City Design Challenges

City Design Challenges (Often called Design Challenges or just DC) is an online feature. It was fully released in version 1.37.0, and in restricted early access in version 1.36.1. It can be accessed by clicking the plumbob button at the bottom left corner of your device. There are 5 tabs in Design Challenges with your blueprint total at the top. The 5th tab is an FAQ. The aim in design challenges is to build a nice city design and submit it to have it voted on to earn blueprints. You can vote from level 9 and participate in challenges from level 17. You must have an internet connection to participate. They are a social feature so child accounts won't be able to participate.

Seasons[]

There are 2 types of seasons in Design Challenges. The first type are the normal seasons that give 2 old Contest of Mayors buildings and 1 new building. They lasted 28 days and had 4 regions in Design Challenges Season 1 and 2. In Design Challenges Season 3 the season changed to last 28 days and includes 7 regions.

Design Dash[]

The second type are Design Dashes which are shorter faster paced versions of a normal season. They last 7 days and have 2 regions with easier bonus goals. They do not give any buildings. The population Bonus Goal for Designs in a Design Dash is lowered from 10,000 to 7,000.

Phases[]

There are 3 Phases in City Design Challenges. The first phase is the design phase, this phase lasts 2 days in a normal season and 1 day in a Design Dash and is when you build your city. The second phase is the vote phase, this phase lasts 1 day and is when you vote on other people's cities and people vote on yours. The third phase is the break between challenges. This phase lasts 1 day and happens after every 2 challenges. There is no break phase in Design Dashes.

Challenges[]

Challenges are the biggest part of Design Challenges. This is where you build your design to have it submitted. You will be taken to a separate region and get to use your stored buildings to make a city. You must have at least 2,000-3,000 population depending on your league. and all roads and services working to be able to submit a design. You can also hit bonus goals to get more blueprints. The requirements give 50 blueprints. When first loading into the region there will be some buildings and roads to get you started. You can then upgrade Residential Buildings to boost your population. Each upgrade rewards you with 6-8xp and 170-190 Design Simoleons. The residential buildings need services like normal which can be purchased for Design Simoleons. You cannot use Maxis Manors, Commercial Buildings, Industrial Buildings, OMEGA Zones, Controlnet, Drones, Regional Services, and Government in Design Challanges. You can access the Global Trade HQ from a button on the left side of the screen. To submit the design you can orientate the camera to submit a photo of the design. You can bulldoze your starting Residential Buildings if you choose. Refreshing building plans in Design Challenges will only take 10 minutes instead of 30. During Vote Phase you can vote for designs and see your current design's score and number of votes.

Bonus Goals:[]

Bonus Goals are a way to earn extra blueprints. There are 3 bonus goals that vary from region to region. Each Bonus goal gave 25-50 blueprints in early access. In the full release the first 2 goals gives 50 blueprints, and the minimum population goal gives 100 blueprints. You can get bonus blueprints depending on your league. There is a maximum of 3 bonus goals. If there is a bonus goal requiring all Residential Buildings to be covered by a Specialization it includes unbuilt plots.

All Bonus Goals:

