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!

Best SimCity BuildIt Guides - Most Popular Blog Posts

Following on with our review of blog posting here at SimCityBuildIt.Info we are looking at our top most popular posts in different categories.

The best of our SimCity BuildIt Guides posts have been a mainstay of this blog, long remaining popular with readers, and the following list is a ranking of the top 5 most popular guides posts:

1) Who is Dr. Vu and what's the deal with his Vu Tower and Disaster Challenges? http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/04/who-is-dr-vu-and-whats-deal-with-his-vu.html

2) Who is Mayor Daniel in SimCity BuildIt and how to Connect to Him? http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/02/who-is-mayor-daniel-in-simcity-buildit.html

3) "Purchase Failed! , no more items available for sale" - Most Annoying Message in the Trade Depot's / Global Trade HQ http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/02/purchase-failed-no-more-items-available.html

4) At what population level does the Trade Depot or Global Trade HQ open and what are they good for? http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/02/at-what-population-level-does-trade.html

5) Giving Your "SimCity" a Unique Name & Avoiding the Deadbeat Default of "Rising Sun Valley" http://www.simcitybuildit.info/2015/01/giving-your-simcity-unique-name.html 

I hope you find these posts informative reading!

SimCity BuildIt Beach Boardwalk Update

On 23rd June SimCity BuildIt launched its biggest update since the Tokyo Town Update and this time it is a beach themed update.

What we know so far includes the following:

• 15 shoreline buildings like a marina, lighthouse, waterpark, and more. 
• A special lifeguard advisor to help unlock Beach Boardwalk expansion areas with new loot drops.
• Exclusive Crescent Moon Shopping Mall available during Ramadan
• 3 new Tokyo Town buildings.
• Ability to convert SimCash to Golden Keys.
• They have also updated the rewards earned from Dr. Vu’s Disaster missions and improved overall performance.

To check out what a fully developed beach boardwalk will look like just go to Mayor Daniel's city and see:

Who is Dr. Vu and what's the deal with his Vu Tower and Disaster Challenges?

Dr. Vu is either very good or very bad depending on what level of interaction you are having with him at the time - if he has just unleashed Aliens to destroy your very best Skyscrapers you might be a bit annoyed however after rebuilding these buildings using standard items and materials and receiving numbers of Golden Keys for each one rebuilt you may think differently:

Dr. Vu's Tower of Destruction (next to the Global HQ) only becomes unlocked for building once a player's city has reached 90,000 Sims and if the player is willing to spend 60,000 Simoleans to build it.

Once built then it requires a collection of special Dr. Vu Batteries, Launchers and Gloves to convince him to start one of his paths of destruction which alternate at random with Meteor Showers, Alien Attacks and Earthquakes being the favorite methods.

Sometimes 6 to 8 Skyscrapers can be destroyed, other times just 2 or 3, it really varies a lot as does the rewards offered for each building that is rebuilt.

Before the Tokyo Town Update you could earn as much as 3 to 5 Golden Keys per building but previously there was not auto-refresh button if the items were too numerous or extravagant to collect e.g. 100 pieces of metal and 7 Watermelon.

Currently the average seems to be around 1 or 2 Golden Keys being offered for each rebuild but with unlimited refreshing of the items required which makes it a lot easier if you are patient.

However this means you have to run through the disasters numerous times in order to save up enough Golden Keys to cover the cost of building your Education, Transportation, Entertainment, Casino and Landmark services.

"Oops! Sorry! Llamas must have messed up the bookkeeping..." is the new most annoying message in SimCity BuildIt

Previously the most annoying message in SimCity BuildIt was the "Purchase Failed! , no more items available for sale" message which irritated every single player each of the multiple times they were unable to buy something from the Global Trade HQ, which under the pre-update system was a heck of a lot.

Now EA Games has become wise to this message of immense irritation and has updated it to another message which quickly has turned into the new message of immense irritation.

"Oops! Sorry! Llamas must have messed up the bookkeeping..." is the new most annoying message in SimCity BuildIt

SimCity BuildIt "Tokyo Town" Update: 6 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back!

On the 3rd of March 2015 SimCity BuildIt issued it's first major update since the initial launch back in November and it has come with a lot of interesting changes that improve gameplay and add more interesting aspects that both existing and newer players can appreciate.

Known officially as the "Tokyo Town Update" these are the 6 Steps Forward and 2 Steps Back that I have encountered since downloading the SimCity BuildIt update four days ago:

3 Stinking Good Reasons to Keep Up with your City's Utility Services in SimCity BuildIt!

During the initial game tutorial everything seemed so quaint and easy until a week or so later suddenly the Mayor (i.e. YOU!) are knee-deep in Sim pee, poo and diapers and with Sims abandoning their garbage filled streets and houses for that clean city with utilities on the other side of the hill. 

