Hello friends,
those who follow my blog know that I like writing guides and tutorials.
Will games be the means to make the beautiful world of blockchains known and encourage the registration of new users on Hive?
I hope and believe so!
The topic of this post is dCity, a game that works on the blockchain that I love: Hive.
dCity
Tutorial Topics
In this tutorial I will cover the following topics:
- What is dCity?
- Requirements
- Info
- Login
- Cards
- Attributes and Description of the Cards.
- Buildings Cards
- Technology Cards
- Citizens
- Backgrounds
- How to buy the cards
- BUY section of dCity
- Buy with HIVE or Buy with SIM tokens?
- The dCity MARKET
- Rewards
- SIM tokens
- HIVE reward pool
- CITY Section
- DASHBOARD
- MAP
- Population
- SIM Income
- Popularity
- Education
- Creativity
- Tax
- The colored squares
- Crime
- Tech-Tree and Technologies
- Events
- BEER FEST
- Science Convention
- Art Convention
- WEED Fest
- Discord channel of dCity
- Final Considerations
What is dCity?
Requirements
To play dCity you must meet the following requirements:
- You must have a Hive account
- You must use one of the following browsers:
- Brave
- Mozzilla Firefox
- Google Chrome
- You must have Hive Keychain installed:
- You must have a certain amount of HIVE or SIM (The Non-Fungible Tokens of dCity).
dCity is not a free game and to start building your city you must have an initial capital.
Info
When you click on the link: https://dcity.io/ you will be redirected to the page: https://dcity.io/info
You can view the same page at any time by clicking on the word INFO as indicated by the arrow in the following image.
If you want to play dCity, the INFO section is and must be your starting point.
In this section there are all the most important information on how the game works.
Login
The first step you need to do to start your adventure on dCity is the simplest operation: the Login.
1. Enter the name of your Hive account.
2. Click on the symbol
as indicated by the arrow (2) in the image following.
3. Click on CONFIRM on the Hive Keychain screen as indicated by the arrow in the following image.
Now if you click on CITY you can see your city.
It is an empty city (Population: 0, Income: 0, Popularity: 0).
To start playing you have to populate your city and therefore you have to buy the playing cards.
The Cards
There are 4 types of cards:
- Building Cards
- 1st edition collection
- 2nd edition collection
- Technology Cards
- Citizens
- Backgrounds
Attributes and descriptions of the cards
Cards can have attributes and a description.
For example, the Hospital card (Building card) has:
- 4 attributes
- A description
The main attributes are the following:
Population: The number of people the card brings to your city.
Income: The number of SIM tokens that the card allows you to earn every day.
Popularity: Gives% bonus to Population based on the following mathematical formula: (Popularity ^ 0.7) 100
Workers: To receive income from buildings, you need to have enough people (Population) to work there
Rarity: The probability (in%) of receiving a certain card at the time of purchase.
Creativity: The Creativity Score (useful for increasing the probability of finding a background)
Education: The Education score (useful to increase the probability of discovering technologies)
Buildings Cards
Buildings Cards are cards that represent buildings such as an apartment, house, bank or university.
There are 43 buildings cards in the dCity game and they are green in color.
Take for example the Hotel card.
The Hotel card allows you:
- to increase the population of your city by 4 units.
- to receive 10 SIMs per day (only if you have 15 people free to use)
- to increase the popularity of your city by a percentage given by the following formula: (5 ^ 0.7) * 100
According to the Rarity attribute, the probability of receiving this card is 5%.
Technology cards
Technology cards are cards that represent equipment or technological breakthroughs.
There are 20 tech cards and they are blue in color.
Technology cards have the ability to influence other cards or aspects of the game.
For example, the GMO Farming technology card has the ability to modify the Income attribute (+4) and the Popularity attribute (-3) of the FARM card.
Citizens
Citizens cards represent the types of citizens who can live in your city.
There are 9 Citizens cards and all of them have the Population attribute whose value can be 1 or 2.
Some cards also have a second attribute such as Immigrants or Homeless cards.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds cards allow you to change the background of your city screen. Their function is mainly aesthetic.
How to buy the cards
To start playing you need to buy cards.
Cards can be purchased from the BUY section or the MARKET section of the game.
BUY section of dCity
If you click on the word BUY you will see the following screen.
You can choose:
- the number of cards you want to buy (maximum 10 at a time)
- whether to pay in HIVE or in SIM tokens
- whether to buy first or second edition cards.
The cards you buy will be randomly chosen cards.
A dCity card can be purchased with HIVE or SIM.
The cost is 800 SIM tokens or 4 HIVE.
Buy with HIVE or Buy with SIM tokens?
Whenever you want to buy cards, you must always go to the site: https://hive-engine.com/?p=market&t=SIM and check the value of the lowest sale offer (Lowest Ask) of the SIM tokens.
This image is a screenshot from the site: https://hive-engine.com/ - Font used is Open Source
If the purchase cost of 800 SIM on Hive Engine is lower than the value of 4 HIVE it is better to buy the cards with SIM tokens otherwise it is better to buy with HIVE.
When I purchased my first cards, the value of 800 SIM was equal to 4 HIVE and therefore I could use either one or the other payment method indifferently.
I used my liquid HIVE to buy the cards.
To complete the purchase, simply click on one of the following buttons:
The dCity MARKET
To access the dCity Market you must click on the word MARKET as indicated by the arrow in the following image.
You will see the following screen.
From here you can see the cards offered for sale by the other players.
To buy a card you have to click on the symbol
in the column entitled Actions.
You can search for a card using the search field.
You can narrow your search by using the available filters.
Cards can be purchased using SIM tokens but not only.
For example, you can pay with: SWAP.HIVE, STEM, WEED, BEER.
If you click on HISTORY you can view the history of your sales orders (24h)
If you click on TRADE SIM the Hive Engine screen will open where you can buy and sell SIM
If you click on TRADE BEER the Hive Engine screen will open where you can buy and sell BEER
REWARDS
In the dCity game there are two types of REWARDS:
- SIM tokens
- HIVE reward pool
SIM tokens
You earn SIM tokens every day based on your city income.
I recently signed up and my city is still small.
I have a population of only 21 inhabitants.
My city income is 11 SIM per day.
The potential income of my city, however, is 52 SIM (the sum of the income attributes of my cards).
I only earn 11 SIM instead of 52 because I don't have enough people to employ in my buildings.
To resolve the situation I would have to buy cards on the market to increase my population and bring it to 100.
It is important to try to have a population number always equal to or greater than the total of the sum of the Workers attributes of the buildings cards.
HIVE reward pool
On dCity there is a ranking based on the number of inhabitants of each city (Population).
To view the ranking you must click on the word RANKINGS as indicated by the arrow in the next image:
The top 200 players on the leaderboard receive 1.5% of the Reward Pool.
CITY Section
DASHBOARD
From the Dashboard you can have a graphical and synthetic view of the city data.
It is also possible to see the attributes of all the cards that make up the city.
From the Dashboard it is also possible to perform various actions on the cards :
- Transfer a card to another dCity player
- Sell a card
- Convert a card to SIM
MAP
From the MAP section of dCity we can graphically see the city and all the playing cards.
You can place and order the cards to your liking.
In this area of the game there are many important statistics to watch.
Population
By positioning the mouse on the symbol highlighted in the image above, the following information can be displayed:
Total Population: 21
Population Base: 18
Popularity bonus: +18%
Reading this data, the importance of Popularity is evident: an 18% bonus is added to the base population and the total population reaches the value of 21 (18 + 18% = 21).
SIM Income
The daily SIM quantity that the city produces.
Popularity
The popularity rating of the city.
Education
Education is a new property recently introduced in the game.
It's the base for discovering technologies; 40 education = 1% chance to discover technology daily. The maximum achievable percentage is 25%
Creativity
Creativity is a new property recently introduced in the game.
It's the base for finding a background; 80 creativity = 1% chance to find a background.
The maximum achievable percentage is 25%
Tax
These are the taxes in effect in the dCity game.
A detailed description can be found in the GOVERNMENT section of the game.
The colored boxes
In the MAP section and precisely on the left there are colored boxes.
The color indicates a problematic situation or a positive situation (green color).
When a box is orange or red there is a problem to be solved.
For example the red box
indicates that the number of jobs in my city is greater than number of citizens.
This is a problematic situation because I receive less income than I could potentially get.
Solution: I need to increase the number of citizens in my city.
For example, I could increase the population by buying some of the following cards from the market:
The box
indicates the percentage of the city's probability of obtaining new citizens in a span of two hours.
The orange color in this case indicates a very low percentage.
Solution: I need to increase the popularity score of my city.
The box indicates the probability of receiving two specific cards: Homeless and Immigrants
The maximum percentage achievable in the game is 50%
Crime
If, however, there is a bank or casino in the city, another problem comes into play: Crime.
For example, the following red box
indicates that the bank was robbed overnight.
Solution: Buy Buildings cards such as: Police Station, Gym and Cinema which reduce the likelihood of being robbed. Police station effect on that is 5x better than Gym and Cinema.
Second Solution: Do not buy or sell cards that produce an increase in the crime rate.
Tech-Tree and Technologies
This is one of the most interesting innovations recently introduced in dCity because it allows you to undermine a certain type of cards: the technology cards.
To be able to discover technology players needs to satisfy two conditions:
- unlock the type of technology in Tech-Tree
- have the Research Center card.
In the following image you can see the Tech-Tree
I have the Research Center and have discovered a card so far: Basic Automation.
The card necessary to discover the technologies is the following:
Events
In dCity it is also possible to organize virtual events.
To create an event you must click on the word EVENTS 0/4 as indicated by the arrow in the next image.
There are 4 events available and they are linked to 4 types of tokens.
BEER FEST
To create such an event you must have 5 BEER tokens.
The event lasts 24 hours and guarantees you a popularity bonus for a value between 50 and 100.
You can see all the details in the following image:
There is a card that is closely linked to the BEER FEST event: Brewery.
This card allows you to make BEER tokens every day.
1% from event wallet is distributed every day to the owners of those buildings.
Furthermore, during the BEER Fest event, the production of BEER tokens doubles.
BEER tokens are the tokens created by the account: @detlev
It's a token that I use a lot.
It is a useful tool to reward a quality post or comment with an additional reward.
Today 20 June 2020 1 BEER token has the value of 0.406 HIVE (Highest Bid on Hive Engine)
Science Convention
To create such an event you must have 100 STEM tokens.
The event lasts 24 hours and guarantees you a education bonus for a value between 40 and 120.
You can see all the details in the following image:
STEM tokens are the tokens created by the account: @stemgeeks
Today 20 June 2020 1 STEM token has the value of 0.02301 HIVE (Highest Bid on Hive Engine)
Art Convention
To create such an event you must have 250 CCC tokens.
The event lasts 24 hours and guarantees you a creativity bonus for a value between 80 and 180.
You can see all the details in the following image:
CCC tokens are the tokens created by the account: @creativecoin
Today 20 June 2020 1 CCC token has the value of 0.00435 HIVE (Highest Bid on Hive Engine)
WEED Fest
To create such an event you must have 75 WEED tokens.
The event lasts 24 hours and guarantees you a creativity bonus for a value between 40 and 120.
WEED tokens are the tokens created by the account: @coffeebuds
Today 20 June 2020 1 WEED token has the value of 0.03312 HIVE (Highest Bid on Hive Engine)
There is a card that is closely linked to the WEED FEST event: Weed Farm.
This card allows you to produce WEED tokens every day.
1% from event wallet is distributed every day to the owners of those buildings.
Furthermore, during the WEED Fest the production of WEED tokens doubles.
dCity Discord Channel
dCity has a discord channel: https://discord.gg/sAwd8Rc
From the Discord channel you can:
- Ask the creator of the game @gerber questions
- Interact with other dCity players
- Participate in giveaway (https://discord.gg/2Bejnk5)
- See the cards purchased by you or other players.
- ...
Final thoughts
I started playing dCity a few days ago and the game is really fun.
Creating a small town of mine on the Hive blockchain is something I really like.
The creators of dCity have done a good job.
With the latest update and the introduction of Weed Farm, Brewery and technology cards, the possibility of mining tokens has been expanded.
Is dCity a good investment?
My answer to this question is: it could be a good investment but only in the medium - long term.
There are too many factors at play such as:
- the future trend of the value of the SIM tokens
- the number of players who will join dCity in the future
- the future value of the cards on the market ...
- the future value of HIVE
To enter the ranking and be rewarded daily with HIVE as well as with SIM tokens you need to invest a good amount of HIVE (around 250 - 300).
A positive ROI, at present, can only be achieved in the medium to long term.
Conclusion
If you like simulation games and are looking for a fun game, dCity is the perfect game for you.
If you are mainly looking for an investment that immediately gives you a positive return then dCity is not for you.
I decided to register on dCity because I really like the game and I think that with the right strategy it can also bring me a positive ROI in the medium term.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
My adventure on dCity has just begun and if you like, please follow me to read my future posts on dCity ;)
