How to play...

Creating your perfect city is a lot more than just placing buildings randomly.... after all, real towns and cities are not created that way.

Happiness is the measure of a great city and keeping your city happiness high is your most important priority. High city happiness will increase residents, increase jobs and increase your income.

Each building has a happiness value and this is based upon the surrounding buildings, the area it is placed in and what level of city services it has. Experiment with different layouts to find the most optimal city design.

Residential

Residential buildings provide housing for the people living in your city. Residential buildings are greatly affected by pollution and they should not be placed near commercial and industrial buildings. Try and keep residential buildings together and surround them wih trees and parks for maximum happiness.

Commercial

Commercial buildings provide (medium density) jobs for your residents. Commercial buildings are mildly affected by pollution but should still be kept separate from industrial buildings. Commercial yields are lower than industrial but they will yield quicker. The higher the city happiness the greater the payout.

Farming

Farming buildings provide (very low density) jobs for your residents and most importantly, they provide food for your city. Farming buildings are not affected by pollution and can be placed anywhere. Farming employment adds to your industrial employment.

Industrial

Industrial buildings provide (high density) jobs for your residents. Industrial buildings are not affected by pollution and should be placed with other industrial buildings. Industrial yields are higher than commercial but they will yield slower. The higher the city happiness the greater the payout.

Trees & Decorations

Decorations provide a boost for both happiness and ecology. Increase city happiness by liberally decorating your city with as many parks and trees as you can. Neutralise pollution by placing lots of trees.

Landscaping

Landscaping provides a boost for both happiness and ecology. Lanscaping will help neutralise pollution.

Community

Community buildings provide (low density) jobs for your residents and boost happiness for surrounding buildings. Community buildings are only mildly affected by pollution and can be placed anywhere. Community employment adds to your commercial employment.

Utilities

Utility buildings provide (low density) jobs for your residents and provide your city with much needed water, power and trash services. Utility buildings are not affected by pollution and should be placed with other industrial buildings. Some utilities are massively polluting and should be separated from the rest of your city. Utility employment adds to your industrial employment.

Military

Military buildings provide (low density) jobs or residents for your city. Military buildings are not affected by pollution. Military yields are higher than industrial. The higher the city happiness the greater the payout.

Most buildings will reduce city happiness, add pollution and consume water, food, power and trash. To counter this add community buildings, trees, decorations and utilities as your city grows.

Buildings are happiest when they have police, fire, education, health coverage. The higher the coverage the larger the happiness boost they will receive.

If a building houses 10 people or provides 10 jobs this is its standard amount. It can be more or less than this depending on the building's happiness. For example, really happy buildings can more than double their capacity.

Buildings can be upgraded to level 10. Upgrading buildings increases their residential capacity, employment or happiness (depending on the building type). Upgrading buildings will not only affect the building you are upgrading and it can also affect the surrounding buildings too.

Buildings that cost gold to purchase will provide much more population or employment or happiness than buildings that cost cash. They also place much lower demands on city services than normal buildings. Gold buildings are free to upgrade.

The best cities will apply zoning techniques to move pollution away from residential areas and commercial areas.

	Add a building to your favourites list.
	Rename a building to fit your city design.

How do buildings affect each other?

All buildings have an "area of effect" and affect the buildings around them. Buildings with high pollution will negatively affect the surrounding buildings whereas decorations and community buildings will positively affect the surrounding buildings.

Upgrading city services increases it's area of effect. The coverage area increases one tile in each direction for every two levels of upgrade. A level 10 building will cover 4x the area of a standard building.

Residential buildings will need police, fire, medical and education coverage.

Commercial, industrial and community buildings will need police, fire and medical coverage.

How do I know what my city needs?

The RCI bar will show you what the current demands are for your city. The longer the bar (to the right) the higher the demand is.

In this example, commercial (blue) has the highest demand, residential (green) has medium demand and industrial (yellow) has the least demand. Balancing the demand is important to building a happy city.

If you tap the RCI bar the game will show you the city analytics screen. This screen shows more indepth information on the various aspects of your city. Tapping on the i button on the main screen will give more detailed help and advice from your city advisors.

