dCity has been an interesting project to both follow along with and play. Over time we've gone through a few different meta's and era's of the game and it looks like we could be headed for another evolution of the game.
Today marks the end of 2nd edition and likely opens the door for 4th edition to be released in the near future. It's been roughly 1 year since third edition was release (May 1, 2021 I believe) so it kind of makes sense to see 4th edition be released on May 1st, 2022. With every new edition or change in the game we often see a shift in how players interact with the game and new strategies to profit within dCity. Currently we are in an era with unprecedented taxes so in order to earn SIM/HIVE in dCity you really need to play around the taxes to figure out how to get the most out of your city. There are two prevailing strategies in my opinion right now, maximizing tax refunds or stacking war shares. Interestingly enough the same base card can be used for both of those strategies and that is the recently added Student card.
Students are a very unique card type that can eventually be "upgraded" into new card types. Most of these cards (including Students) give Tax Refund, a way to bypass high taxes and still earn SIM each and every day. On top of that some of the cards you get get from upgrading students have some interesting effects, and the one I want to talk about in particular in the Soldier card. Not only do Soldiers give you 1 tax refund, they also give you 0.1 War Shares. This is really interesting because it can bypass taxes in two different ways and works into both strategies I had mentioned previously. And what does all this cost you? 10 SIM and some time.
Student farming is becoming more popular as a result because the value of free citizens is currently quite high. Homeless are around 125 SIM, Immigrants are around 250 SIM and Students are almost 1400 SIM each. The entire process can be a bit tedious and really requires numerous accounts to be optimized but it's really interesting to see how players continue to adapt to the changes within dCity.
I wouldn't be surprised if Students end up being an important part of whatever lays ahead for dCity and I won't be surprised if 4th edition once again flips this game on it's head, leading to new metas and strategies for the game.
I can't wait to see how dCity evoles next!