Hi Shopkeepers!

Since our revamped City investments system has gone live, we've seen lots of questions about how it works and how the changes will affect players' guilds. We've answered some of the common questions in this FAQ and hope this helps everyone understand the new system a bit better.

City Investments FAQ:

Why is my cost to invest in buildings so much higher now?

Buildings are now upgraded by “ticks”, rather than raw amount of gold invested. Each time a player taps the button to invest, a “tick” is added to the building upgrade meter. As a player invests more and more in a building, these ticks become more expensive to purchase.

The cost of these “ticks” are also personal to each player and different for each building. If a player has never invested in the Garden, for example, they will find their ticks to be extremely cheap! With a very small fraction of his gold, that player will be able to contribute many ticks to the Garden and rapidly upgrade it.

Likewise, if investing in a building seems very expensive for you, it's highly possible that other guild members can provide some cheap ticks if they’ve never really invested in that building before.

To support this new change, we’ve also made all buildings significantly cheaper to upgrade overall if the whole guild chips in. Moderately active guilds should have a much easier time upgrading buildings than before.

What is building debt and how do I get rid of it? How much will my buildings downgrade and when?

As part of the update, many buildings levels were “thrown out of whack” temporarily, so to speak. Due to needing guild members to both login and also spread some quick investments around their neglected buildings, many buildings would have downgraded immediately following the update.

To give players a chance to adapt to these changes, we’ve temporarily “frozen” building levels under the premise of debt, symbolized by a yellow investment bar. Each guild’s goal should be to invest in these buildings again and fill up the yellow bar to clear away the debt and bring the building’s level back to where it used to be.

We’re currently planning on leaving debt mode active for one week following the update. If we deem that guilds need more time to adapt to the changes, we may extend this period.

How will this impact guilds who have players who play at varying levels of activity? How active does a player need to be to have their investments remain?

Due to the system change, players who have not logged in after the update will have their investments withheld until they do. This is a necessary step of the process, as both systems are incompatible with each other, and a login is required to transfer the player’s investments from one system to another.

Once this transitory period is past, members of all levels should have an easier time contributing to the guild together. Newer players in particular will be able to invest in small quantities of gold more appropriate for their budget while still contributing a significant amount to various buildings.

Will there be a better way to track investments from guild members added to the game?

Players have reported that it is difficult at a glance to see a player’s contribution to each building. We will look into updating the Investors building tab to better reflect the ticks a player has contributed to a building.

How can you tell how many "ticks" of investment a building has received and how many more it needs?

If the investment bar is yellow, it represents the amount of ticks that must be invested before the debt is cleared off and the building can be upgraded again. This initial number may be scary, but getting your guild to log in and invest a little should make this a smooth process.

If it is green, the investment bar will show the amount of ticks currently invested and the amount of ticks still needed to reach the next level. Each investment by guild members will increase this number by one.

Since finding an active, appropriate level guild is now more important will improvements be made to systems around guild recruitment?

Our next update will focus almost exclusively on guild interactions and events to keep guilds engaged and rewarding them for doing so.

Beyond that, we will also explore various options to help players find the guild that is right for them, especially if their guild has gone inactive.