Bonus Goals
Region	Goal 1	Goal 2	Goal 3
Tropical Haven (Early Access)	Minimum 4 Beach buildings	All residentials covered by landscape
Winter Wonderland (Early Access)	Minimum 3 Mountain Buildings	All residentials covered by education
The Great Wilds (Early Access)	Minimum 2 Gambling buildings	All residentials covered by transportation
Life is a Festival (Early Access)	All residentials covered by entertainment	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum 3 Beach Buildings
Chinatown (Early Access)	Minimum 2 Park buildings	Minimum 2 entertainment buildings	Minimum 2 transportation buidlings
Green City (Early Access)	Minimum 3 landscape buildings	All residentials covered by Parks
Journey to the East	Minimum 2 landmark buildings	All residentials covered by landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
Spring Fresh City	Minimum 12 landscape buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
Tropical Haven	All residentials covered by landscape	Minimum 4 beach buildings	Minimum Population 10,000
City Center	Minimum 3 Landmark Buildings	All residentials covered by Entertainment	Minimum Population 10,000
The Great Wilds	Minimum 2 Gambling Buildings	All residentials covered by Transportation	Minimum Population 10,000
Winter Wonderland	Minimum 3 Mountain Buildings	All residentials covered by Education	Minimum Population 10,000
Green City	Minimum 3 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
Water City	Minimum 10 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Beach	Minimum Population 10,000
Chinatown (Design Dash)	Minimum 2 Entertainment Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 7,000
Tropical Haven (Design Dash)	Minimum 4 Beach Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 7,000
Camping Hideaway	Minimum 12 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
Smart City	Minimum 4 Education Buildings	All residentials covered by Transportation	Minimum Population 10,000
Mountainside Grandeur	Minimum 3 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Mountain	Minimum Population 10,000
Family Downtown	Minimum 4 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Education	Minimum Population 10,000
Life is a Festival	All residentials covered by Entertainment	Minimum 4 Beach Buildings	Minimum Population 10,000
Chinatown	Minimum 2 Entertainment Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
Entertainment Capital	Minimum 5 Beach Buildings	All residentials covered by Entertainment	Minimum Population 10,000
City of Gardens	Minimum 8 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
City of History	Minimum 3 Landmark Buildings	All residentials covered by Landmarks	Minimum Population 10,000
Sports City	Minimum 5 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Entertainment	Minimum Population 10,000
Arabian Nights	Minimum 1 Landmark Building	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
City of Bridges	Minimum 2 Landmark Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
Family Downtown (Design Dash)	Minimum 4 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Education	Minimum Population 7,000
Falling Leaves City	Minimum 5 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
Night City	Minimum 5 Entertainment Buildings	All residentials covered by Gambling.	Minimum Population 10,000
Spooky City	Minimum 3 Entertainment Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
Beach City	Minimum 5 Beach Buildings	All residentials covered by Beach.	Minimum Population 10,000
Autumn Parade	Minimum 1 Landmark Building	All residentials covered by Landscape.	Minimum Population 10,000
Hygge Life	Minimum 4 Park Buildings	All residentials covered by Transportation.	Minimum Population 10,000
Skyscraper City	Minimum 3 Landmark Buildings	All residentials covered by Entertainment.	Minimum Population 10,000
Future City	Minimum 3 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks.	Minimum Population 10,000
Americana	Minimum 3 Gambling Buildings	All residentials covered by Entertainment.	Minimum Population 10,000
Paradise in Oceania	Minimum 3 Beach Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape.	Minimum Population 10,000
River Town	Minimum 10 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Landscape	Minimum Population 10,000
Egg Hunt Challenge	Minimum 12 Landscape Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000
City of Art	Minimum 5 Entertainment Buildings	All residentials covered by Parks	Minimum Population 10,000

Voting[]

Voting is how your design will be scored. After submitting your design you must wait until the voting phase starts. Once the voting phase starts you can vote for 5 cities at the start of every hour. When clicking the vote button you will be shown 2 random entries and have to pick the better one. It will show you the photo the player submitted, the population, and the happiness level. After voting for someone's city you can see the name and amount of stars they have. You can also click the exclamation mark at the top of the image to report a design that violates EA's terms of service. After voting for all 5 designs you will be given a reward which seems to have the same rewards as a video ad. Since the introduction of leagues the Voting Tab was removed and you now vote from the challenges tab.

Leagues[]

See the Design Challenges Leagues page for more info.

Results[]

The Results tab is where you can see the results of the designs you submitted. It shows the last 11 Designs that happened. You will be able to see the results of the Winner and the results of your Design. You can also see the winning design and your design. You will also be able to see the number of votes your design got.

Leaderboard[]

The Leaderboard tab was introduced in Design Challenge Season 19. Here you can see all the votes your designs get within a season and see how you measure up against 100 other players. At the end of the season, the top 50 players are awarded either the Grand Prize, the Medium Prize, or the Small Prize depending on where they rank.

