The success of The Sims franchise brought many spin-offs for smartphones. SimCity, an open-end city-building simulator created by Electronic Arts is one of the most popular franchises inspired by The Sims.
SimCity – BuildIt is a mobile game released in 2014 and developed by TrackTwenty, the Finnish studio of talented developers. The game offers a unique experience, allowing you to unleash your inner city planner and design the megapolis of your dreams.
Photo: Electronic Arts
In this guide, we’ll provide you with the essential knowledge and strategies to become a professional city builder in SimCity – BuildIt.
From managing your finances and resources to unlocking key features, we’ll cover everything you need to know to transform your small town into a developing metropolis.
Starting In SimCity – BuildIt
Photo: Electronic Arts
As you start SimCity – BuildIt, you’ll meet Eva, your helpful City Advisor. This friendly blonde guide will lead you through the early steps, starting with connecting your city to the highway by building your first road.
Then, another NPC will introduce you to crafting, unlocking new possibilities for your growing metropolis.
Photo: Electronic Arts
By completing this mini-tutorial, you’ll get 25,000 Simoleons and 50 SimCash, your seed capital for growing a city. These resources can be used literally on everything you need, but focusing on the following areas will yield significant benefits in the long run:
- Building Building Supplies Stores, Small Factories
- Get a Wind Power Plant, which is a green source of energy for newbies
- Construct parks and modern art areas to keep people happy
Strategy
Like any other city-building video game, strategy is extremely important in SimCity – BuildIt. If you want to successfully drive your city, you should think about long-term growth from the beginning of the game.
Photo: Electronic Arts
Don’t try to build a huge city and plan big all at once. As you expand, it becomes more and more expensive to create your city plan, so start with a small, manageable area and slowly expand.
Carefully consider where you want to place residential zones and industrial buildings, as well as important public services.
It would be great to choose your main specialization from the following areas:
- Gambling
- Culture
- Electronics
- Trading
- Drilling
- Mining
Every specialization requires specific buildings and strategies, so identifying it from the start is extra beneficial.
City Journal
Photo: Electronic Arts
SimCity – BuildIt’s City Journal offers special missions that guide players through game progression and help them stay on track. At the moment of writing, there are 28 parts of City Journal, each packed with unique assignments.
All the city journals will suggest you do something new and unique to make your city gorgeous. For example, City Journal ‘Happy City’ requires players to:
- Place factories in remote areas away from residential buildings
- Build a park near residential buildings
- Reach happiness 60%
Following missions from City Journal is one of the best strategies to progress for newbies. It will help you to have a structured plan and understand what to do to have a larger population.
Photo: Electronic Arts
After each chapter of the City Journal, players can get special Reward Chests. These can contain Simcash, coins, and other resources, so, follow what the city journal suggests.
Building
In SimCity – BuildIt, you can place different buildings by dragging and dropping them in the desired area of the map. There are six types of structures, and each has a crucial role in developing your city, so let’s explore these six essential categories:
Roads
Photo: Electronic Arts
Roads are the foundation of your city in SimCity – BuildIt, as they connect buildings and enable transportation inside the city. There are different types of roads for heavier traffic and residential areas, so you should focus on building a well-connected road network early.
Residential Buildings
Photo: Electronic Arts
Residential buildings are where your citizens live. They come in various sizes and styles and can be upgraded to accommodate more people of different wealth levels. Ensure a balanced mix of housing to cater to your city’s residents and generate income through taxes.
Commercial Buildings
Photo: Electronic Arts
Commercial buildings are the drivers of development in SimCity – BuildIt. These are shops, restaurants, stores, and other buildings that provide goods and services to all of your residents.
Although commercial buildings are expensive, they bring significant profit to your city.
Industrial Buildings
Photo: Electronic Arts
There are 5 industrial buildings in SimCity – BuildIt: a Small Factory, a Basic Factory, a Mass Production Factory, a High-Tech Factory, and a Nano-Tech Factory.
These buildings are the production powerhouse of your city, as they provide resources like wood, metal, and plastic. These resources are essential for the construction and upgrade of your buildings.
Services
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These vital structures unlock at the first level and provide essential services like water, power, and pollution management.
Maintaining adequate service coverage is crucial for citizen happiness and preventing various outbreaks. Upgrade these buildings regularly to meet the demands of the population.
Specializations
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Specializations are special exclusive buildings and landmarks. Choose from various themes like Education, Entertainment, or Transportation, each offering distinct benefits and enhancing your cityscape.
Currencies
There are two main currencies in SimCity – BuildIt: Simoleons and SimCash. Understanding each currency is crucial to your city’s growth and success.
Photo: Electronic Arts
Simoleons are the main currency in SimCity. This is your everyday currency which you need to use to purchase different types of buildings, upgrade roads, and make your citizens happy. To earn Simoleons, you should upgrade Residential Zones and collect taxes from the City Hall.
Photo: Electronic Arts
SimCash is the premium currency in SimCity. SimCash can be used to increase store slots, open warehouses, increase production speed, instantly produce items, or get more expansion slots.
