Have you ever wanted a life completely different from your own? Where you can get everything you dreamed of or struggle to make ends meet given a measly salary and a lot of expenses? Will a life spent largely in the casino be good? Or is it better to invest in yourself or the stock market? Can you be as happy with a life of solitude or will one with a partner be affordable and at the same time lead to happier and healthier living?
From Zero to Hero: Cityman is a life simulation game from Heatherglade Publishing that lets you live a unique life based on the choices you make. Luck will certainly play a role in your life almost every step of the way, but planning and preparation stands as the dominant factor that influences its outcome. How you progress in life is a product of your decisions so instances that revolve around fortune or lack of it, in a way, also has its roots from the choices you make.
Although the ultimate goal in From Zero to Hero: Cityman is to amass wealth and become the president, there are plenty of economic and social statuses in-between that are certainly better than the starting life as a beggar. While even the initial set of improvements you get as part of the tutorial makes living conditions okay, you can still go a long way to improve the quality of your life.
From Zero to Hero: Cityman certainly provides an interface as plain and simple as its gameplay mechanics and you can certainly pick up the basic things you need to do even before the quick tutorial ends. Although there are really no perfect routes toward the best life and for some people even, the journey through life is what matters more.
You can enjoy this game through and through without any guides but if you are in search of tips and strategies to add flavor to each playthrough, then our From Zero to Hero: Cityman Guide certainly has all you need to pave the way towards having the best virtual life ever!
1. Center Your Initial Plans On Jobs
Once you are free to check every aspect of your life in From Zero to Hero: Cityman, you will potentially be caught wondering where to go to next. Idle seconds equate to days and life goes on even if you choose to stand idly. There are certainly a lot to look into as exploration comes naturally for almost every new entrant to a new, unfamiliar world. Considering everything, however, we recommend peeking into the jobs first as this basically houses the main means for you to improve your standards of living.
Each new job you take on offers better salary rates than the previous one but also comes with specific minimum requirements. As higher paying jobs should form part or exclusively make up your immediate goals in life, you should always pursue them ahead of everything else. Although basic requirements to take on a new job only include a decent level of happiness, months of experience in the current job, clothing types, food choices, and even housing statuses, latter jobs will begin to consider specific transportation means, educational background and even marital status as part of the requirements.
Taking on a new job, therefore, should encourage you to check the requisites to be promoted to the next one and aim to improve your living conditions to satisfy those requirements. Identifying the basic requirements to secure the higher paying job is actually the easy part as every upgrade on any of the factors that contribute to your way of life has its corresponding costs.
The advantage, however, of identifying these key elements early on will keep you focused on what you need to spend your money on and, if it proves still difficult or impossible to do so considering your current income statement, you will at least avoid making unnecessary upgrades that do not relate directly to your current goals.
2. Live A Healthy And Happy Life
From Zero to Hero: Cityman makes it a point that life is not all about the money. Surely enough, we consider having dreams built around better jobs or earning higher income but there are certainly other aspects of life that are at least equally important. Money in From Zero to Hero: Cityman is just a third of the things you need to maintain at good levels.
Your health, as indicated by the heart icon above the screen, is directly relevant to the number of years you get to live. While it might be unrealistic to even consider a life where someone over 80 years old is still working, the more in-game years you have simply equates to having more time to reach the top of the world or at least the end goal you have in mind. Keeping health at 100% all the time may not be necessary, but at the very least keep it at 80% or above as much as possible.
Finally, your level of happiness, as indicated by the smile emoji above the screen, should also be maintained at a decent level or at least at 80%. If you notice available jobs one after another, From Zero to Hero: Cityman makes it clear that nobody wants to hire an unhappy person. Both levels of health and happiness decrease over time and while events are largely random, they all seem to be impacted by circumstances surrounding these metrics.
From Zero to Hero: Cityman also offers plenty of ways and means for you to improve both your health and happiness. It is important to know that there are free ways to improve your health and increase your level of happiness. However, each activity you partake in has its cost in time as well, and given that the costs attributable to all other activities are proportional to the boosts they provide, it can sometimes be worth it to enjoy other amenities, even costlier ones, to save on time tending to your health and happiness.
3. Video Choices In Events Are Always The Best Ones
A continuous and consistent path from one job to the next can lead to a somewhat dull life experience even if you consider upgrading one aspect of your life after another and even engage in bits of gambling and stock market buying and selling. Even adding different activities that boost your health and enrich your happiness will, at some point, lead to a monotonous life, so to speak.
What really adds more colors and flavors to life lie in unique experiences that happen randomly, and From Zero to Hero: Cityman provides a ton of unique events that involve a wide cast of characters to ensure that your life is always brimming with unique scenarios. These events pop up without warning and you can never opt out of it without casting a decision. There are always 3 choices available for you and one of those decisions will always require you to play a short video ad when you pick them.
