What to buy: Rescue Buoy Room vs. Piano Room

Another pair of rooms that is pretty interesting today (remember, right now, there is a 50% discount on all rooms you buy with gold): the Piano Room and the Rescue Buoy Room. 

The Piano Room is cheaper (175 gold bars right now, compared to 425 for the Rescue Buoy Room), and they both pay out M$1,000,000 every 3 hours.

         

In one way, it's a no-brainer. If all you have is 175 gold bars, then pick up the Piano Room. This also holds true if you have less than 175 gold bars, but plan to add more properties of a single colour to pick up some extra gold by completing the sticker for properties of that colour or by chasing that burglar assiduously ... and *still* don't foresee having enough gold to buy a pricier room by the time the sale ends.

Of course, the sale could end Sunday night - EA has done that before. On the other hand, the sale may only end mid-day Thursday, if it lasts a full week like the recent sales have done.

No non-EA-insider can predict the length of the sale, so think about it and decide what your comfort level is. If you think the sale will last until Thursday, then your best bet is to get aggressive about collecting gold (Community Chest cards, filling up your sticker book, signing up for Origin and adding friends, filling out surveys ... whatever) so that you have some choices come Wednesday night. (I would be leery of waiting for Thursday morning - who knows what time the next weekly special will start?)

If you think the sale will end Sunday night, get completely aggressive so that you have your maximum gold by Sunday evening and then purchase the best room you can afford at that time.

As I said, at first glance, there isn't much to choose from between these two rooms - you might as well go for your preference of looks or what you don't yet have in your Guest Book or whether you like the colour of the life-guard's T-shirt or whether the Piano room guy's hair bugs you. 

After all, they do pay out the same in rent, right?

Not quite.

The Piano room costs 175 gold, takes up 4 squares, and pays out 125,000 experience points every 3 hours in addition to the M$1,000,000 rent.

The Rescue Buoy room costs more than double that (425 gold), but only takes up 2 squares of your hotel. On the other hand, it only pays 50,000 experience points every 3 hours.

Once again, let's do the apples-to-apples comparision:

Piano Room:

• Cash: M$1,000,000 / 4 / 3 = M$83,333,333 per square per hour
• Experience Points: 125,000 / 4 / 3 = 10,416.667 XP per square per hour

Rescue Buoy Room:

• Cash: M$1,000,000 / 2 / 3 = M$166,666.67 per square per hour
• Experience Points: 50,000 / 2 / 3 = 8,333.33 XP per square per hour

So ... that makes it a little bit more interesting.

Cash-wise, you'd be better off going for the Rescue Buoy Room, because it pays out double the rent per square for any given 3-hour period. 

Space-wise, too, if you have the gold to do it, you could have two Rescue Buoy rooms in the space taken up by a single Piano Room.

However, if you're really eager to collect every available experience point, you may want the Piano Room instead. Keep in mind that EA has recently raised the XP required to advance from one level to the next at all levels above level 40.

On yet another hand: if you don't care about space, you just want to build up your cash reserve as fast as possible: go for the Piano. Two of those will cost you less than a single Rescue Buoy, and you will still have some gold left over ... maybe enough to grab a Barbell room as well (that's another million every 12 hours).

My suggestion: Don't have enough gold to buy a Rescue Buoy room (or an even more pricey room - Flute, maybe, or the Golden Cauldron)? Then go for the Piano Room. Otherwise, go for the Rescue Buoy room. 

If you happen to have enough gold to buy *two* Rescue Buoy Rooms, consider saving up just a little longer to pick up either a Golden Cauldron or a Flute room - also, consider buying at least one Golden Treasure room because it pays rent in gold bars rather than cash.

And if you haven't even got enough to buy your first Piano Room, you can still step into the million-dollar rooms - save up 75 gold bars as fast as you can (catch every single community chest double!) and then buy a Barbell room - it will pay you M$1,000,000 every 12 hours. Not quite as quick as the other rooms, but at least you'll be playing in the multiple-million-rent-per-day range, which makes it easier to pile up cash for the other, even more pricey rooms.