To get SimCash for free, players should complete City Achievements that grant a small amount of SimCash. Alternatively, this currency can be bought with real money.
Beyond SimCash and Simoleons, players can acquire two additional currencies: Platinum Keys and Golden Keys. Platinum Keys are used to buy powerful buildings and Disaster Cards, while Golden Keys are needed to purchase City Specialization buildings.
Clubs
As you reach level 18 in SimCity – BuildIt, you unlock Clubs, where you can talk, trade, and help other mayors, as well as get help in case you experience any trouble.
Photo: Electronic Arts
To join a club, players can head to the browse tab and search for the specific club or look for the suggested ones.
There are three kinds of Clubs in SimCity: open, private, and closed. Closed are usually the best ones, but you can only get invited to join such a club.
And if you don’t want to join the existing club, you can create your own as long as you are not a member of any other club.
This allows you to choose your logo, write a description, select the preferred club language, and even set the requirements to join. However, creating a club is not free, it costs 50 SimCash.
Pollution
Although service buildings are the drivers of your progression in SimCity – BuildIt, they create pollution areas within the radius around them. These areas negatively impact your citizens’ health and happiness, ultimately hindering your city’s development.
Photo: Electronic Arts
To minimize the impact of pollution on your citizens, carefully plan the layout of your city. Keep in mind that service buildings don’t need to be near the residential buildings to get their role fulfilled. These constructions should be only connected to homes through roads, so you can feel free to place them away from the residential zones.
As a part of this strategy, you can invest resources in green power sources. Wind and solar are green energy buildings, and they don’t have any pollution radius, making them citizens-friendly.
SimCity – BuildIt – Tips and Tricks for Beginners
To build the largest city in SimCity – BuildIt, you can use the following tips and tricks wisely, as they can make your in-game experience much better and help you progress through the levels more efficiently and effortlessly!
Don’t Waste Your Simcash
Photo: Electronic Arts
Simcash is the most important resource in SimCity – BuildIt, so we recommend you save it as much as possible. Sometimes it might be tempting to hurry the production of materials or items, or even buy the lacking items to finish that one upgrade quickly.
However, this is the worst thing you can do in SimCity. There are much better things in which you can invest your resources in SimCity – BuildIt.
For example, you can use Simcash to get more Building Supplies Stores and have more city residential buildings. Although it doesn’t speed up the production time, it allows you to fill more slots and progress more intensively while you are AFK.
Join the Club
As you level up your city to level 18, you unlock the club feature. It’s one of the legal cheats in SimCity – BuildIt that allows you to progress much faster.
Photo: Electronic Arts
Being a club member, you can trade items with other club members, exchange strategies with each other, participate in exclusive club events, and of course, clan wars, which are the main advantages of joining the club.
If you don’t want to join one of the existing clubs, you can start one of your own. But keep in mind that leveling up your club takes time, and you’ll be responsible for managing your club, which takes extra time.
Keep Citizens Happy
Do you want your citizens to pay high taxes, be effective, and influence building upgrades? You must keep your citizens happy, as it’s one of the most important factors affecting your city’s development.
Photo: Electronic Arts
Here are the best things you can do to keep citizens’ happiness level high:
- Pay attention to opinion bubbles, as these might give you hints on improvements you can make
- Create service buildings that will meet the demand of all the residential buildings
- Build residential areas away from the pollution and next to roads
- Prioritize social programs that will ensure your citizens have access to proper education and healthcare
- Diversify the economy to provide more job opportunities and increase the overall income
However, if you don’t care about citizens’ happiness, they might move out of your city and abandon their houses, causing economic and demographic damage to your community.
Take Advantage of AFK Production
We’re human, so even the most captivating games like SimCity – BuildIt can’t hold our attention 24/7. But before you exit the game and put your phone away, consider what actions you can take to ensure your return yields benefits to your city.
Photo: Electronic Arts
Make sure to start producing resources or building items with the longest production so they can be produced while you are AFK. If you have a free Simcash, you can add more slots to your factories, which allows you to stay in AFK even longer without harming the city’s development.
Save Your Simoleons
Photo: Electronic Arts
Things are becoming more expensive as you progress in SimCity – BuildIt. That’s why we recommend saving your Simoleons early even if it seems unbeneficial in the short-term perspective.
And if you are not very good at saving money, check out multiple tips that will help you to accumulate cash in SimCity:
- If you want to buy any resources, go to Daniel first and check if he has any stuff at a discount.
- Focus on upgrading factories that produce resources in high demand for faster profits.
- Keep an eye on the achievements and try to finish them. These objectives often reward you with Simoleons, SimCash, and other valuable materials & resources.
Conclusion
That’s it with the SimCity – BuildIt beginners guide & tips. We spend multiple days grinding and learning the best strategies, so we hope our pieces of advice will help you build a flourishing city.
Photo: Electronic Arts
The guide has ended, but you are still here? Well, we have got an extra piece of advice for you. Before you even start the game, connect your in-game account to Google, Apple, or Facebook accounts.
While it’s not mandatory, this allows you to save in-game progression online and you won’t lose the in-game progression even if you delete the game.
