Guide
Farms, construction bills and the Trade Center
Money pays the builders, but bricks, steel and food have to come from somewhere. This is the material side of running a Blockline city.
Farmsteads and fields
Residents eat every day, and the food comes from farms. A farmstead is the farmhouse, barn and silo; the crops grow on farm fields that you paint around it like a zone. A field must join a farmstead, either touching it or touching one of its fields, within 4 tiles. Each farmstead works up to 12 fields; any beyond that lie fallow until another farmstead joins them.
A worked field grows 8 food a day and the farmstead itself adds 8. That makes a fully worked farm worth 104 food a day. Surplus food goes into storage and can be sold.
Going short of food is serious. The whole city is unhappy from the first day, and the penalty deepens the longer the shortage lasts. After 10 days it becomes a famine and residents start leaving. Keep a margin, and remember that a growing city eats more every day.
Tip. Farms belong on the edge of town, on cheap flat land. Fields are cheap to paint but take a lot of room, so don't let them box in a district you'll want to grow later.
Construction bills
Every build has two prices. Money pays the builders; the construction bill is drawn from the city's stock of materials. Almost everything needs some building materials, which your industry makes, and the bigger structures also need steel, copper wire or timber.
| Build | Bill |
|---|---|
| Homes | 1 materials |
| School | 30 timber · 1.5 materials |
| Coal plant | 180 steel · 20 copper wire · 5 materials |
| Data centre | 60 steel · 90 copper wire · 4 materials |
| Hospital | 50 steel · 20 copper wire · 2.5 materials |
| Stadium | 500 steel · 60 copper wire · 10 materials |
If the stock can't cover a bill, the build is refused and the build menu says what is short. The exception is a commodity whose auto-buy policy is switched on: then the shortfall is bought for you on the exchange at the asking price. Every tool's bill is listed in the build menu and in the building reference.
Where the materials come from:
- Building materials come from industry lots (early workshops make the most), from quarries, and from a recycling centre.
- Sawn timber, steel and copper wire come from resource chains: a logging camp and sawmill, an iron mine and steel mill, a copper mine and wire mill. Deposits are hidden in the map and unfold through discovery, surveys and development proposals rather than from the build menu.
- Anything you don't make, you can buy.
The Trade Center
The Trade Center app is the city's commodity exchange. It quotes a bid and an ask for each commodity and takes the other side of every trade. There are 8 commodities:
| Commodity | What it is |
|---|---|
| Food | Grown on farm fields. Residents eat it every day; a shortage makes the whole city unhappy. |
| Building materials | Bricks, blocks and aggregate from industry, quarries and recycling. Every construction bill needs some. |
| Consumer goods | Made by factories and shops, sold to residents and malls. |
| Sawn timber | From a logging camp and sawmill. Schools, libraries, hotels and gardens are framed in it. |
| Steel | From an iron mine and steel mill. Power stations, stations, docks, towers and stadiums need it. |
| Copper wire | From a copper mine and wire mill. Telecoms, data centres and generators are wired with it. |
| Coke | From a colliery and coking works. Fuels coal plants harder when kept in stock. |
| Refined lithium | From a lithium mine and refinery. A volatile export the world pays well for. |
Orders
- A market order fills at once, at the ask when buying or the bid when selling. Large orders move the price as they fill, so the average price is a little worse than the quote.
- A limit order waits until the price reaches yours, then fills on a later tick. You can have up to 12 open at once.
- Every trade pays a 2% exchange tax.
Prices move with the city clock, so a resting limit order can only fill while the city is running.
Policies
Each commodity has three standing policies, which do most of the trading for you:
- Reserve: units kept back. Auto-sell never sells below it, and it is your buffer for construction bills.
- Auto-sell: sells production above the reserve every tick, so storage never overflows. It is on by default for sawn timber, steel, copper wire, coke and refined lithium, so resource chains keep earning export income.
- Auto-buy: when a build is short of this commodity, buys the shortfall instead of refusing the build.
Food, materials and goods share the city's general storage, which each warehouse expands by 1,500. The resource-chain commodities sit in their own yards, with room for at least 2,000 of each.
Tip. Raise the steel and copper reserves before you plan a big build such as a power station or an airport. Auto-sell would otherwise export the stock you were saving for it.
Neighbours and contracts
Your city has 3 neighbours that grow alongside it, and the Region app is where you deal with them. From time to time they post delivery offers for commodities they need, at a premium of 10% to 35% over the market price.
- Accept an offer, then ship from your stock before the deadline. Shipments are limited per day, and slower when freight is jammed.
- Completing a contract pays a bonus of 10% of its value and improves relations with that neighbour.
- Missing the deadline costs a penalty of 15% of the contract's value and damages relations.
Neighbours have their own troubles. A shortage or an embargo in a neighbouring city pushes prices away from the world price for a while, which is when contracts and sales pay best.
Why you can't corner the market
Your own large trades move prices too. Buying a lot pushes the price up and selling a lot pushes it down, and that push halves every 10 days. Buying low and selling high in bulk doesn't pay: you lose the spread and the tax on both legs and gain nothing from the move you caused. The exchange rewards steady production and well-timed sales, not speculation.
For how freight capacity limits deliveries, see the transport guide.