What to buy: Flute Room vs. Golden Cauldron Room

There we have it, folks. The question du jour.

Which would you buy, the Golden Cauldron Room or the Flute Room?

Both are pricey, at 2,000 gold bars for the Golden Cauldron Room, and 1,998 gold bars for the Flute Room.

The Flute Room is on sale right now, 30% off. But that is irrelevant to the question at hand: as an investment, which is the better room?

There we are.

The similarities? The price. It's so close as to be irrelevant ... 2 gold bars is just one percent of the price of the Golden Cauldron Room, or 1.98% of the Flute Room's purchase price, so let's not quibble about price.

The differences?

The size of the rooms, for one. A Flute Room takes up exactly ONE square in a hotel, whereas a Golden Cauldron Room takes up 6 squares.

The yield, too. One pays out cash (M$10,000,000 every 8 hours), the other pays out gold to the tune of 10 gold bars every 7 hours. 

And then there is the question of experience points: you'd earn 225,000 XP every 8 hours with a Flute Room, or 250,000 XP every 7 hours from the Golden Cauldron Room.

Close, you say?

Not really. 

Keep in mind that the Golden Cauldron occupies 6 squares, so what you are really getting is 41,666.67 XP per square every seven hours.

Or, to compare apples to apples:

Golden Cauldron: 5,952.38 XP per square per hour
Flute: 28,125 XP per square per hour.

Okay, so for XP, it's a no-brainer to pick up a Flute Room - it brings in almost 5 times the XP of a Golden Cauldron.

But then we are back to looking at the gold.

Gold is the most difficult thing to earn in this Monopoly Hotels game.

It's marginally easier now, with the new sticker book, and the ability to earn gold for ALL doubles you roll on the Community Chest, rather than just for double 1s.

Still, gold is comparatively rare ...

So, when you've collected your 2,000 gold bars, which room will YOU be buying?

I thought about it and decided that I would still be aiming for the Flute Room - my main interest in collecting gold was FOR that Flute Room, so it would seem to be counterproductive to save up that much and then get a gold-producing room instead ... one that pays out a maximum of 40 gold per day... I would have to wait another ... oh ... 50 days to buy my Flute room if I splurged the first 2,000 on a Golden Cauldron.

Okay, 50 days is NOT that much, and maybe there'd be a half price sale, so you'd only wait 25 days ... 

But hey, that's your choice.

I am still going to focus on the Flute Room - it's yield is SO much nicer. :)

What are YOU going to do with your first 2K in gold?

Update (Oct 13th, 2012): As I wrote in a different analysis blog post this morning: I *was* going to spend the gold on the Flute room, but I just realised that would mean a one-time purchase, whereas a gold-producing room will mean the ability to buy *more* gold rooms as time goes by ... colour me enlightened!