Given the unique situations presented to you during these events, it can occasionally be difficult to determine or guess the outcome that follows with each choice. However, given the small cost of playing a 5 to 30-second ad for some of the choices, you can expect to get something out of those choices. Choosing the ad option during events can earn you some cash, some extra health, or even some boost on happiness levels.
While the ad choices provided in events are what we consider as the best choices given the added incentives, these choices are not an absolute necessity. In the case of extra health and happiness, either of these metrics can never go beyond a hundred percent and if you are close to maxing them out, then it is okay to consider what you feel is best given the remaining options.
In some cases, wrong decisions in events can lead to reductions of health, happiness, or even cash. As peculiar as the logic may seem in some of these cases, not all non-ad choices necessarily have an adverse effect. Likewise, with savings, health, and happiness statuses in mind, encountering events should always be met with set expectations of possible setbacks.
4. Learn To Budget Well
From Zero to Hero: Cityman makes it very evident that your financial status will always be a driving factor to practically every decision you make. Making ends meet from one month to the next is as challenging as it is in real life. The feeling of having been impacted by inflation as well as not having enough income to cover all your expenses is certainly common experience.
There are a lot of items to spend on in From Zero to Hero: Cityman and also a lot of ways to earn money above your monthly salary. However, the trouble usually comes from spending more than what you earn along with fortuitous events that come with unexpected costs. In essence, negative impacts of events that lower levels of health or happiness also have their indirect impact on your wealth especially considering that you may have to consider activities that come with a price tag just to alleviate the impact of such circumstances.
Taking on a new job role brings about higher monthly income but, for the most part, the requisites needed before you take on those jobs also entail additional expenses. Do note that all life upgrades in From Zero to Hero: Cityman comes at a price tag and almost none of it exclusively has one-time payments. This means that every new house, new car, or a different even marital status will have extra monthly payments over what you previously spent.
Going back to our first tip in this guide, it all boils down to how much you can narrow down on expenses relative to the requirements of the better job you are targeting. It becomes a necessity sometimes to consistently revisit the minimum requirements for the job. It is only natural to have an inclination to stray from it at times given the relative attractiveness of other upgrades not yet needed as well as other activities you do not necessarily have to engage in.
Initially, you can only rely on your salary every month to cover the rest of your needs. Once you reach 18 years of age, however, you can start taking on side jobs for additional income as well as invest in the stock market for a chance to earn extra as well. Side jobs are short term and will only run for a few months at a time. Side jobs, therefore, should be an activity to keep a close eye on as you would want to take on a new one as soon as the other one ends. Of course, you cannot take on 2 side jobs at once as well.
Even if you have a side job, managing expenses should still be primarily based on your main source of income, but not entirely. You need to assure that you will consistently be able to take on side jobs and never assume that the next one will have as huge an offer as the current one you have. In this sense, regular expenses should be well covered by your main job as much as possible and side jobs should be your buffer for emergency expenses brought about by events as well as savings that you intend to keep.
Make it a habit to analyze the available data at the lower portion of the screen, which shows income you earn for the month as well as the expenses you have incurred. From there you should be able to identify how much money you can save as well as how much spare income you have as your budget for the usual activities that promote health and happiness as well as gambling and stock investments.
5. Regulate Gambling
Our previous strategy relative to managing your budget and expenses will naturally touch on gambling and stock market investments. While both these activities can lead to profits, you should not actually consider them as a source of income. Both these endeavors involve risks and never actually guarantees income and even if stock market investments are considered as leading towards a higher chance of realizing profits, a probability rate that is not less than 100% is just not a reliable source of income.
The most rational people you encounter in real life would still consider engaging in activities in the casino but instead of expecting to win with whatever they are willing to bet, they set aside a budget for it and consider the gambling experience as an activity for fun. An example would be to only consider $50 as your gambling money. If you win more, then you can choose to continue playing but if you lose the $50, then it is time to go home.
Engaging in gambling only naturally means that you have to understand the rules of the game. Having a good understanding of the mechanics and how you can win some money should lead to an analysis of probabilities that should influence how much you are willing or can afford to bet. The roulette is the only casino mini game in From Zero to Hero: Cityman for now and we will discuss it briefly for the sake of those unfamiliar with the rules of the game.
The roulette basically involves a spinning wheel with 36 numbers and a zero and the croupier or casino employee throws a small ball into it, which will surely land on a random number. There are many ways to bet with each spin of the wheel with some more obvious than others and with some, having higher probabilities and lower payout. Categorically, bets on a roulette can be classified into 2 categories, which are outside bets and inside bets.
For starters, we recommend considering outside bets as these do not rely on a specific number or a set of specific numbers and typically have higher chances of earning you wins than inside bets. You can bet on Black, Red, Odd, Even, first 12, second 12, third 12, 1-18, and 19-36, depending on where you think the small ball will land.
