How I earned $10,000 Sim Cash Without Hacks or Cheats – The Sandbag Method


I recently hit the $10,000 mark  in sim cash earnings from CoM (update: now up to $16,000). The method I discovered to do that was basically a mistake because I really wasn’t trying to do good. As it turns out, that was the secret: Keep your city level as low as possible and don't do good until you get to Megalopolis League

History:
When CoM got introduced I participated for a while and made some good efforts at advancing and winning the whole thing. I eventually got sick of the entire endeavor because it seemed like so much of it was based on luck. One person could do all of the highest point tasks, and yet still not win. So while others participated, I generally would only do the easiest tasks in order to earn the minimum required to get the Club Challenge rewards.

When wars got introduced, I jumped into that with full spirit and would often be one of the top scorers. Eventually I decided to make a second city so I could earn more points for my team. I purposefully kept that second city small, and like my main city, would do just enough to earn the Club Challenge Rewards in CoM.

Accidental promotion:
I never paid much attention to CoM since I really wasn’t doing it, and eventually noticed I was in Metropolis league. How? I had no idea. One look at the scoreboard showed that the leaderboard was mostly empty. The other people who had the same low contest rank as me just didn’t participate in CoM. Thus, without even trying, my super low scores of 1500 or 2000 points were enough to advance to the next stage.

Gametime
Since I was in the middle of a season, the win bonuses were doubled. Thus a win in Megalopolis League would earn $4,000 simcash. So I decided, heck, I might as well make a run for the title since the competition was basically non-existent. I won Metropolis league, and then did my best to win the megopolis league. In my first attempt, I came in 2nd, earning $2,000 simcash. Unfortunately the season was ending, so I waited until the next season and then repeated the process:

The Strategy
  • Use a feeder city. Keep it as low a level as possible. Preferably below level 30.
  • Barely advance to the next stage by keeping your CoM scores as low as possible, yet still advancing.
  • Keep scoring low until you get to Metropolis
  • Once you get to Metropolis, make your best attempt..
  • Sim Cash your way through boat and plane shipments
  • Use a ton of gold coins to speed things up
  • Chose only the highest point tasks
That second attempt earned me first place, netting me $4,000 sim cash. I took a bit of a break to build up my Vu supply and then made another attempt, again winning first place, netting another $4,000 sim cash. Since then, I've  repeated it again it with a 3rd place finish and another grand prize.

Note: I did all of this in my feeder city, which again was purposefully kept small, and at a low level (below 30) and a low contest level. My main city is level 99 and had:
  • Large supply of general items that I could share 
  • Large supply of Vu 
  • Large amount of bronze, silver, gold tokens stored up (I had about 100 of each)
The city that was competing in CoM had
  • Level 28 
  • Contest Level 12 
  • Large amount of bronze, silver, gold tokens saved up 
  • Large amount of golden tickets saved up 
  • About $300 sim cash saved up from wars.
Don't Be a Wimp - Spend Sim Cash to Win
Keep an eye on the sim cash amounts that you can potentially win. Know that the sim cash you spend is an investment into guaranteeing a larger payday at the end. You've probably grown accustomed to not spending sim cash on anything, but when you are trying to win the title, spend sim cash, and spend it freely. I spend anywhere from $50 - $250 sim cash for each win, but considering the difference between 1st and 2nd place is $2,000 sim cash, it was a calculated decision and one I don't regret. 


No Guarantees
Although I think this method is a much easier method than trying to fight it out with the big dogs, there is no guarantee you'll win. I think luck still plays a factor. One of my wins was by less than 100 points. I wouldn't be surprised if the programming rewards players who spent the most sim cash. So when you try to make a run for the title, do so making sure you can still earn enough to cover the sim cash expense and/or be happy with a top finish of 2nd-5th place or whatever your break even point is.

Enter the Season
The rewards are much greater during a season, so I would highly recommend only doing this during one. The more you play, the more your contest rank will increase and the competition will be harder, so keep that contest rank low and only go for it when it really counts.

Good luck!

4 comments:

  1. congratulations person

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  2. So your feeder has a boat-load of SimCash. Now what do you do with that since you can't ship it over to your main city...or can you?

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, there's no way to transfer simcash between cities.

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