Fitting 100 Jobs In The First Tract Of Land
I like experimenting with games like this to see what works. I've gone through periods where I start the game over repeatedly in one afternoon so I can test various strategies.
You get a lot of bonuses in the early game. Some of those bonuses are in cash and some are in gems.
Later in the game, bonuses are less frequent and they only come in the form of gems. The infusion of cash bonuses in the early game is important for helping you accomplish certain things and planning around those bonuses is an important part of early game strategy.
You get a nice chunk of change for hitting 100 citizens and also for hitting 100 employees. All jobs are filled by locals, so you need 100 people first to hit 100 employees.
I've tried just buying cheap buildings to try to stretch my limited resources. This strategy prevents you from fitting 100 employees into the footprint of the tract of land you start with.
This means you need to buy more land (or do a lot of upgrades) to hit that milestone and get the bonus cash. And buying land is expensive.
In other words, just like in the real world, poverty is expensive. Buying all the cheap buildings creates a slum and throws up barriers to further development.
I've also tried piling in as many people and jobs as possible in that first tract of land. So far, that hasn't worked all that well either.
(Maybe I will experiment with it further. Just redoing the first tract of land repeatedly makes a nice, quick mini game.)
The sweet spot seems to be going for a middle class development that can fit infrastructure for 100 citizens, 100 jobs and enough happiness in that first tract of land to support filled up housing and full employment. If you don't have enough happiness structures, your homes will only be partially full and businesses won't make their max profit either because they won't have enough employees.
You can vary the details some, but what follows is one way to get there. This screenshot is where we left off in the last post:
As noted previously, I'm below 100 percent happiness. I need to remedy this. I am going to build the only community building available to me at this level: The Post Office.
I will also promptly speed up the Post Office because it is still one of the cheap early game buildings.
That improves my happiness and leads to housing filling up. Next I want to upgrade my four houses because they each only hold 9 people and I need them to hold 10. This is part of long term planning to fit 100 people in this tract of land and it's why I built the blue houses first, not the yellow ones.
The yellow ones hold fewer people. They would take more upgrades to hit 10 people apiece. If I recall correctly, it makes more sense to start with the blue houses.
When you upgrade a structure, it gets a yellow arrow above it. If you click it, you can then speed it up. Sometimes the game let's you speed it for "free" by watching a video.
With doing all that, I've gained some bonuses and gained another level.
That gives me access to a school and a hospital. These are both 3x3 community buildings that I want to put in my planned 9x9 downtown core area that I tend to think of as "old town." I also collected enough smileys to get another bonus.
That caused me to rapidly go up a couple of levels, plus gain more bonuses.
I don't seem to have taken a screenshot of it, but I then added the Beach club. It's a 3x3 commercial building that costs gems and provides 20 jobs. I will need another house that holds 10 people to get me to 50 people to support hitting 50 employees. Both 50 citizens and 50 employees provide bonuses, so that's the next milestone I'm shooting for.
Before I can add more housing, I need more happiness. I have a community building available and I know exactly where I want it to go. So I add the Police Department next to the Post Office as part of my "old town" core.
These are both 2x2 buildings. They aren't in the future planned 9x9 area of 3x3 structures, but are "across the street." Never mind that there isn't actually a street. You only need one street tile touching a building to satisfy the requirement of street access. I abuse this a lot and hand wave it off as symbolic anyway while making a mental note that devoting less real estate to streets and more to buildings makes for a more viable downtown.
This gets me another bonus and another level. Now it's time to start another 3x3 commercial structure, some kind of marketplace.
Now I need to add more housing. You can add up to four of the same building for most housing structures that cost cash. If you want more than that, it costs gems and some housing costs gems from the get go.
I like adding all four of one type and creating a little neighborhood. It helps me mentally track how many I've used, it fits somewhat with real world development practices and I think it looks good.
Also, these teal buildings hold 10 people apiece. Four of these plus the four improved blue buildings will get me to 80 citizens of my goal of 100.
This also gets me more bonuses and I gain another level. You'll notice the speed ups for these buildings aren't so dirt cheap anymore. It makes sense to wait a little before speeding them up.
The lowest speed up price is always 750 cash. The cost will count down towards that as the clock counts down.
Gaining a level gives me access to the library. This is a 2x2 community building that I want to put next to the Police Department. Adding it also gains me a level.
I have enough community buildings to adequately support 100 people. It's time to add my last housing structure to this initial tract of land. It needs to hold 20 people to get me to 100. The logical answer is this $55k building. I also decide to upgrade a couple of community buildings.
This leaves me with enough room for three more buildings. I have a 3x3 space set aside for the Fire Department and two other 2x2 spaces for commercial development.
I need to come up with 30 more jobs. The gas station and bar are both available and affordable. They each provide 15 jobs. That will get me to 100 jobs.
There's also a screenshot from the section that shows you when you will get your next bonuses and for what. You can look at that to help you plan what to do next for purposes of meeting specific goals. It can help you come up with needed resources.
Building those two commercial buildings gains me another level, giving me access to the Fire Department I need. Lesson learned: Creating more development opens up new opportunities, thereby snowballing development efforts.
Adding the fire department gains me another level. It also means all building footprints are filled. This is a good time to fill in some gaps with a few trees.
After all the buildings get finished, I get 100 citizens and 100 employees and bonuses for each milestone. Here are the rest of the screenshots, including a couple of level ups for simply collecting funds periodically in between working on this blog post on and off for the past few hours.
