefore still have something useful to do with their money, how long would you have to keep the money in order for you to make a deal where you borrowed $1T and had to pay back $2T, provided the game didn't penalize you in any other way? I'm guessing it's about 15 game years (2 real life months, if you're playing on a world with 3 months per day). Maybe the game interest rate is close to fair and my number is way off; let me know if you have good reason to think so and I can run new numbers.

Somebody check my formula, but if it's 15 years, I think the value of a $x every year is x/(2^(1/15)-1), which Google says is a little over 21x. Let's call it 20x, because my estimates aren't good to within 5%, anyway. Now we just need to determine x. Most people who are trying to boost DFI as opposed to actual defense probably aren't up to a salary index of 400 yet. Let's say the soldiers are getting $25K and the officers $70K. Multiplying those by 20, we get a salary cost of $0.5M for the soldiers and $1.4M (call it $1.5M) for the officers.

So that makes the overall cost for soldiers %3.5M and for officers $7.5M. I'm not confident those are the best numbers we can come up with, but I'm confident they'll produce a more accurate table than the one above. So here's version 2:

Weapon	DFI Points	Weapon Price	Ammo Price	Ammo Count	Soldiers	Officers	Total Cost	Points/$T
Defensive Radar Planes	.039700	0876.81	na	000	0090	050	01826.8	21.7
Defensive Military Base	.206000	0852.65	na	000	2400	480	17652.7	11.7
Defensive Military Airport	.206000	0835.94	na	000	3000	600	21835.9	09.4
Defensive Jeeps	.000248	0005.33	na	000	0004	002	00045.3	05.5
Light Tanks	.000406	0016.10	0000.13	120	0007	002	00086.7	04.7
Missile Interceptor Batteries	.004350	0024.28	0022.24	040	0005	002	00958.09	04.5
Defensive Interceptors	.003640	0333.0065	0012.55	030	0012	005	00820.2	04.4
Anti Aircraft Missile Batteries	.002220	0022.03	0013.09	040	0004	002	00585.6	03.8
Defensive Fortification	.045800	0952.52	na	000	1800	360	13552.5	03.4
Defensive Helicopters	.002250	0217.27	0014.89	030	0010	004	00754.0	03.0
Defensive Artillery	.000248	0012.82	0000.13	120	0007	002	00083.4	03.0
Defensive Missile Batteries	.002150	0025.0048	0018.77	040	0004	002	00816.3	02.6
Armored Vehicles	.000242	0007.88	0004.31	040	0006	002	00230.3	01.1
Nuclear Defense Batteries	?	4440.0	2950.00	002	?	?	?	?

I think this table still places too high a value (even if we're only concerned with DFI) on items that can't be held in stock, like bases and fortifications, as opposed to items that must be deployed before they're working. That's because I think things like fortifications will use fuel and other incidentals while an undeployed missile battery won't. Is that right? Once I get confirmation, I may make a version 3 that takes such costs into account. I may even include naval units. Also, can someone tell me how many points a nuclear defense battery is worth and how much staff it requires?

version 2.01, correcting two typos. It would be nicer if the forum formatting supported right-aligned cells, so I didn't need leading zeros.

Weapon	DFI Points	Weapon Price	Ammo Price	Ammo Count	Soldiers	Officers	Total Cost	Points/$T
Defensive Radar Planes	.039700	0876.81	na	000	0090	050	01826.8	21.7
Defensive Military Base	.206000	0852.65	na	000	2400	480	17652.7	11.7
Defensive Military Airport	.206000	0835.94	na	000	3000	600	21835.9	09.4
Defensive Jeeps	.000248	0005.33	na	000	0004	002	00045.3	05.5
Light Tanks	.000406	0016.10	0000.13	120	0007	002	00086.7	04.7
Missile Interceptor Batteries	.004350	0024.28	0022.24	040	0005	002	00958.09	04.5
Defensive Interceptors	.003640	0333.65	0012.55	030	0012	005	00820.2	04.4
Anti Aircraft Missile Batteries	.002220	0022.03	0013.09	040	0004	002	00585.6	03.8
Defensive Fortification	.045800	0952.52	na	000	1800	360	13552.5	03.4
Defensive Helicopters	.002250	0217.27	0014.89	030	0010	004	00754.0	03.0
Defensive Artillery	.000248	0012.82	0000.13	120	0007	002	00083.4	03.0
Defensive Missile Batteries	.002150	0025.48	0018.77	040	0004	002	00816.3	02.6
Armored Vehicles	.000242	0007.88	0004.31	040	0006	002	00230.3	01.1
Nuclear Defense Batteries	?	4440.0	2950.00	002	?	?	?	?

Ugh. Last typos, I'm pretty sure. Version 2.02. Sorry for spamming.

Weapon	DFI Points	Weapon Price	Ammo Price	Ammo Count	Soldiers	Officers	Total Cost	Points/$T
Defensive Radar Planes	.039700	0876.81	na	000	0090	050	01826.8	21.7
Defensive Military Base	.206000	0852.65	na	000	2400	480	17652.7	11.7
Defensive Military Airport	.206000	0835.94	na	000	3000	600	21835.9	09.4
Defensive Jeeps	.000248	0005.33	na	000	0004	002	00045.3	05.5
Light Tanks	.000406	0016.10	0000.13	120	0007	002	00086.7	04.7
Missile Interceptor Batteries	.004350	0024.28	0022.24	040	0005	002	00958.9	04.5
Defensive Interceptors	.003640	0333.65	0012.55	030	0012	005	00820.2	04.4
Anti Aircraft Missile Batteries	.002220	0022.03	0013.09	040	0004	002	00585.6	03.8
Defensive Fortification	.045800	0952.52	na	000	1800	360	13552.5	03.4
Defensive Helicopters	.002250	0217.27	0014.89	030	0010	004	00754.0	03.0
Defensive Artillery	.000248	0012.82	0000.13	120	0007	002	00083.4	03.0
Defensive Missile Batteries	.002150	0025.48	0018.77	040	0004	002	00816.3	02.6
Armored Vehicles	.000242	0007.88	0004.31	040	0006	002	00230.3	01.1
Nuclear Defense Batteries	?	4440.00	2950.00	002	?	?	?	?

On a related note, does anyone know how garrisons affect the DFI (if indeed they do)?

I can find the values for Military Units (air wings and the like), but not garrison units.