Some days have passed since @gerber published a huge update for dcity. This game is all about buying, selling and trading NFTs to grow your city and maximize your income. With the update, the game got more complex and there are a lot of things that might not be obvious to new players. In a previous post I explained everything about Population, Popularity, Income and Crimes. I also guided through the interface and gave some tips on how to balance your city. These are still the basics of the game, and you should read the first part of the tutorial if you want to understand them.
Now, I will go into detail about all the new mechanics that have been introduced with the update.
Changes to the interface
Looking at the interface, you will notice a lot of small changes compared to the pre-update status. I will navigate through them in the course of this tutorial and simultaneously explain all the new features of the game. The most relevant changes took place in the "City" tab. For a better understanding, I have labeled certain regions in the picture below and will refer to them later.
Old buildings versus new buildings
Since the update, you can chose whether you want to buy old or new buildings. To do so, click on the "Buy" tab in the tab bar. A window will open where you can chose how many cards you want to buy with either HIVE or the ingame currency SIM. To finish your purchase, click on "Buy 1st Edition" or "Buy 2nd Edition" to buy the respective NFTs.
1st Edition cards are simpler and basically provide either Population or Income, whereas 2nd Edition cards are more complex and provide additional bonuses. I will explain these bonuses later in the article. You can check the cards of each edition and their effects in the "Info" tab. It is also possible to use your hive-engine balance to buy tokens. By sending multiples of 4 SWAP.HIVE to @dcitycards, you will by default get 1st edition cards. If you include the memo "new", you will get 2nd edition cards.
Training
A new building called Job Center gives you the chance to update your Homeless and Immigrants into Workers, Scientists or Artists. Scientists and Artists yield Education and Creativity. If your Popularity is positive, Training can happen once a day, and your probability for Training is calculated from the number of Job Centers, Homeless People and Immigrants in your city. Every Job Center adds +3% Training chance, every Homeless and Immigrant +0.01%. Your overall chance of training is shown by the graphic with the little man wearing a graduate cap in the City status.
Education and Technologies
By clicking on Technologies in the Overview, you will be redirected to the Tech-Tree. On top of the Tech-Tree is a short explanation, but I will cover the basics here as well.
In the tech-tree, you can unlock a Technology every 36h. In each of the 4 shown branches, you have to unlock the Technologies top to bottom. You can also reset the unlock-cooldown by paying 900 SIM. However, unlocking the Technology DOES NOT yield the displayed bonus. Instead, unlocking it only enables you to discover a Tech-card. After discovering a Tech-card, you finally get the bonus. For example, as shown above, I have already unlocked "Free Internet Connection, "Basic Automation" and "GMO Farming", but only the effect of "Free Internet Connection" is active (notice the green "1"), since that is the only Tech I discovered so far. "Police Equipment" has not been unlocked yet.
You can have multiple of the same Tech-cards and can also buy or sell them on the player market. Tech discovery happens once a day, and your chance of discovery depends on your Education. You can gain Education by buying the following 2nd edition buildings: University (10 Education), Research Center (10 Education), Laboratory (6 Education), School (5 Education). However, you need at least one Research Center to discover a Tech card. Your chance to discover Technologies each day is 1% per every 40 Education, with a maximum of 25%. Your current Education (including all boosts by tax/technologies) can be found in the City statistics next to the graduate cap.
Backgrounds and Creativity
Backgrounds are very similar to Technologies. However, you don't have to unlock Backgrounds but can immediately discover them. You can gain Creativity by buying the following 2nd edition buildings: Art Gallery (10 Creativity), Ad Agency (5 Creativity), Night Club (3 Creativity), Waves Broadcast Tower (40 Creativity). Again, you need at least one Art Gallery to discover Backgrounds. Your chance to discover a Background each day is 1% per every 80 Education, with a maximum of 25%. Your current Creativity (including all boosts by tax) can be found in the City statistics next to the color palette. You can find all the backgrounds in the "Info" tab. Some of the backgrounds are rarer than others, as you can see in the selection below.
Events and Production buildings
Before the update, the only Event in dcity was the BEER Fest. It is still in existence and allows you to spend 5 BEER tokens and will in return boost your Popularity by 50-100 and provide the opportunity to randomly gain a Worker or Hard Worker. By now, 3 other events have been added. To access them, check the Events tab in the Overview.
For 100 STEM tokens, you can start a Science Convention, which will boost your Education by 40-120 and hopefully recruit some Scientists every two hours (20% chance).
For 250 CCC (Creative Coin) tokens, you can start an Art Convention, which will boost your Creativity by 80-180 and hopefully recruit some Artists every two hours (20% chance).
For 75 WEED tokens, you can start a WEED Fest, which will boost your Education by 40-120 and might recruit some Artists every two hours (20% chance).
Two of the new buildings distribute these Event tokens to the players. The WEED Farm produces WEED tokens (obviously). The amount of tokens received depends on the number of WEED Farms and the overall amount of WEED tokens spent on WEED Fests by players. The Brewery works in a similar way, except that it produces BEER tokens. Also check out the associated Hive communities: WeedCash Network, BEER Community, StemSocial and Curation Circle Creed!
Buildings with additional effects
There are even more special buildings in the 2nd edition which have an effect besides increasing your Population, Popularity and Income or producing tokens. Some of these effects are only activated once per City (not stackable), others accumulate (stackable).
- the Hospital increases your population by 1% (not stackable)
- the Law Firm reduces your taxes by 10% (not stackable)
- the Social Aid Office decreases the cost of unemployment by 100 SIM (stackable)
- every player that owns one or multiple Military Industrial Complexes receives a share from the war tax, if it is activated (stackable)
Government and Taxes
You might have already noticed a discrepancy between the SIM-Income shown in your City status and the sum of the Incomes of all your buildings. This is caused by the newly introduced tax system. The overall tax is displayed in the City statistics, in the rightmost panel. If you click on "Government" in the Overview, you can check the current president and the active taxes. The president will be elected from time to time, but for now, dcity's creator @gerber choose to be president. The voting power of every player for an election depends on his average SIM balance. You can check your voting power by clicking on Dashboard in the Overview. Some taxes can be activated by the president to boost Education, Creativity, Training the income of certain buildings or the effect of the police station on crime rates.
If you still have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I will try to help. Also check out Dcity Discord Channel for news and announcements.