City of Wonder, created by the company Playdom, is one of many Facebook games created in the vein of Farmville and Social City; its a free product, but it requires either the involvement of one's friends or the expenditure of real money in order to maximize your effectiveness. This is a brilliant business strategy, but there are tricks that you can use to get the most of your city.
Minimize your use of City of Wonder Gold
For the first few levels you obtain in City of Wonder you get two gold; for the rest, at least until the early 10's, you only get one. You can always get more gold, of course – but you have to spend real-world cash to buy it! Gold is useful for lots of things; the immediate acquisition of technologies or wonders, the construction of special high-yield buildings, or – most importantly – the expansion of your city.
For most players, its easy to justify spending the cash on expanding your borders early on in order to have a larger city to play with; after all, if the reason you're playing is to build a true “City of wonder,” then you'll want to have as much room to build it as possible! Its worth noting that early expansions are cheaper than later ones...And that they require less friends to get.
Instead of pouring Gold into border expansions, check the “My allies” tab – it will list friends of yours that already play! Send them an invite and you can likely find a few friends to help you expand your borders right away. Then, later on, if you still need a larger city its more worthwhile to expend your gold supplies to attain it.
Harvesting Goods in City of Wonder
“Goods” buildings can only be purchased after you reach a certain population; you begin with a few, and unlock the privilege to build more as time goes on. Goods buildings are the most effective way to make money and XP – and they allow you to schedule when you produce goods. A 12-hour option would be nice, but you can schedule time to harvest your goods every 24 hours if you'd like – or every eight, or however.
Leaving your goods buildings un-harvested for too long will cause them go to bad, which is a bit of an unfair way to force you to return to the game earlier. Market buildings are lower income, more-expensive structures that generate pre-set amounts of cash for you, but don't spoil on you, either. While Goods are more cost-effective, Markets will help you get the silver you need to grow your city.
Don't Hesitate to Rebuild your City of Wonder
Your population maximum is directly tied to your happiness – and happiness is generated by cultural buildings. This is a direct contrast to housing buildings, which produce population over time but do not have a limit to how many they can produce. The trick, then, is to know when you want to expand your population base (thus allowing you more Goods buildings), and when you need to raise your population to conserve space. The easiest trade you can make, therefore, is to sell some residence buildings and purchase new cultural ones in order to add more people.
Another trick to keep in mind is that, while you want to style a fashionable city, you also want one that is defensible against external threats. Remember, you can be attacked! When you build City Walls, they add defense and take up a small bit of space. One thing you can do is connect them to towers and create an aesthetically pleasing wall that also defends your city!
Lastly, if you find yourself pressed for space, its worth remembering that there are many buildings (such as the Ampitheater) that will take up four squares of space while providing inferior benefits to buildings that can fit in one or two squares. If you truly cannot find space for a new building, look for large ones you can substitute for a cluster of smaller ones; it might not look so great, but it will let you expand your city a little bit more.
Jesse Pohlman - Jesse Pohlman is an avid writer and a researcher of pretty much anything. His latest novel, Physics Incarnate, is available for Kindle.
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