Trying to stay at the top is a never ending battle. I was always wondering how some of the dCITY players can amass so much new population each day to keep themselves in the leaderboard.
I think I figured it all out. Even though dCITY is an idle game, it's a pretty sophisticated one. It's also only in beta so more great features will come sooner or later.
So how can you amass a lot of new population daily to stay in the leaderboards? You probably don't even have to use all of your daily SIM income. The answer is something I also tried for the first time - the dCITY events!
Events grant extra boosts and last for 24 hours. You can start them every 4 days.
In dCITY there are 6 events.
BEER FEST - This event gives you random 50-100 bonus to popularity, and chance (20%) to get Worker (+1 population) or Hard Worker (+1 population, +1 income). Cost: 5 BEER
Science Convention - organized with 100 STEM tokens, gives the player 40-120 education for 24h, and 20% chance to receive scientist (+1 population, +1 education) every 2 hours.
Art Convention - organized with 250 CCC tokens, gives the player 80-180 creativity for 24h, and 20% chance to receive artist (+1 population, +1 creativity) every 2 hours.
WEED FEST - organized with 75 WEED tokens, gives the player 40-120 creativity for 24h, and 20% chance to receive artist (+1 population, +1 creativity), also this event doubles WEED Farm production.
Poker Night - Organized with 20000 GAMER tokens, decrease crime rate in City by 5-20, gives 15% chance to receive Gambler, and 5% chance to receive Addicted Gambler every 2 hours.
SplinterFest - Organized with 500 DEC tokens, increase Entry production by 5%, gives 18% chance to receive Gamer citizen, and 2% chance to receive Dice Splinterlands pack every 2 hours.
Science Convention event is the most expensive, the rest is pretty fine. For example Art Convention event costs 250 CCC tokens. At current prices it's less than 1.3 HIVE for a 20% chance to receive an artist every 2 hours. With the Voice to Skull technology you can increase the chance by ten more percents.
This is why popularity is so important in this game because it gives you a bonus to population. The truth is that these cards from events give only +1 to population, but for players with a lot of popularity in their city it can mean 5 or 10 population increase from a single +1 population card. That's really huge.
Good luck!