Build your population!
This game is fun, but frustrating. I enjoyed building out my city with different styles of houses, farms, factories and civic buildings and getting the layout to look nice and organized. However, I am at a standstill in development because every major building needs furniture but the furniture factory is not available. It would cost 30 gems to build out of sequence, but I don’t have that many and don’t want to buy them. I have described my dilemma further below, but here is my advice for those starting the game: 1)Lay out your city with large specialty buildings (airport, amusement park, etc.) at the edges. They only need a small section to touch a road. 2)Don’t bother with building the specialty monuments until you see how much space you will have available. Sure the Colloseum or Sydney Opera House look cool, but they take a lot of space without increasing the population. 3)When you get a new type of house or building, build only the minimum number required to meet the goals. Later housing options increase population more in the same footprint. 4)So far, it seems colonial houses are the best to build in single spaces. When fully upgraded (requiring 3 energy), they house 14 population. This equals 56 in a 2x2 space if you have roads they can connect to. 5)The medium block tower holds 64 in a 2x2 space but it requires a lot of energy to build and help from your game friends. Also, they block the view of buildings behind so plan to put them at the outside edges with shorter buildings in front where they can be seen. You will need a lot of these to reach the population required to release the furniture factory. 6)Plan roads carefully, and minimize them where possible. They don’t contribute to population. Remember that buildings only need one corner or edge to be connected to a roadway. Many statues and decorations don’t need to be connected at all so scatter them in the inaccessible spaces away from roads. 7)I was only able to build 1 large block tower, and it won’t let me build more. 8)You can move buildings around after they are started so experiment with that for layouts or for completing floors of towers, etc. Take the tower buildings to the factories to compete deliveries for a level then move them to the final location when completed. This reduces truck travel time when racing to finish before a deadline. 9)Don’t use gems for anything except land clearing where they are required. You may get impatient and need to buy the furniture factory before it beco