**Leaderboard Rewards**
Prizes	Ranks	Reward
Grand Prize	1 thru 5	500 Blueprints and 5 Platinum Keys
Medium Prize	6 thru 20	200 Blueprints and 5 Golden Keys
Small Prize	21 thru 50	100 Blueprints and 5 Llama Speed-Up Tokens
No Rewards	51 thru 100

Exchange[]

The Exchange tab will take you to the Blueprint Exchange. You will see all the possible rewards you can achieve by exchanging blueprints and how many blueprints you currently have.

Contest of Mayors Tasks[]

There are 5 tasks related to Design Challenges in Contest of Mayors.

Tasks
Task	Amount	Plumbob Points	Event Points	Time
Upgrade homes in Design Challenges	(0/1)	800	20	1 Hour
Upgrade homes in Design Challenges	(0/2)	1,600	20	2 Hours
Upgrade homes in Design Challenges	(0/3)	2,400	20	3 Hours
Submit a Design for a Challenge	(0/1)	2,500	Can Vary	1 Hour
Vote in Design Challenges (Milestone)	(0/10)	6,500	Can Vary	N/A

City Achievements[]

There are 2 City Achievements related to Design Challenges.

Achievements
Achievement	1 Star	2 Star	3 Star	1 Star Reward	2 Star Reward	3 Star Reward
Design Judge	Vote through 50 queues of designs in a Design Challenge	Vote through 100 queues of designs in a Design Challenge	Vote through 200 queues of designs in a Design Challenge	5 Simcash	10 Simcash	30 Simcash
Créme De La Designer	Submit 5 Design Challenge Entries	Submit 10 Design Challenge Entries	Submit 20 Design Challenge Entries	?	?	100 Simcash

Trivia:[]

• Even though Design Challenges were released in early access in game version 1.36.1 the notes for that update were just bug fixes and improvements.

• The rewards in the first 2 early access Design Challenges were unachievable.

• Originally you only needed 1,000 required population to submit your design.

• In the early access the residential zones would start with really easy upgrades and then get increasingly harder.

• It is highly likely the early access of design challenges were used for feedback and testing because EA made multiple posts relating to survey's and feedback.

• The full released Design Challenges rewards are the first time to ever be able to get old Contest of Mayor's buildings.

• There was a Contest of Mayors task to Vote in Design Challenge (0/5) 2,500 plumbob points, 1 hour but it was later removed.

• There was a Contest of Mayors task to Submit a Design for a Challenge (0/1) 2,500 plumbob points, 1 hour but is was later removed.

• When the first voting phase started in the fully released Design Challenges it only had 3 cities to vote on so people who had a Vote in Design Challenge (0/5) 2,500 plumbob points, 1 hour were unable to complete it.

Unreleased Design Challenges Region. — A photo of Design Challenges before release.

• On Ea's article about Design Challenges they have a photo of Design Challenges before release because all the buttons have different artwork and an unreleased region called Sunny Beach Town. The Stats tab was also called Results. It was later changed to results again.

• On SimCity BuildIt's promotional video about City Design Challenges you can see 2 Neobanks in the top left corner from parts 0:03 to 0:09. This is not possible in normal cities because you can only have 1 Neobank.

• In season 1 and 2 the build phase was 3 days but since season 3 it has been lowered to 2 days.

• In season 3 the break between challenges was changed to have a 1 day break every 2 challenges.

• In the first 3 seasons the rewards followed an event track style format but in Design Challenges Season 4 it was changed to the Blueprint Exchange.

• The Results tab used to be called Stats.

• The Exchange tab used to be called Rewards.

Bugs:[]

Some bugs might have been fixed.

Corrupted Voting Image — A corrupted image in voting preventing you from seeing part of the city.

• Some players may get an expand city area (0/1) task in contest of mayors even if they have expanded all their land. This supposedly happens because it counts the Design Challenge land as expandable.

• Sometimes when loading into the region you may not be able to refresh the building plans.

• Tasks will still appear in Contest of Mayors even if there are no Design Challenges.

• Some of the photos when voting will be corrupted and show black around most the photo.

• In the winter wonderland region trees will not be snow covered unless you build a road.