SimCity BuildIt Tips

I've been playing BuildIt for quite a while now and have written out some strategies that I've been employing:

1. Rule #1: Keep producing items as continuously as possible. Sell extras at the Trade Depot. If no humans buy them, Daniel (the computer) will.

2. Replace what you use. If you use a factory full of plastic, start up another set. Just keep production flowing. If you don't need it when it's done, sell it. This helps keep an extra bit of cash coming your way.

3. Free up the bottleneck. The biggest bottleneck in the game is the Farmers Market. If you see Fruit & Berries, Beef, Cheese, Cream or Flour Bags in the Trade HQ, buy it. Eliminating one of those items from the equation can make production much easier for you.

4. Be Smart with money. If you receive an offer on items, check the Price Guide to see if it's worth taking the deal.  If you can receive more at the Trade Depot, do that instead. Remember, Daniel will eventually buy anything you list.

5. Plan ahead for the cargo ships and airport. Start production of those items as soon as it tells you what's coming. The long build time items usually require two or three of each. The raw goods and other short term items may take up to 10. Build more than you need and sell any excess. Try to minimize the time the cargo vehicles spend in your city. Pack them up and let the next shipment get started ASAP.

6. Harsh Reality. Do not be mistaken, this game is basically a slot machine: a finely tuned machine designed to separate you from your money. If you want to build a city, play SimCity, Cities:Skylines, or CitiesXXL on the PC. You'll get much more desirable results in a fraction of the time. However if you have tons of patience and don't mind taking the long way round, this can be a very enjoyable casual game.

7. You don't really need design skills. You don't need more than one cross street. Your entire city can be laid out like the letter E with streets leading to dead ends.

8. Stick to the basics. Early on, don't build more than what you can cover with the basic services: Sewer, Water, Fire and Health. Don't be afraid to demolish buildings you can't support.

9. Go Big. If you want skyscrapers, you'll need to have more than just the basics. You also need to have multiple specializations covering the area: Parks, Education, Transportation, Entertainment, Gambling, Landmarks or Worship.

10. Eureka! If searching for expansion or storage items, dig deep into the Trade HQ. It is rare to find one of those items listed on the main screen. I find most of my items by selecting cities selling other items, and discovering them in among the other items they're selling.

11. Don't Forget to Pop The Bubbles. When visiting cities at the Trade HQ, make sure to click on the blue bubbles found in the city. You'll often find Tokyo, storage or dozer items gifted to you by the game.

12. Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy every expansion item/storage item you see in the Trade HQ, even if you're not currently expanding. If you don't want them, list them in your Trade Depot (unadvertised) for your neighbors. If you're good to them, they'll be good back to you later down the line.

13. Sell! Sell! Sell! Never sell an item at less than full price, unless you're trading it to someone for $1.

14. Daniel sells at a discount. Daniel never sells at full price, so I buy everything he has. You can then use it, or list it at full price to make a profit. Remember, if no one buys it, Daniel will buy his own items back from you.

15. Be a good neighbor. If you see a valuable item listed for $1 by a neighbor, do not take it. Someone's probably trading it to a friend.

16. Be a good neighbor part two. I'll sometimes keep my trade depot stocked with rare goodies (or long term items) for my neighbors. If I see something good in the Trade HQ, but I don't need it, I'll often pick it up anyways and list it. Things that take a long time like Sugar and Spices, Glass, etc. Even if no one takes it, Daniel will eventually reimburse the cost by buying it from you. No harm, no foul, and yet you've given your neighbors opportunities to find stuff easier.

17. Campfires are best built at night.  Load up the factories with all the long term items before you go to bed so that when you wake up you'll have your fire pits, frozen yogurt, cream, electronics and other goodies ready and waiting for you. The simple items: metal, wood, plastic are better made during the day while you can babysit the game.

18. Can I get that on easy-pay? If faced with a large road upgrade, build a small section of cross street. It will break up the road into smaller, more reasonable payments. You'll still eventually need to upgrade but you can put the expense off for a while. It's like putting the upgrades on a payment plan.

A short segment of cross street can help break up the cost of road upgrades into more reasonable amounts.
19. Be Social!: Join one of the Facebook groups to find friends to play with. There's a bunch of them. Each has it's own personality and culture. When joining, I'd suggest being a fly on the wall for a bit to understand how each group interacts before jumping right in to the middle of things.

SimCity BuildIt Nation
SimCity BuildIt Community
SimCity BuildIt (not really) Official Group.




46 comments:

  1. Build it isn't letting me see videos when I click watch it. What's up?

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    Replies
    1. you need to be online, turn your data or wifi on ;)

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  2. what are the Facebook groups, where do you find them, and how do you join them?

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    1. You can just search Facebook for "SimCity BuildIt" and you'll see a bunch. A good starting group would be SimCity BuildIt International which can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SCBIInternational/

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  3. No need to waste money upgrading roads - just demolish and rebuild. The game picks roads at random (about one per 6 hours it seems) as busy, it's not based on supposed use like in the original SimCity games.

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    1. Huh. I wish I knew that earlier.

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    2. Just tried it AND the great thing is, you get PAID for the demolished road and then it's free to rebuild.