Colored bets, or choosing between black and red, almost gives you a 50% chance of winning considering “0” is the only number whose color is different. This has a pay of 1 to 1, meaning that if you guessed correctly, you will get as much as what you betted. The same works for Odd or Even choices.
There is column betting as well where you choose one of the three available columns as to which one contains the number where the ball will land. This roughly leaves you with a 33.33% chance of scoring a win and has a payout of 2 to 1 or you get twice the amount of your bet. Dozen betting works almost the same but instead lets you choose between the first dozen or the numbers 1 – 12, and so on and has the same pay as well.
Inside bets generally has bigger payouts but have much smaller probabilities of earning you a win. A Straight Up bet, for example, or simply choosing any number to bet on gives you the least probability of winning but has the biggest payout of 35 to 1.
Beginners potentially do not know this but you can place bets between 2 numbers on the board, giving you a higher but still low probability of success. You can bet on a set of 4 numbers by placing your chips between their squares and you can also bet on 3 numbers in a row as well by placing chips at the edge of that row.
All these ways of betting can often give you mixed feelings about probabilities and chances. Excitement can lead you to spend bets after bets with you losing sight of how much have already lost. As challenging as it may seem to resist some urges to spend more in the casino, your itch to make higher bets should instead inspire you to work harder on securing better jobs and earning more. There is also a saying that money earned easily is spent just as easily so even if you win big in casinos, you are just likely to lose those earnings in a blink of an eye.
6. Stock Earnings Revolve Around Timing
Putting your hard earned cash in the stock market can earn you additional income but it is not entirely devoid of risks. The stock market in From Zero to Hero: Cityman is just as volatile as its counterpart in the real world. Stock prices increase and decrease randomly, leaving little room for anyone to establish patterns and correctly predict its behavior.
Engaging in stock trade is made simpler in the sense that you basically buy or sell to start a cycle and do the opposite to close the transaction. There is a limited amount of cash you can invest, or rather bet, in each cycle based on your overall status in life. Just like in reality, though the simple concept of buying low and selling high applies and despite the fast pace of how stock prices change in From Zero to Hero: Cityman, it is still relatively easy to earn from it than in real life.
You should be well conscious that what is important is not the actual line moving upwards or downwards as you prepare to complete a transaction. Rather, take note of the price when you buy or sell and consider the gainful amount when it is time to close the transaction. If you both the stocks somewhere around the 12k mark, for example, you should always sell at a higher amount. If you choose the sell option, then start at a high amount and sell when it starts to dip.
Beyond the actual gains you can get from each cycle in stock trading, you should always consider the time spent in doing so, just like the times you engage in going to the casino. You might overlook important activities that are needed to boost either your health or happiness. At the same time, engaging in such activities might lead you to forget about the end of a side job and completely miss out on earning some extra income.
Engaging in stock trading can be as addictive as spending time in the casino as the unpredictable outcome that comes with every investment or bet you make can surely elicit excitement. Know that is okay to engage in such activities so long as you know the limits of what you can afford and at the same time not prevent you from engaging in more beneficial activities.
7. Take Advantage Of Ad Boosts
Probably unknown to a lot of players, you can actually play and enjoy From Zero to Hero: Cityman completely offline. All you need to do is to simply turn off your Wi-Fi or mobile data and start the game. While most of the gameplay elements are available, however, playing on offline mode will prevent any kind of video ads from popping up, which means that you can only rely on the usual sources of cash and benefits from the regular activities devoid of the perks of the game’s numerous ad boosts.
Since From Zero to Hero: Cityman is a casual game, players should not be surprised to find ads contained it as these ads become a source of added income that helps make the game available for everyone to enjoy absolutely free. There are, however, no ads that pop up unnecessarily as each one basically takes your permission for them to start playing.
We already mentioned ad options being the best choices among the 3 that are available to you during events. As good as these ad perks are, From Zero to Hero: Cityman provides other ad boosts that are rather hard to ignore. One of these ad boosts lets you earn 500 coins after playing a short video ad. These ads are almost always available so it can become addictive to spam on it sometimes and get a bit of edge in terms of your savings and finances.
You can access the shop by clicking on the plus sign besides your coins. While you can access the same ad boost here that instantly earns you 500 coins, we feel that the Mega Bonus that you can activate reaps much better rewards. Playing a short video ad here can get you an elixir of life, a temporary salary boost, or 1,500 coins outright.
The elixir of life lets your health and happiness levels decrease 6x slower for the next 5 minutes while the salary boost doubles your salary for 5 minutes. In any case, all these rewards are certainly worth the 15 to 30 seconds you spend for watching an ad and you can avail of these perk once every 4 hours.
We are as eager as the next person to find out what From Zero to Hero: Cityman has in store for its players following future updates. For now, though, this is where we end our guide and we hope that the simple tips and strategies we shared here will go a long way to aid you reach your goals in the game. If you have stumbled upon some nifty tricks or strategies or have chanced upon some really peculiar events worth sharing, do not hesitate to drop us one or a few of those down below!