Here are some tips to get you started in Cities XL, as well as answer to common questions.
How do I increase my freight?
To increase freight, make a road to the edge of the map.
Start with roads first, as highway links are $100k a tick.
You can also use Harbors and such if you have a map that can place them, but they pollute a lot so be warned.
Where are the Buses, Trains and Gems? I saw something about them.
Buses, Trains, nor GEM's are not out yet, but will be soon.
GEMS are Game Enhancing Modules you purchase to give your city extra bonuses
Why is my Office/High-tech/Hotel/Farm suffering from pollution?
I built the pollution on the edge of the map far away!
If you make Offices, High Tech, or Farms, do not pollute, import it instead.
This is NOT Sim City 4, pollution spreads and putting it on the edge won't help later.
What is a Tick? Or what is that Red Circle that keeps filling up like a timer?
A tick is a game cycle. Each tick, your money is added or removed from your budget depending on your profit or cashflow. When the circle fills up, a new cycle happens, and the process repeats.
Oh, No! My city has negative cash and now my listings aren't working!
You need to get back to positive cash flow before your city can list an item to export. You can still however, accept offers to buy on the market. If no one has a listing, Don Madalff (the NPC) will buy the goods at a rate of 16.6c a peice for 5 of them for 83C or 8.3k a tick. Sell all your goods to buy offers until you get back to positive cash flow. At that point, you can then list things on the market and they will work. Some players get confused as to why they can't buy a listing, and this is usually someone that is negative cash flow is freaking out and listing stuff way cheap on the market, even though no one can buy it since they can't afford to export.
How do I talk to people?
/11 is Global
/1 is your own planet
/2 is your own city
/3 is Trade
/whisper (to tell someone something)
Backspace will start text, if you last did a whisper, do a /11 hi to change back to normal channel
How do I make or get Extra Tokens of a certain resource?
To do this, you must produce a bit more than the city requires of a certain resource. So, if you want to make a few tokens of food in your small farm town, put up a few farms and eventually you will get a token or three in surplus that you can sell on the market. But be careful, as you city gets bigger, its requirements for resources grow. And in this example, if it was a farm town, at some point, if the city grew so big, the citizens could end up eating all the food and you wouldn't have much left to sell.
How much money can you get in this game?
Your budget caps out at 1 billion dollars (American Billion not Euro). After that, the money will go up beyond that, however the second you build something it resets back to 1 billion. So, getting money in your budget isn't really a goal of the goal, it is more for helping you terraform your lot, and afford the expensive expansions. However, increasing your cashflow is very important. The cashflow is the money you are getting per tick. The more of this the more amaizing city you can afford to maintan, and not just build.
How do I visit other people's Cities?
Find a city on the map you want to visit, then click on the city, and click the SYNC button on the right. This will allow you to go into their city in Avatar mode and expore about. There are a few emotes you can do and you will talk from your avatar in chat bubbles when in their city.
What is a good tax rate to use in my city?
Most people are doing about 10 to 15% for citizens and 15 to 25% for business. You can adjust this as you gain or lose cashflow. Generally, a lower tax rate makes the citizens happier, and thus requires less services. So it is a careful balance, sometimes your city makes more money with less taxes, as the industry can flourish more.
I can't get (insert worker type here) to move into my city!
First, if your city pollutes, you will have to provide for the needs of your citizens much more than a clean city. Secondly, click on a building that you placed and it will tell you the needs and how well they are being met of that house or construction lot. Items at the top of the list are more important than the ones on the bottom of the list. And items in red really are upsetting your citizens. With pollution, there isn't much you can do other than place a few avatar parks to help, but it doesn't help much. But if pollution is the number one thing followed by shops in red for second, place more shops, or security or what ever it is.
How do you pick which exact building to put into my city?
You need to go under the options menu, on the left side of the screen under the XL button. There is an option to turn on the building selection, and a new button appears. However, I think a new patch might have turned this button on all the time now another player claimed. When this star looking button is pressed, and you are about to lay a building, it will display the different models to choose from instead of generic zoning block.
How big should I make my Farm or Garbage lots?
For farms, you want to make them just as they hit 100% in size, as any bigger is a waste, and any smaller isn't as efficient. If you aren't sure, guess and then try smaller until you get the best use of space. As far as Garbage lots, you don't need to make them very big at all. You want to make them at the smallest size it will allow you to if possible.
What is the difference between the two different types of garbage or farm lots?
There is no different, it is just a looks thing.
What is a BP?
A BP is a Blueprint for a Megastructure. They are special buildings that you can build that have huge requirements to build in various stages. However, they offer great rewards of area effect happiness once completed. You get them on the website (
www.citiesxl.com) and active them to build them in game. However, once you activate them you can not trade them to other players. Someone places an offer to accept a BP from you on the website and you accept it under what ever terms you agree outside of the game. I have been fair in all my dealings for BP's personally, but I warn new players to be careful of people that would exploit you for your blueprint. It seems each Monday randomly people get some. We aren't sure if everyone always gets one or what, but that is how it works. So they are semi rare, so use or trade them, as each week when the new ones come out, if you don't use it, it will be gone!
How long is the Online Trial for when I buy the game?Currently, the trial is ony for 7 days for online play. That should be long enough for you to see if you like the game, however, being that it has just been released, I don't know if you can judge where the game is going just yet, so it is up to you to put you cash and faith into Monte Cristo if you enjoy the game, or not.
Can you play this game Offline too?
Sure you can play the game offline, with no subscription fee. However, to make a city online and trade with others you must play online.
What are the payment options available?
Visa
Master card
JCB (USA)
American Express (USA)
Carte Bleue (FR)
Solo (UK)
Maestro (UK)
iDEAL (Netherlands, only available after you uncheck the recurring payment)
EPS (AUS *coming soon)
Giropay (GR)
Visa Electron
Sofort Überweisung (GR)
(This credit card info is likely wrong. But it was pulled from the information on their website)
OMG I can't get my fullscreen to work! I click the button and nothing happens!
It doesn't seem to be working yet.
Can I trade outside of the game on the website ?Normally you can do this, but that function is currently down. We assume they are upgrading the format to make it even easier to manage, but we will see.
**(EDIT) - It appears website trade is back in and working.
I think thats most of the ones I can think of off the top of my head, if anyone has any others, let me know and I will add them to the list!