If you look closely, you can see I've reoriented some of the buildings. Two of the funniest things about this game are reorienting buildings and wholesale picking them up and moving them elsewhere.
That gets me to enough infrastructure for 100 citizens and 100 employees, plus enough happiness to actually be fully developed. I also have money available to do more development the next time I feel like playing.
You get a lot of bonuses in the early game. Some of those bonuses are in cash and some are in gems.
Later in the game, bonuses are less frequent and they only come in the form of gems. The infusion of cash bonuses in the early game is important for helping you accomplish certain things and planning around those bonuses is an important part of early game strategy.
You get a nice chunk of change for hitting 100 citizens and also for hitting 100 employees. All jobs are filled by locals, so you need 100 people first to hit 100 employees.
I've tried just buying cheap buildings to try to stretch my limited resources. This strategy prevents you from fitting 100 employees into the footprint of the tract of land you start with.
This means you need to buy more land (or do a lot of upgrades) to hit that milestone and get the bonus cash. And buying land is expensive.
In other words, just like in the real world, poverty is expensive. Buying all the cheap buildings creates a slum and throws up barriers to further development.
I've also tried piling in as many people and jobs as possible in that first tract of land. So far, that hasn't worked all that well either.
(Maybe I will experiment with it further. Just redoing the first tract of land repeatedly makes a nice, quick mini game.)
The sweet spot seems to be going for a middle class development that can fit infrastructure for 100 citizens, 100 jobs and enough happiness in that first tract of land to support filled up housing and full employment. If you don't have enough happiness structures, your homes will only be partially full and businesses won't make their max profit either because they won't have enough employees.
You can vary the details some, but what follows is one way to get there. This screenshot is where we left off in the last post:
As noted previously, I'm below 100 percent happiness. I need to remedy this. I am going to build the only community building available to me at this level: The Post Office.
I will also promptly speed up the Post Office because it is still one of the cheap early game buildings.
That improves my happiness and leads to housing filling up. Next I want to upgrade my four houses because they each only hold 9 people and I need them to hold 10. This is part of long term planning to fit 100 people in this tract of land and it's why I built the blue houses first, not the yellow ones.
The yellow ones hold fewer people. They would take more upgrades to hit 10 people apiece. If I recall correctly, it makes more sense to start with the blue houses.
With doing all that, I've gained some bonuses and gained another level.
That caused me to rapidly go up a couple of levels, plus gain more bonuses.
I don't seem to have taken a screenshot of it, but I then added the Beach club. It's a 3x3 commercial building that costs gems and provides 20 jobs. I will need another house that holds 10 people to get me to 50 people to support hitting 50 employees. Both 50 citizens and 50 employees provide bonuses, so that's the next milestone I'm shooting for.
Before I can add more housing, I need more happiness. I have a community building available and I know exactly where I want it to go. So I add the Police Department next to the Post Office as part of my "old town" core.
These are both 2x2 buildings. They aren't in the future planned 9x9 area of 3x3 structures, but are "across the street." Never mind that there isn't actually a street. You only need one street tile touching a building to satisfy the requirement of street access. I abuse this a lot and hand wave it off as symbolic anyway while making a mental note that devoting less real estate to streets and more to buildings makes for a more viable downtown.
This gets me another bonus and another level. Now it's time to start another 3x3 commercial structure, some kind of marketplace.
Now I need to add more housing. You can add up to four of the same building for most housing structures that cost cash. If you want more than that, it costs gems and some housing costs gems from the get go.
I like adding all four of one type and creating a little neighborhood. It helps me mentally track how many I've used, it fits somewhat with real world development practices and I think it looks good.
Also, these teal buildings hold 10 people apiece. Four of these plus the four improved blue buildings will get me to 80 citizens of my goal of 100.
This also gets me more bonuses and I gain another level. You'll notice the speed ups for these buildings aren't so dirt cheap anymore. It makes sense to wait a little before speeding them up.
The lowest speed up price is always 750 cash. The cost will count down towards that as the clock counts down.
Gaining a level gives me access to the library. This is a 2x2 community building that I want to put next to the Police Department. Adding it also gains me a level.
I have enough community buildings to adequately support 100 people. It's time to add my last housing structure to this initial tract of land. It needs to hold 20 people to get me to 100. The logical answer is this $55k building. I also decide to upgrade a couple of community buildings.
This leaves me with enough room for three more buildings. I have a 3x3 space set aside for the Fire Department and two other 2x2 spaces for commercial development.
I need to come up with 30 more jobs. The gas station and bar are both available and affordable. They each provide 15 jobs. That will get me to 100 jobs.
There's also a screenshot from the section that shows you when you will get your next bonuses and for what. You can look at that to help you plan what to do next for purposes of meeting specific goals. It can help you come up with needed resources.
Building those two commercial buildings gains me another level, giving me access to the Fire Department I need. Lesson learned: Creating more development opens up new opportunities, thereby snowballing development efforts.
Adding the fire department gains me another level. It also means all building footprints are filled. This is a good time to fill in some gaps with a few trees.
After all the buildings get finished, I get 100 citizens and 100 employees and bonuses for each milestone. Here are the rest of the screenshots, including a couple of level ups for simply collecting funds periodically in between working on this blog post on and off for the past few hours.
If you look closely, you can see I've reoriented some of the buildings. Two of the funniest things about this game are reorienting buildings and wholesale picking them up and moving them elsewhere.
That gets me to enough infrastructure for 100 citizens and 100 employees, plus enough happiness to actually be fully developed. I also have money available to do more development the next time I feel like playing.
