SimCity BuildIt Share #StayAndPlay Message and Free Gifts for Gamers on Lockdown

EA Mobile are encouraging their legions of SimCity BuildIt fans to #StayAndPlay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world.

The public safety announcements issued across social media and online forums urged gamers to: 

Stay safe. Stay home. Play together.

They sweetened the message with the promise of a free gift waiting for players who check their game’s inbox. 

With an estimated 100+ million downloads of SimCity BuildIt on iOS, Google Play and Kindle since launch let’s hope the incentives can help more people #StayAndPlay safe.

SimCity BuildIt Top 10 Tips Guide for Beginners in 2020

I have now been playing SimCity BuildIt on my iPhone for over 4 years and these are my "Top 10 Tips Guide for Beginners" in 2020:

1. Optimize your city layout from the very first day with a strategy for building your roads using as little space as possible.
2. Use Mayor Daniel to your advantage by buying discounted items from his Trade Depot once every 24 hours then reselling them for a profit.
3. Factories, Power, Water, Sewage, Waste & City Storage - See more at: http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/02/optimizing-your-simcity-buildit-layout.html#sthash.EEcv80Dp.dpuf
   Make sure you put all your pollution making Factories, Sewage, Power, Water and Waste Plants as far away from your residential zones as possible.
4. Place your Shops, Town Hall, City Hall, Mayor's Mansion as a buffer between your pollution making zones and residential Skyscrapers.
5. Take more advantage of Mayor Daniel by pricing items at their highest possible level in your Trade Depot then wait for him to buy them from you if they don't sell out within 48 hours. 
6. Unlock and build Dr. Vu's Tower of Destruction so you can unleash disasters on your city and earn valuable Golden Keys at the same time.
7. Increase your storage capacity by collecting Padlocks, Storage Bars and Cameras.
8. Add flavor to your city by building Parisian, London and Tokyo Towns.
9. Create a feeder city using a second smartphone or tablet so you can double dip into Mayor Daniel's discounted items plus buy and sell items cheaply to support your main city
10. Buy items cheaply from the Global Trade HQ (mainly from newbies who under price) then immediately sell them on for a quick profit.

Good luck and hope you make lots of money - Happy Chinese New Year!

Trade Depot / Global Trade HQ Time & Advertising 2020 Updates

The Global Trade HQ has long been a source of complaints from SimCity fans who find the system annoying. Check the  Check the 2020 updates to build a better world this year!

The main problems were initially believed to be the sheer level of demand overloading EA's servers as the app became the most popular SimCity game of all time as well as the fact that the timelock feature reduced players ability to easily search for items.

However, since the last app update there have been two major improvements to each player's Trade Depot functionality and timing:

1. The time limit between advertising new items has now dropped from 5 minutes down to just 1 minute making it easier and quicker to sell your items and generate Simoleons.
2. Even better the length of each item advertising period has also been extended to 12 hours meaning that your Trade Depot items can receive much more publicity on the Global Trade HQ resulting in an increasing chance of more sales and more Simoleons.

This is a great improvement that benefits all SimCity BuildIt players and hopefully there will be more nice surprises to come in future app updates!

The SimCity BuildIt 2020 Guide to Getting Golden Keys Fast!

The SimCity BuildIt 2020 Guide to Getting Golden Keys Fast! 

Golden Keys are the ultimate currency in SimCity BuildIt as they cannot be bought with Simoleans or SimCash but are essential for purchasing premium building specializations for parks, education, transportation, beach, entertainment, mountain, gambling, landmarks and worship which help boost your city's population and increase their happiness.

The only way to get your hands on some Golden Keys is by earning them through completing tasks via one of the two following methods:

 

Cargo Shipments

Once you have unlocked your Cargo Dock you will begin to receive cargo shipment orders for 3 different types and numbers of items from your factories and stores in which you have 18 hours to find the required items and complete the order to receive 1 Golden Key.

Provided that you complete an order that will arrive every 6 hours then you can soon build up a decent amount of Golden Keys to use in buying your first premium buildings.

 

Dr. Vu Tower Disaster Challenges

After reaching 90,000 Sim City population and paying to unlock Dr. Vu's Tower you are suddenly able to unleash an unlimited number of Disaster Challenges upon your city by giving Dr. Vu some Batteries, Launchers and Gloves each time you want to create natural disasters that destroy your buildings and require you to rebuild them.

The method to this madness is that for each building you rebuild you can receive up to multiple Golden Keys and since several buildings can be destroyed during each challenge this means you can quickly generate a larger number of Golden Keys much faster than by fulfilling Cargo Shipment Orders.

So there you have it - the only two ways to generate Golden Keys to use in boosting your city to bigger and brighter things!

4 Annoying Updates of the Global Trade HQ and 2020 Tips to Succeed!

Item Already Sold? You're too Slow!

Since the launch of SimCity BuildIt there has been one standout feature that has provided the most annoyance and frustration and that is the Global Trade HQ. Here are some of the top annoyances along with 2020 tips to succeed the best you can against a flawed and overloaded system:

1) Timelock Features vs Refresh

 The most major recent change has been with the way EA has reformatted the bidding system, Before I was easily able to purchase a range of expansion, storage and other key items under maximum cost which allowed me the choice to use it or simply flip it for cash in the early stages when it is at a low.

What the Timelock has appeared to do is limit the amount of items you can look for and their compromise is the 30 second Refresh button.

In this case all it has done is pushed up prices and decreased regular availability. I can still buy and sell but now at many more times of the day it is just impossible to get what I need, not matter how long I try.