This city simulation game can affect reality.

[You've obtained the beginner's gift pack. Open it now?]

Without any hesitation, Chen Jun immediately clicked "Start".

As the command was triggered, four horizontally arranged icons appeared on the screen.

Chen Jun clicked on each skill name one by one to review them:

Contrasting Buildings

[Skill Advancement Card]

[Fusion Guaranteed to Explode]

[Amazing Bookshelf]

After learning the basic information, Chen Jun habitually clicked on other parts of the screen to close the window, but a brand new prompt box immediately popped up again.

[Forgo the above rewards; when the city's attractiveness reaches 200, the quality of the rewards will double]

He glanced at it and immediately rejected the option.

On the surface, the phrase "double the quality" is certainly appealing.

But based on past experience, this is definitely a trap.

Every building in City Simulator has its own unique characteristics.

Even high-quality buildings cannot replace some functions of low-quality buildings.

While it cannot be ruled out that some buildings are indeed complete replacements for the superior ones, the problem is that Chen Jun has no way of knowing what the 200-point reward will be.

He has no need to gamble on unknown rewards with known gains.

If you miss out on rare features because of this, it would be a loss.

Even if you were to take a gamble, it would only be in the later stages when resources are plentiful, and you might use this to try and reach the upper limit.

But now that the game is just getting on track, it seems unnecessary to take such a risky step; a steady and cautious approach is the best strategy.

In other words, even if the reward of 200 points is doubled, its quality will still be limited.

It would be better to wait until the city's attractiveness exceeds 1,000 or even 10,000 before taking a big gamble; that would be a true qualitative leap.

After closing the unexpected window, Chen Jun began to examine the rewards one by one in order.

Judging from the names, the four rewards are divided into two types.

The [Contrasting Building] and [Amazing Bookshelf] are rare building blueprints, and even the background of their icons has changed from white to green. Their specific functions will likely differ from those of the previous ordinary buildings.

Skill Advancement Cards and Fusion Guaranteed Explosion Cards are naturally classified as special items.

Just as Chen Jun predicted, this save file abandoned the model of directly distributing gold coins.

But in the real world, any one of these blueprints or props is more valuable than gold coins.

Switching the screen to the blueprint interface, Chen Jun first clicked on the detailed introduction of the [Contrasting Buildings].

[Contrasting Building: A large building that can accommodate 198 households, with completely contrasting interior and exterior design styles. After moving in, residents have a 50% chance to gain an extra 1 experience point each time they use other functional buildings in the city (level 6 and above only)]

Judging from the simplified schematic diagram in the drawings, the exterior decoration of the "Contrast Building" follows a nostalgic style, with a texture similar to an old-fashioned residential building from the turn of the century.

Since the name mentions a "contrast" son, it implies that the internal structure must be quite unique.

This rare blueprint is far larger than any building we've ever acquired before.

Besides its obvious benefits such as effectively alleviating land pressure and providing residents with a sense of novelty, its greatest value lies in significantly increasing the speed of experience acquisition.

This mechanism is also easy to understand.

For example, if a resident catches a fish or makes a craft, they would normally receive 1 experience point, but now there is a 50% chance that they will directly gain 2 experience points.

From a mathematical expectation perspective, the average experience points gained from every 100 fishing/crafting attempts are 150.

However, probability is something that will inevitably vary when the sample size is small.

However, the fluctuation is generally between 130 and 170.

Although the trigger level is restricted, this precisely addresses the need to improve during the bottleneck period.

For these functional buildings, the initial upgrade speed is already quite fast.

Only after reaching level six or above will one enter a long accumulation phase.

Taking Li Qingxin as an example, she currently needs as many as 16000 experience points to upgrade from Lv6 to Lv7.

Based on her efficiency of producing 8-12 basic handicrafts per hour, even working 8 hours a day, she wouldn't be able to earn 100 experience points.

It will probably take more than six months to advance to the next level.

Now, with the bonus mechanism of [Contrast Buildings], this cycle can be shortened by about one-third.

The later the product is released, the better its cost-effectiveness will become.

Chen Jun was quite satisfied with the first reward in the gift pack, and he eagerly clicked on the second reward: [Amazing Bookshelf].

[Amazing Bookshelf: Depending on the resident's specific situation, different books can be obtained each time it is opened. Once a resident has read 95% of a single book, there is a low probability that their satisfaction level will directly increase by 1 point.]

Judging from the description alone, this reward almost completely relieves the pressure of obtaining "resident satisfaction".

Based on the current natural growth rate, the monthly satisfaction level tends to hover around 10 points.

Unless large-scale events are held during holidays, progress may experience a short-term surge.

However, such events cannot be held frequently.

One reason is the lack of a reasonable pretext.

Furthermore, even if we forcefully increase the frequency of activities, over time, tourists' psychological threshold will continue to rise. If we cannot continue to introduce more exciting services, it will be difficult to improve satisfaction.

Therefore, from a long-term perspective, there is absolutely no need to live beyond one's means and overdraw on future development potential.

As for the feature of "acquiring different books", it's probably like the wooden boxes in [Rotten Wood Apartment], a kind of daily surprise prepared for the residents.

In the game, this description is essentially a way to give the idea of ​​increasing resident satisfaction a logical explanation, which can be seen as the developer's thoughtful approach to copywriting.

However, if applied to reality, this function of automatically matching book supply to demand would be greatly enhanced.

This means that even if it is not used in public areas, but simply placed in the office, Chen Jun himself can have a comfortable reading experience.

After carefully reviewing the descriptions of the rare buildings, he opened his inventory to check the two types of card rewards.

[Skill Advancement Card: When used, it can upgrade any existing skill by 1 level, or obtain an advanced version of that skill.]

[Fusion Guaranteed Success Card: The next time you fuse buildings, you are guaranteed to receive a related blueprint, and this blueprint can be replaced an unlimited number of times until you are satisfied.]

The text is explained very clearly.

Judging from the descriptions, both of these item cards are typical late-game powerhouses; the later you use them, the higher their cost-effectiveness.

Especially with the [Skill Advancement Card], if you use it now, whether you spend it on [Terrain Editing] or [Resident Information], the improvement will be relatively limited.

However, if you wait until these two skills reach a certain level before using them, the effects will be vastly different.

However, based on Chen Jun's experience, there are quite a few ways to obtain these advanced cards later on, so there is no need to be too meticulous. Just use them at the right time.

As for the [Fusion Guaranteed Explosion Card], Chen Jun's plan is to use it on the buildings in the Activity Center area.

Although the basic core framework has been built, the overall functionality is still somewhat limited.

It is still far from the diversified complex he envisioned.

"For now, we can place a few [Amazing Bookshelves] there. As for the other three types of treasures, we can save them for later use."

Chen Jun suddenly realized that with the emergence of the "contrasting buildings," the already scarce land resources were in dire need of replenishment.

Neither the activity center nor the resort area could find enough units to house this massive building.

Moreover, a single building in this type of residential complex would inevitably look out of place; it needs to be planned as a whole to create a good community atmosphere.

"We need to hurry up and expand our territory."