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    3. Umm no, its not random atleast not anymore. You can obviously see that roads with upgraded buildings are the busy ones

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    4. If the road is of lvl1 you may demolish it but when u have upgraded it atleast once it would be a foolish thing to demolish it

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    5. Have fun as all your buildings will shift positions and your satisfaction rate will drop quickly (less taxes), just sell some cheese for a while and you'll be able to afford the upgrade, once you get to streetcars, some of your citizens might ask for the omega stuff but it won't affect if you say no.

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    6. I just turn one of the corner buildings. This method works best for me since it would cost a lot more to trash them. As for taxes, the amt it drops in happiness and amt of taxes lost is insignificant for me. I always sell NeoSimoleons. Only item I buy in the mall are cheetahs. But at my lvl, this works best. When I get to lvl 50, I'll probably have to reassess.

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    7. I haven't noticed ANY randomness! All the road upgrades encircle my epics. ALL!

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  4. Do anybody know how to abandon an assignment? NOT the ones in the mayor contests, the 3 steps ones that give a reward in a blue toolbox.

    Thank you!

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    1. sorry for the SUPER LATE REPLY but if you are still there, you cannot quit those, and there is really no point in abandoning them anyways.

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  5. does anyone know if i need those omega buildings to upgrade to maglev roads. because i dont have any space for them and i removed my omega buildings because i want to grow and not spend so much time and coins on specialized item lotteries. im level 33 and those roads are level 37 (i think)

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  6. Does anyone know why the presents in my neighboring cities have stopped popping up? I've been checking for a while now and they seemed to have stopped completely. I've tried not playing for a few hours, exiting the game, restarting my tablet and nothing seems to fix it. Thank you!

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    1. From what I understand, the gifts used to appear in cities by random in a 4-hour period. However it seems the duration has been extended to 24 hour periods recently. I tested by going through all my friends list and collecting gifts at 12pm (+8 GMT), then going through the entire list in 4 hour duration. No gift bubbles appeared until the next day at 12pm (+8 GMT).

      It also seems that the hit rate will drop the more you collect. From 1 out of 3-5 cities, it drops to 1 out of 15-20 cities by the time I collected around 7 gift bubbles. Or maybe it's just luck. I don't know.

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  7. how do you sell at the trade depot?

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  8. A friend is trying to start his first epic building, he got a message like he needed a fully functioning skyscraper?????

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    1. Once he is of the proper level, he will be offered a building to convert to epic. It's possible he will need to have one of the really tall shiny ones before getting such an offer. To get those, max out the population of the starter lot -- at least 130

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  9. My cargo ships are full but I don't get any keys for it. Why is this?

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    Replies
    1. Did you click "cast off" to send your ship away to earn the key?

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  10. How do you get the items for Vu Tower to create disasters? I need 2 batteries I think and no idea how to get them?

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    1. Keep popping the blue bubbles in other people's cities and you'll occasionally receive Vu pieces. You can also find them being sold by other users They're rarely advertised though, so go to random cities a bunch and you'll occasionally find one.

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    2. At level 22 buy a Maxis Manor through fire, police, or health. It generates Vu items for Simolean Coins.

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  11. How can you demolish a park or small building to give you space for a larger building

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  12. I feel like to join your group fb, please accept( Agus Chandra) it

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  13. Hey I don't want to use Facebook. Is there a way I can connect a different way?

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    Replies
    1. Joining a club via the game is probably the best alternative method. You can then trade between fellow club members.

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  14. Can I buy Platinum Keys with green cash?

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  15. I don't think so. Club Wars is a good way to earn them though. Find a good super active club that wins most of their matches and the platinum keys will roll in.

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  16. Randy Roberts why dont join my club warior sim always in war but you have to speak indonesian

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  17. What ways do you collect war cards? I've collected war chests but don't seem to get close to getting enough of the cards

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    1. I know I occasionally receive offers from the game to spend money on war card packs. Other than that, the best way is join a super-active club that does pretty well in wars and doesn't take much time off in between.

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    2. Hey guys Join my club.. #PKCNKK

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  18. How many epic buildings does it take to craft a cheetah token?

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    1. The number of buildings required slowly increases as you continue to collect tokens, so it's not a set number.

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    2. Thank you very much for this excellent guide.

      I've really enjoyed the game (currently level 33) and figured out some strategies, but learned a lot from you. Thanks!

      I enjoy viewing others' cities. They are beautiful and unique!

      I would add one note to Tip #3: because the Farmer's Market is the greatest bottleneck, it makes sense to upgrade the speed and number of positions of that venue most often. Do you have recommendations for upgrading factories?

      Do you have recommendations for design? I see many people lay dirty entities on the fringes, but it seems reasonable to place essential services in the center of coverage groups. Anything else?

      Please, do you know if there is a game way to take a screenshot or is that device-dependent?

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  19. Hey join ROUGHNECKS we will help and guide you, were super active in all things especially wars were heading for the top babaayyy!!!! Look for DYNASTY that's me the clan president

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  20. I love cashing in roads so I can focus on keeping the lights, water, and utilities running that is important or they will move out

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  21. Hi does anyone wanna join my club ? We are strong but we have a bit of extra room! Come party with boom boom party 6

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  22. Can I stop building a residential zone at one of the early stages, rather than seeing it through to skyscraper stage? I'd quite like to have smaller residences placed near lakes and the coast, for example, but the construction hat pops up and I can't get rid of it.

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  23. Another tip, NEVER use small factories, they only have two slots and have a big pollution radius, use the basic ones instead, they have three slots and have a smaller pollution radius, they are only 500 more to place this is a beginner tip btw

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