Optimal banks

[Rafard23]

So how many banks on each workmode are optimal for max profit?

[Kunovega]

Depends on your population and how long you intend to sit around gathering money before simply winning the mission.

It's very rare to need more than 1 of each if the mission is short, 2 of each is optimal for the majority of medium length missions.

3 or more of each becomes so diluted that they take too many decades to even pay for their build cost and likely means you are lingering in a past era way beyond where you should be anyway. If you get to modern times you are better off investing in office buildings and not a 3rd bank.

Basically for me unless it's a huge multi-era super long mission I rarely even get to 2 of each and almost never beyond that unless I'm just intentionally dragging the game out longer than it needs to be.

[Rafard23]

This is very helpful, thank you.

[dbw86]

A few things I have noticed on banks...
Each bank you have reduces the money each bank can make.
If you have just 1 bank, it is limited at $1000 per month income - minus the buildings expenses
if you have enough money on hand - (I forget the minimum amount, but somewhere around a few hundred thousand) your bank will actually do the best with only 1/5 budget, and only 1 employee since you lower the building expenses of it, but have stayed at the $1000 income cap.

Offices are typically better, since I don't think they have the same caps, although they also have the diminishing returns as you build more and more of them. (assuming you are in the later eras to use them)

[dbw86]

Just did a bit more testing...
1 bank... 100% of cap for money made (before building budget expenses)... so potentially $1000 - $30 for 1/5 budget and 1 employee hired. total $970/month
2 banks... 80% = $770 per month (after expenses) x2 = $1540 per month max.
3 banks... 66.6% = $637 per month x3 = $1911 per month max.
4 banks.... 57% = $540 per month x4 = $2160 per month max
5 banks... 50% = $470 per month. x5 = $2350 per month max.

6 banks... 44.4%
7 banks... 40%
8 banks... 36%
9 banks... 33%
10 banks...31%... at this point, if you have your banks at max budget and fully staffed, each bank will actually lose money per month. At 1/5 budget and only 1 staff per bank you would be making $278 per month (x10 banks) = $2780 per month total

So the difference from 5 to 10 banks is only about 18% more income per month for double your investment.

Another note is that your banks require you to have a specific amount of treasury money available, if you have a negative treasury your banks will not create ANY money, and still have building expenses. so be sure to have a lot of cash on hand if you want to go this route.

[derp777]

looks like the formula for bank efficiency is 1000*4/(x+3), where x is the number of banks. formula for profit is 4000x/(x+3), so the theoretical maximum amount of profit from banks is 4000, but that discounts the upkeep and wages. counting that, the formula is x(4000/(x+3) - 30).

accounting for rounding, the amount of banks that would yield the maximum profit is 16, for a profit of $2896 per month.

now, the formula for how long it would take to recoup the cost of the banks, on the other hand, would be 15000x/f(x), where f(x) is the profit per month. assuming you don't use building permit or quick build, it would take 83 months to recoup the cost of 16 banks. if you used building permit and quick build, it would take about 141 months. here's a graph i made on desmos: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/auzybz9fuz

note that 16 banks will net you about 50% more than 3 banks. factoring in the cost of building the banks and the space they take up on the island, it's really not worth it to build more than 3. now, private banking, on the other hand, is another matter. it's worth it to have several banks on private banking if you have enough rich citizens, you can think of private banking as a 6th office work mode.

[Ragnarr Loðbrók]

usually i do max 2-3 banks per workmode, but usually i only have 4-6 banks total
1-2 per workmode is usally enough