I just did a calculation that yielded what I find to be interesting results. As many of you know, a common practice in business when making an infrastructure investment is to calculate the ROI (Return On Investment). Of particular interest is how long it takes to recoup your investment.
I have always more or less blindly leveled all my dragons to 15, especially those in production. I just noticed that one of the Bluefires in my Cold habitat was at level 14. I was getting ready to level it up to 15 as usual and I wondered if it was worth it. I don't need it as I already have Cold and Fire gold shrines, so the only apparent concrete benefit is to increase its gold coin production. Here are the numbers:
0 Current production at level 14 = 211/minute
0 Production at level 15 = 232/minute
0 Production gain = 21/minute
0 Cost to level up in treats = 163,840
0 Cost to level up in gold coins (using high volume treat purchase) = $8,192,000
---------------------
To break even and recover your cost requires:
0 395,095 minutes
0 6,502 hours
0 271 days
Since I'm only buying small size tubes of toothpaste these days, that seems like a long time to wait to get my money back. My conclusion? No more blindly leveling up dragons unless it's for a specific goal, such as earning a gold shrine or somesuch. It's not worth it to me to wait 271 days to start capturing a benefit from the expense - I'd rather keep the gold coins.
Poppy