Back Collecting and Labor Camp Swapping - Reducing your bills and make more money!

In this in depth guide, I will explain how to get the most out of the game, by manipulating the mechanics to allow you to make the most money possible. Every large nation in the game uses tricks like these to help reduce bills and make much chocolate. Remember, You should also be able to use your warchest to pay bills! It is good to keep a healthy sum of cash on hand for buying wonders and in case we get attacked.

Back collecting is a game changer in Cyber Nations, It requires a little extra patience but really pays off in the end. Its the premise that you can go 20 days without collecting taxes or paying bills. Basically the idea is that you can worry about minimizing your bills 19/20 of the days. On the 20th day you want to maximize your population happiness and in turn income.

Let's say you are at 999.99 Infra. You do a back collect for 20 days and collect your tech deal money etc. By the end of the 20 day back collect you should have enough money to get to 1999.99 infra, or make another "infra jump". Now the reason we pay bills for 19 days straight without collect is; because the game will pay us for 20 days worth of taxes @ 1999.99 infra even if we paid the bills for the 999.99 the first 19 days before buying 1000 infrastructure on day 20. This method will always make you more money and is used across Planet Bob.

Low Infra/Infra Jump back collecting:

Alright, So you have just started playing and would like to grow your nation as quickly as possible. The first thing you need to understand, is Cyber Nations is a slow game. Each day represents one year in your nations life. This means you need to plan and strategize to get the most out of every day possible. By now you have heard of Back collecting and understand that the goal of this is to keep your bills low. If you have 1 infra, your bills are going to be really really low. Sure your stats wont look super great for the first week or two, but thats fine if you’re going to make more money than you would have if you got 300 infra your first day; As you would of had to pay bills on that 300 infra.

Paying bills at 1 infra costs about $5,000, paying bills at 300 infra costs about 120,000$. That means just by buying that infra, you are now paying 60x more money EVERY DAY! So if you can pay your bills for the longest possible time at the lowest possible infra, you will not only save money but have more money for infra!

So now that you have an idea of why you want to pay bills at the lowest infra (Even 1.2K infra vs 2K infra is huge!). You will do so for 10-20 days (or however long you can make it), At the end of this 20 days period, you will buy AS MUCH INFRA as you can afford, make sure to buy improvements with every 1000 citizens you gain!

Now that you have 20 days worth of taxes saved up, you can collect it with your shiney new infra. This will give you 20 days worth of taxes at the infra level you bought up to, not the infra level you paid the bills for! Allowing you to make 60x more money, but not spend 60x more money on infra bills. The savings is HUGE! If you want to grow a succesful nation, This is the one thing you need to use (well that and wonders)

Labor Camp Swapping:

At 1999.99 your infra bills start becoming rather large. Now labor camps are great for reducing infrastructure bills but, forced labor doesn’t really benefit your peoples income (reduces population happiness -1). If you have 5 Labor camps that quickly becomes -5 Population happiness which equates to -10.00 citizen income which also means -2.50 in taxes collected per citizen. Now much like infra jumping at the end of a back collect, labor camp swapping allows you to further widen your bills to collection ratio. This is why you should never collect your taxes while you have labor camps, just sit around for 19 days paying bills with your labor camps.

Now while those are the negatives of the Labor Camp, Lets get to the benefits. -10% Infrastructure upkeep per Labor Camp, That allows you to literally cut your most expensive bill in half with 5 of these wonderful improvements. So even if you can’t afford an infrastructure jump this back collect you will still make 25% more money.

Now Labor Camps are kinda pricey at 150K each, thats why it’s important to back collect for 19 days, then sell them and replace them with banks or a cheap economic improvement you have sitting around. Personally I like to do it with banks or Police headquarters. Sometimes if I intend on not buying infrastructure for a while I will swap my factories out, thats a bit more pricey and you should do the math or just stick to your cheapest economic improvement.

Other Settings for paying bills:

Always make sure to switch back to your original settings like Defcon 5, Threat level low, and any other government positions.

DefCon: Defcon 1 Reduces your population happiness but also reduces Military efficiency. Good for people with a standing Air Force, Navy or Nuclear Weapons. Defcon 5 gives a happiness bonus but decreases efficiency.

Threat Level Severe: Makes your nation harder to spy on. Not super important but why not? Your pop happiness does not matter 19/20 days.

Government Type: Capitalist will help reduce your bills as well. Monarchy or Democracy are the best for collecting though.


Day
Action


1
Pay bills (take tech deals on small nations, buy labor camps large nations (2K+ infra)


2
Pay bills

3
Pay Bills

4
Pay Bills

5
Pay Bills

6
Pay Bills


7
Pay Bills


8
Pay Bills


9
Pay bills


10
Pay Bills (Send tech)


11
Pay Bills


12
Pay Bills


13
Pay Bills


14
Pay Bills


15
Pay Bills


16
Pay Bills


17
Pay Bills


18
Pay Bills


19
Pay Bills


20
Pay Bills > Swap labor camps, find new tech deals > Buy Infrastructure (MAKE SURE TO HAVE FACTORIES!) > Buy improvements/1000 citizens > Collect ( Add economic improvements)

Are you sure Defcon 1 reducing military upkeep cost? The official manual only mention purchase cost reduction and say nothing about upkeep.

Thanks so much for this; really helpful!

Vengir wrote:

Are you sure Defcon 1 reducing military upkeep cost? The official manual only mention purchase cost reduction and say nothing about upkeep.

Thanks vengir! I was wrong, Having your nation at its highest defensible point is always good to though.