Play Cityville with strategy on Facebook - Businesses

If you haven't been playing Cityville on Facebook then you are missing out on a fun game.  Like all Zynga Games this game is social and works best when you cooperate with friends.  The game is easy to play and the developers provide tasks, and suggestions to guide players.  You could take their suggestions throughout the game or you could take a different approach and apply some math and strategy to "win" more effectively at Cityville...

As seen on the main screen of Facebook, you are constantly fed suggestions for tasks to complete.  Each of these uses up your energy and focusses you on Zynga's goals.  It is a fine way to play.  If you want a "cute" city with lots of "collections", you can hit the Facebook link above and just go play Cityville, but if you want to be effective you will benefit from some simple math and a comparison of your choices in Cityville.

In Cityville, not all businesses are created equal.  First of all, many are locked until you have a large enough population or until you've completed goals, or you've paid large amounts of city cash to skip ahead.  As you might expect, the cheapest businesses have some disadvantages like earning a small amount of coins, or requiring you to come back every 5 minutes.  The more expensive businesses tend to do better, but there are a couple sweet spots where a cheaper business actually does better. If you just want to pick a winner, then skip down to below the table.

. Cityville Business Name Purchase Cost (coins) Goods needed to supply Coins earned on collection Coins/ Goods Ratio "Profit" per Energy Collections till payback Profit after 10 collections Profit after 50 collections Profit after 100 collections Profit after 1000 collections . Bakery 200 10 40 4.00 30 6.67 100 1,300 2,800 29,800 . Flower Kiosk 400 25 95 3.80 70 5.71 300 3,100 6,600 69,600 . Coffee Shop 600 100 320 3.20 220 2.73 1,600 10,400 21,400 219,400 . Toy Store 800 50 180 3.60 130 6.15 500 5,700 12,200 129,200 . Burger Joint 1000 75 240 3.20 165 6.06 650 7,250 15,500 164,000 . Video Game Store 1300 10 50 5.00 40 32.50 -900 700 2,700 38,700 . Diner 1600 50 230 4.60 180 8.89 200 7,400 16,400 178,400 . Cosmetic Store 1900 25 120 4.80 95 20.00 -950 2,850 7,600 93,100 . Pool Hall 2200 100 420 4.20 320 6.88 1,000 13,800 29,800 317,800 . Bike Shop 2500 75 330 4.40 255 9.80 50 10,250 23,000 252,500 . Shoe Store 3500 130 572 4.40 442 7.92 920 18,600 40,700 438,500 . French Restaurant 4500 110 495 4.50 385 11.69 -650 14,750 34,000 380,500 . Sunglasses Shop 5500 120 534 4.45 414 13.29 -1,360 15,200 35,900 408,500 . Italian Restaurant 6500 150 645 4.30 495 13.13 -1,550 18,250 43,000 488,500 . Seafood Restaurant 7500 140 609 4.35 469 15.99 -2,810 15,950 39,400 461,500 . Handbag Store 10000 120 654 5.45 534 18.73 -4,660 16,700 43,400 524,000 . Sushi Bar 12500 110 605 5.50 495 25.25 -7,550 12,250 37,000 482,500 . Wedding Store 15000 130 702 5.40 572 26.22 -9,280 13,600 42,200 557,000 . Cinema 100000 140 749 5.35 609 164.20 -93,910 -69,550 -39,100 509,000

. Chic Boutique 250000 150 795 5.30 645 387.60 -243,550 -217,750 -185,500 395,000 . Jewelery Store 500000 155 830 5.35 675 740.74 -493,250 -466,250 -432,500 175,000 . Tower Eats 1000000 165 900 5.45 735 1,360.54 -992,650 -963,250 -926,500 -265,000 . . . * I've ignored "special" businesses bought with city cash.

Picking a winning business.  
You might have already figured out that you want a good ration of coins for the goods you supply, but that isn't the most important factor given the games short supplies of energy. In a nutshell, you want to get as many coins per collection as possible.  This reduces the payback period, or the number of times you need to collect to earn what you paid for the business.  Also this minimizes the amount of energy you need to spend to earn coins.

Long Story Short.
Welcome back for those of you who skipped ahead. ;-) Short and sweet, early on, pick the shoe store. It provides you with more coins per goods/supplies than most others at that stage in the game.  If you have lots of neighbors, the bridal store is an excellent choice when it becomes available.

Cheers, have fun playing Cityville!
Greg.