I've come across a great tutorial for dCity beginners written by @libertycrypto27 and it got me hooked in. I started my own city (@merthin) last night and decided to give it a bit of a push. I bought 500 HIVE (my very first HIVE purchase, used Binance!) and got about building the city.
I bought 100 cards (400 HIVE), 70 of them 1st edition and 30 2nd edition. 1st edition cards are needed to get good housing base for the population. I wasn't very lucky with my lot and had to buy some extra apartments on the market (with SIM, purchased for leftover HIVE). I also bought BEER and STEM to boost population and science. And this is pretty much it.
I am not fully satisfied yet, as I have many buildings without workers, but having quite nice daily income, it's a good starting position. I got some work to do with balancing my population and work places. I am selling some of my superfluous cards and will buy some more housing. It will look better with time, as the population will grow organically.
Now, the following will be obvious to you experienced guys, but should someone new read it, I think I need to make it clear that:
a) the game is not free to play (my initial purchase of 500 HIVE makes about $60)
b) it's not a get-rich-quick scheme (I will need a lot of patience to get anything from it; my first income will be re-invested)
My plan now is not to invest any more HIVE in my dCity, I will use the income it produces and slowly grow my city.
I've added @libertycrypto27 as beneficiary of this post, in appreciation of his great work on the tutorial. I wouldn't be able to start big without it.