When it comes to mobile city builders, there’s no doubt that Pocket City is one of the best Android games around. But rather than resting on his laurels, creator Bobby Li has been hard at work crafting the follow-up to the surprise 2018 hit. After over two years of development, Pocket City 2 is finally here and ready to play on your favorite Android phone or tablet. If you’re a Pocket City veteran, you should be able to jump right in (although there are plenty of new features to keep you busy), but if you’re new to the city-building genre in general, we’ve put together a handy guide to get you started.

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Zones

Much like its spiritual predecessor, SimCity, the essence of Pocket City 2 lies in balancing the numeric ratio and geographic distribution of three zones: residential, commercial, and industrial. There isn’t a simple answer to the perfect balance between these three zones, but understanding how they function in the game should give you an idea of how to manage them.

Residential

Pocket City 2 residential zone

Residential zones are where your residents live. The amount of residential zoning you allot determines your maximum population — and the population is a key metric that drives how much money your city makes. Residential zones also generate money directly through property taxes.

Commercial

Pocket City 2 commercial zone

The commercial zone is where your residents spend their money. Commercial zoning is important because it generates sales tax. You can also shop for in-game items like books and food, which can give you temporary bonuses and experience point boosts.

Industrial

Pocket City 2 industrial zone

Industrial zones are where your residents make money. If you don’t have enough industrial zoning, then there won’t be any jobs to entice people to move to your city, and the residents you do have won’t be able to spend it in your commercial districts.

Thankfully, when it comes to which type of zoning to construct next, you don’t have to guess; the game will tell you. In the top-right corner of the screen is a graph with green (residential), blue (commercial), and orange (industrial) bars. The height of the bars indicate the demand for that type of zoning. In other words, if the orange bar is higher than the others, you should be building more industries.

Pocket City 2 user interface highlighting the zone demand graph

It’s also important to consider the geographic distribution of your zones. Industrial zones cause pollution, and, in general, it’s more difficult to get new residents to move to residential zones adjacent to industrial zones. They’re also less happy and therefore generate less income. The best practice is to insulate your residential zones with commercial zones or other nonpolluting services.

Infrastructure

Utilities

All the zoning in the world won’t do you any good if your residents don’t have power to turn their lights on or water to cook with. That’s why you need to construct power plants and water towers. Both utilities can only serve a fixed number of buildings, so you’ll have to manage how many you have and their distribution throughout your city. Once you have power and water, you need to connect them to your residents.

Roads

One complexity Pocket City 2 abstracts is the need to construct power lines and sewer pipes. Instead, you use roads to distribute water and power in addition to providing driving surfaces for your residents so they can get to work.

Pocket City 2 zones with only half power

If you build a road to connect your power and water to your zones, you’ll notice that the benefits of a road only extend two squares from the street; the buildings further away than two squares won’t have any power or water. This is easily fixed by building more roads, but it puts a hard limit on the density of your city blocks. Click on either the power plant or the water tower to see the extent of the distribution of those services.

Pocket City 2 water distribution map

The most popular city layouts are built around 4×4 grids although a mix of 4×4 and 4×9 is also common.

Additional Services

In addition to power and water, you’re also going to need fire, police, and health services. Without sufficient fire service, your city will burn to the ground. Without police, crime will make your city unattractive to new residents and likewise for health services. Fire, police, and health services all have a fixed geographic range, so make sure you place them strategically.