How do I get gold?

Gold is a rare commodity and also a valuable one. You can get gold in the following ways...

• By purchasing gold from the bank.
• The gold mine will yield 1 gold every 3 hours.
• By leveling up.
• The stock exchange will yield 1 gold every 4 hours, it also unlocks the gold exchange. This is available once you have reached level 100.
• By completing achievements and challenges.
• From daily bonuses (ensure you log in every day so you don't miss them).
• By watching reward videos.
• By extinguishing fires in other player's cities.
• Tap the golden cloud for 1 gold.

Try to save your gold to purchase buildings that give you a large income or ideally save for a gold mine and a stock exchange.

How do I increase happiness?

City happiness is the combination of the happiness of each building in your city. This also defines how much money you earn from your industrial and commercial buildings.

The biggest factor in city happiness is under/over employment. Try and ensure that every person in your city is employed.

The next biggest factor in city happiness (or lack of) is pollution. Trees and parks provide much needed ecology for your city and counter pollution levels.

Certain buildings will be happier next to others, experiment with your zoning to find what works for your city.

How do I transfer my city to a new device?

On your first device, go to game settings and connect your game to your Google Play/Apple account. On the other device, install the game, skip the tutorial and connect to the same account.

The game will see your first city and ask you if you want to connect to it. Answer YES to have both devices connected to a single city. This will also allow you to connect an Android city to an iPad and vice versa.

Is my progress saved?

Yes, your progress is saved on our servers. It is also saved locally to your device so you can play even when you don't have a network connection.

Empire City will synchronise your progress when your device is reconnected to the internet. If you are playing on multiple devices, ensure you save and close one device before playing on your other device.

Note: If you uninstall the game, your local save will also be deleted by your device.

How do I rank on the EC leaderboards?

All leaderboards are algorithmically generated based on multiple ranking signals from your game. They are updated hourly. They are not a manually curated.

These leaderboards are designed to showcase the best and most liked/rated cities. To rank on these leaderboards you will need to be running the latest build, playing online, have a near perfect balance and have an organically designed city with high ecology, low pollution and high happiness.

Your city will also need great building diversity (and not lots of the same building apart from trees and landscaping). Green cities will also rank higher.

There are tens of thousands of qualifying cities for each leaderboard but only 500 slots; so we factor in your likes and city ratings. Cities with amazing ratings will naturally rise to the top.

Warnings

Buildings must meet certain requirements. If the requirements are not met then the building will not function, it will darken and a warning will be displayed.

	This means your building is not connected to a road or path.
	This means your building does not have enough power. You will need to add some new oil production (or upgrade your existing ones). These are in the utilities category.
	This means your building does not have enough water. You will need to add some new water plants (or upgrade your existing ones). These are in the utilities category.
	This means your building needs to be next to water (but isn't) or needs to be placed on water (but isnt).
	This means your building does not have enough food. You will need to add some new farming buildings (or upgrade your existing ones). These are in the farming category.
	This means your building does not have enough trash removal. You will need to add some new recycling/waste buildings (or upgrade your existing ones). These are in the utilities category.

Some helpful tips...

• Balancing employment is one of the most important aspects of running your city. For each 15 residents, try and provide 10 commercial and 5 industrial jobs for them.
• Ecology is very important to city happiness. Trees and parks soak up pollution and also boost your happiness.
• Place parks in residential areas to get a boost to your residential happiness and an increase in total population.
• Keep pollution away from residential and commercial areas.
• Try and save your gold to purchase high level buildings that boost your income.
• The happier your city is the more income you will earn from it.
• Log in every day to collect your daily bonus... the longer you play the bigger the bonuses you'll get.
• Ensure you have good city services coverage to all areas of your city. This will raise your city happiness. Try upgrading them for larger coverage rather than just building more.
• Upgraded buildings will provide more housing, more happiness or greater income.
• Watch videos for free gold.
• Gold buildings have free upgrades.
• If the game runs slowly on your device, switching it into low detail should help.

Further help can be found in our FAQ.

Happy designing!