Well luckily it's not too late to help some of you out before the ship hits the fan so here we go:

 1) Tutorials are just for beginning the game and don't cover everything: 

Although you managed to get the Water and Power up and running during the official SimCity Buildit Game Tutorial does not mean that it was going to cover your and your town/city's asses for very long. In fact by level 8 there is a seismic shift in your Sim population's bowels leading to a very urgent need for a Sewage System.

2) People Poo. Sims are People Too! They also Poo....a lot. Install some Sewage Facilities at Level 8 or Piss will destroy your city:

"Purchase Failed! , no more items available for sale" - Most Annoying Message in the Trade Depot's / Global Trade HQ

"Purchase Failed! , no more items available for sale"

Of all the most annoying messages that you will see when playing SimCity BuildIt the "Purchase Failed! , no more items available for sale" message has to be the most irritating.

Most Annoying Message in SimCity Buildit's Trade Depot's / Global Trade HQ:

While some Sim Advisors can be repetitive with their constant advice to build Cargo Ship Docking Areas or Upgrade Factories again and again it is the "Purchase Failed!" message that has the most potential to annoy. This is because it is constantly shown every time that you make a failed attempt at purchasing an oversubscribed item via Global HQ and another city's Trade Depot.

Who is Mayor Daniel in SimCity BuildIt and how to Connect to Him?

Introduction to Mayor Daniel, his City and his Trade Depot:

Early on in the game every player gets introduced to Mayor Daniel who is the Mayor of your first neighbouring city and the purpose of this meeting is two-fold:

1) Learning How to Make Connections with Other Cities

This is to show you that other cities can be added as friends later when you connect to them via Facebook. By connecting to other cities it means you can also easily visit your friend's Trade Depot and they can easily visit yours increasing the chances of your buying and selling the items that you want at a price that is reasonable.

At what population level does the Trade Depot or Global Trade HQ open and what are they good for?

Every City has it's own Trade Depot and Global Trade HQ for selling and buying items with other SimCity BuildIt Mayors from around the world.

Trade Depot:

The Trade Depot is located just outside your city entrance in a factory style building on the left-side and it's the place where you can sell your excess inventory, either from your factories or from your shops.

This is the first of the 2 exchanges that opens and the Trade Depot becomes active when you reach a level of 8,000 Sim Population.

Everybody gets 8 trading slots and can advertise a new slot every 5 minutes on the Global Trade HQ which makes it visible to a huge audience so if the item is reasonably priced and in high demand (e.g. Expansion or Storage materials) then you can make several thousand Simoleans in under 5 minutes. 

You can expand the number of trading slots at a cost of 10 SimCash each to increase capacity for selling and making more Simoleans.

Optimizing Your SimCity BuildIt Layout from Day One

These are the best ways of Optimizing the SimCity BuildIt Layout and Minimizing your Expenses when setting up for the first time:-

Roads:

• Roads cost nothing to build (although they cost to upgrade later on) so it means you can spend time laying out and bulldozing your road system based on the following information.
• However roads can take up valuable space later on as the game progresses so make sure to build long straight roads without excessive turns and junctions.
• This image of Simmy Cloud's imaginative use of roads to write the city's name is nice to look at but it also occupies enough space for 5 Skyscrapers!!

Factories, Power, Water, Sewage, Waste & City Storage:

• Any pollution making  or ugly industrial units should be placed at the end of a long road to the furthest edge of your city in order to keep the population happy and pollution free.
• Water and Solar & Wind Energy are the exceptions and don't have any negative impact.

 Shops, Town Hall, City Hall & Mayor's Mansion:

• Sims like having shops and some government buildings like Town & City Hall and the Mayor's Mansion near their houses and these units can also help act as a buffer between residential and industrial areas, especially as your town grows into a crowded city.

Giving Your "SimCity" a Unique Name & Avoiding the Deadbeat Default of "Rising Sun Valley"

At an early stage you will be asked to name your fledgling town/city and it would be good if you can think of something cool, memorable, silly, sentimental, corporate sounding or whatever.

Gallifrey from Doctor Who TV Series is popular as are real places where people live like USA, New York, London, Liverpool etc.

However if you decide just to go with the default name given by the game of "Rising Sun Valley" then you will be joining a league of people who seem to number in the high thousands with absolutely no imagination and who are impossible to tell apart during trading on the Global Trade HQ making it like Ebay with the scams but without the warning signs of a bad reputation.

I swear that nearly every Rising Sun Valley that advertises items for sale always ends up being an empty dead-end depot if I ever waste a click on them: