11. Cargo Ship Dock

When the Cargo ship dock unlocks, you can build it by paying 10000§ and wait for 24 hours for it to be become operational.

What is it for? Is it worth it? 
Yes, it is worth it. You can get 3-4 golden keys every 24 hours with optimal gameplay. Keys buys specializations, remember? A cargo ship will arrive every 6 hours with 3 different items in demand. Though they will not tell you the required number of items but in my experience it rarely exceeded 3 items each. So, before the cargo ship comes make all 3 items in a bunch of 3. Once the cargo ship arrives you load those items and cast the ship off. You'll get 1 golden key for every shipment you make.

Don't worry if you haven't already made those items cause it will give you 18 hours of additional time for you to make those items.

Now this is a slow process of getting keys. There is a much faster way of earning keys which will be explained later.

Do you have any questions till now?
Please post your comments below, I would love to answer them. This is my first time blogging and frankly I'm not very good at it. My PSU is fried so I'm writing everything on my smartphone.
Do you need more topics to be covered. Post your comments below and let me know. 

10. Specialization Buildings

Your sims will complain but not abandon their houses if there are no specialization buildings. So don't worry, save the money, earn the keys(which buys them) and start placing them one by one.
There are two specialization you should be focusing on: Education and Transportation. These unlocks at level 10.
1. Education 
In order to unlock Education you'll need Department of Education(40000§) first. Then you can place Grade school, Public library, High school, Community college and the University. Each one of them requires the prior in order to unlock.
All the specialization buildings including the department boosts your population. Grade school by 25%, Public Library by 25%, High school by 30%, Community College by 40% and the University by 50%. The coverage area increases exponentially. The keys needed to buy them are 3, 5, 7, 10 and 25 respectively.
Now there is a catch here. Education buildings are big and they do not fit well in any design so don't try to place too much of them. Instead go for transportation as they are more efficient.
2. Transportation
You don't need them in order. When they are unlocked, they're unlocked for good. That's why many people choose them over education.
You should have 2 Bus terminals(20% boost, 4 keys each) covering all houses and then build the Heliport(50% boost, 20 keys). Place the heliport in between the houses cause one heliport will cover all 27 zones at once.
Department of transportation (40000§) is also needed here. Everything will boost your population.
When you have enough keys you can place multiple specialization buildings to boost your population as much as you like.
Which one should you prefer? 
If you're broke and have less keys try transportation first cause the buildings are smaller, the keys needed are less and it doesn't matter which one you choose. Your sims don't care as long as they're getting mass transit.
There is no clear indication from EA that having Education or Transportation have significant value on your tax income so just forget that crazy idea boggling inside your mind that educated sims should pay more taxes.

1. City Layout

The best layout is that you start building the initial road and keep straight going north. Leave two buildings space between parallel roads drawn from the perimeter(connected of course).
Why is this important?
Well, the simplest the better. Roads that you build will connect vital services(power, water, sewage, waste management, fire, police, parks) to your residential zones. When the population will rise sims will ask you to build better roads(4-lane, 6-lane) and once you build them you better stick to them because demolishing the roads will give you no refund but upgrading the roads will cost too much. And who has coins to upgrade the roads that early in the game?

Of course you can get creative after you save millions of coins but then this guide will be of no use to you.

Keep your factories away from your residential zones as they have a dirty radius which will reduce the happiness of sims and they will in turn pay less taxes.

Try to bulid near the beach beacuse when the beach is unlocked you can boost your population by placing beach specializations. But beause they can only be build on the shore they have a limited coverage inside the city. So you need to start preparing that in advance. 

9. Commercial Buildings

These are not like the factories, they produce items one at a time. But they produce items of great value. You can upgrade these buildings to make items faster. Before becoming an advanced player you'll need to concentrate on 5 of them:

1. Building supplies store

You can produce Nails, Planks, Bricks, Cement and Glue before level 16.

Max selling price of them are 80, 120, 190, 440 and 440 respectively. Production time is 5 mins, 30 mins, 20 mins, 50 mins, 1 hr respectively. People get in line to buy nails and planks so you can never sell enough of them. Other items are also sold but at a lower pace. Buy slots using simcash(don't confuse them with coins). In fact your only investment of simcash should be to increase the number of slots of commercial buildings and trade depot. 

2. Hardware store

Unlocks at level 4, costs 2500§

Makes Hammer(13 mins, 90§ each), Measuring tape(20 mins, 110§ each), Shovels(30 mins, 150§ each) etc. 

3. Farmer's market

Unlocks at level 8, costs 5000§

Makes Vegetables(20 mins, 160§ each). No need for more than 3-4 slots. 

4. Furniture store

Unlocks at level 10, costs 8000§

Makes Chairs(20 mins, 300§ each). No need for more than 3 slots.
5. Gardening supplies 
Unlocks at level 14, costs 13000§
Makes Grass(30 mins, 310§ each). No need for more than 3 slots.

Each item made in the commercial building needs raw material from factories or even materials from commercial buildings itself. Items are made one at a time so don't unnecessarily engage production slots by ordering materials that takes more time to make.

Increase your building supplies store and hardware store slots as much as your simcash allows(with some left in hand). Increase your slots at the trade depot as well so you can sell more items at once. 

8. Global Trade HQ and Trade Depot

This is where you'll make most of your money, almost 40000 a day with optimal gameplay.
When these two are unlocked you'll beacome rich in no time. You must spend your time on the trading floor as much as you can.
You can buy items you need at the global trade HQ and you can sell them at your trade depot.
How do you do that effectively? 
You'll have to remember the max price of every item made in the commercial buildings(not the factories) and whenever you see an item or a bunch of items selling at lower prices buy them. Sell those items at max price and don't worry, someone will always buy them. This way you can make more money than taxes, from upgrading houses and any other cheat available on the internet(cause they don't work anymore, EA has been constantly releasing patches and this guide is updated according to that). 

7. Factories

You'll make raw materials at facories.
Early in the game free factories with 2 production slots are enough. But at a later stage you'll need better factories. Basic factories with 3 production slots costing 500 each will be enough before level 16.
Of couse you can bulldoze your old factories and build better ones but they cost a lot more and you'll only get maximum 5 slots from the most advanced factory which I don't think is economical.
Tips for producing materials:
Raw materials which takes less time to make like Metal(1 min), Wood(3 mins.) and Plastic(9 mins.) are not needed to be stocked. You can make them anytime you want. But the items like Seed(20 mins.), Mineral(30 mins.), Chemical(2 hrs.), Textile(3 hrs.) should be stocked in this order:
12 of seed, 12 of mineral, 5 of chemical, 5 of textile.
What items should you sell? 
Very early in the game you can sell anything but after that avoid selling items like metal, wood, plastic or even seed and mineral. Because nobody will buy those.
What about chemical and textile? 
Max price of one chemical is 60 and for one textile it's 90 and they need a lot of freaking time to be made and hence engage production slots for which you should be against.

So to be blunt, don't sell items made in the factories when you reach level 6.

6. Government Buildings

When unlocked, have all of them.
I'm just going to talk about the city storage.
Whatever item you make in the factories and the commercial buildings will be stored here. Upgrading the city storage has great benefits. You can store and sell items at the trade depot so the bigger the storage the more items you can sell and hence can make more money(that's what we're here for, right?).
For upgrading the city storage you'll need 3 items: Storage lock, Storage camera, Storage bar
For an increase of 10 slots(initial 40) you'll need 1 of each items(3 totally). For an increase of another 10 slots you'll need 2 of each(6 totally) and so on and so forth.
Where will you get the items? 
Pop the opinion bubbles throughout your city and sometimes you'll be granted free stuffs. You can also buy the items at the Global trade HQ. The maximum cost of each item is 650.
Lets say we don't get any free items. So to upgrade to 100 you'll need this much money if you're buying them at their maximum price:
Number of items=3+6+9+12+15+18=63
Total price=63*650=40950

Don't worry, only upgrade when you need it.  

5. Tax Revenue

At Level 5, City hall will be unlocked. Your sims will pay taxes which you can collect at the city hall. 100% happy sims will pay the most tax. Now don't get confused like every other player of simcity that taxation are based on population and 100% happy sims should pay 20% of the population. It's completely false.
For unknown reasons EA has developed a mechanics that sims will pay taxes based on their income, though the calculation of tax is not easy. As your population increases you'll get lesser percentage of taxes per sim.
Their answer to this bullshit is if they will allow this early players will struggle and the advanced players will buy anything in sight.
Tax is the primary source of income and getting coins by upgrading buildings is the secondary.
Why I say this? 
Because at one point you don't want to upgrade(as sims will demand more services) so the secondary source of income will be at halt but the taxes will flow no matter what level you're at. Every 24 hours you'll get fixed amount of coins. You can collect in between as well, the calculation is same.
What to do? 
Cover your sims with the essential services, boost your population using parks as much as you can and collect the tax regularly at the City hall. 

4. Population Control

More population will give you more coins through taxes. So you need to boost your population as much as you can via parks and specialization buildings(more on that later). Now the game engine does not want advanced players to earn too much taxes(why would they) so don't get too crazy either. The maximum tax I was getting at level 15 was somewhere around 12500 per 24 hours and most of the advanced players don't get multiples of that. 

3. Services

There are total 7 services that your sims cannot live without(excluding health). They are:
1. Power
I recommend the Coal power plants cause they are the cheapest(4500 each) and each plant covers 12 zones. As you build more houses you're going to need another one. 3 would be enough before reaching level 16(health unlocked) as per my design.
2. Water
The Basic water tower(6000 each) would be the most economical early in the game. 3 of them would be enough before level 16.
3. Fire Station
2 Small fire stations(8000 each) will be enough to cover 27 residential zones. The small fire station occupies very little space and is best for moving around of buildings at later stage. Now the bigger ones cover more ground but they occupie too much space and cost too much(we wouldn't want that) and moving them is difficult because of the snug fit of residential zones.
4. Police Station
Same principle goes for police stations. 3 Small police stations(6100 each) will cover 27 residential zones.
5. Parks
Once you have 6-10 buildings you can buy 1 Modern art park which gives you a 10% population boost. Upgrading the buildings will give you coins and you can invest them to buy better parks like the Peaceful park(8000 each) which gives a 25% population boost to the covered ground. Now don't worry cause investing in parks have long term benefits. You wouldn't need more than 4 Peacful parks according to my design.
6. Sewage
1 Basic sewage outflow pipe(12000) would be enough.
7. Waste management(Garbage disposal) 
Investing in the Garbage dump(12000) would be a better choice cause it'll cover more houses per dollar. 1 would be enough.

These are the essential services. Without them, your sims will move out and abandon the buildings they were living in. There will be a decrease in population and tax revenue as you lose sims or if they are not happy.

Note: Before reaching level 16 you should have 500,000 coins in order to make a great city. These preparations are only for novice players and I will not cover any topic after level 15 because I don't think you'll need any help after that. 

2. Residential Zones Placement

You will have the option to build 2 new residential zones everytime. Once you upgrade those two you can place new residential zones again(2 each time after first upgrade). Keep 4 residential zones as a square and leave space between the next sqaure so that you can place fire, police and parks in between those spaces. Fire, police and parks only covers a certain percentage of ground so you're going to need a lot of them.

Getting Started

So you just started playing Simcity Buildit on your mobile and already afraid of running out of coins?
Well, look no further cause this guide will help you not just to build a beautiful city but to always keep you loaded with coins, cash and keys.
But first, remember, patience is the key.
This guide will cover following topics in order:
1. City Layout
2. Residential Zones placement
3. Services
4. Population Control
5. Tax Revenue
6. Government Buildings
7. Factories
8. Global Trade HQ & Trade Depot
9. Commercial Buildings
10. Specialization Buildings
11. Cargo Ship Dock
12. Dr. Vu Disaster Challenges

Note: This guide is not for the players who have already advanced too much in the game. In fact, this is to help startup a new player with loads of game coins(simoleons-§). Players who want to waste their real life money on these games, this guide is not for you. Players who want to earn less and spend more, this guide is not for you.

There are no tricks or cheats working(as far as I know) after the latest update so I thought maybe an updated guide is needed on Simcity Buildit. Everywhere I see there are 2 years old posts claiming they have the best tips and tricks on Simcity Buildit. 98% are them are either bogus or outdated. Now this is a great game and I thought to myself-why shouldn't we have an updated guide for new players. Let's do it.

If you need anything else or have anything to say, comment below and let me know. This is my first time blogging and frankly I'm not very good at it(I'm a good gamer though).