Hints, tips, and tricks for Kairosofts build-em-up Oh! Edo Towns

Games are great because they allow you to complete tasks, undertake missions, speed around tracks, and basically partake in activities that you could never do in real-life. 

Kairosoft's Oh! Edo Towns - an ancient Sim City-esque simulation - is no different.  

The aim of the game is to construct a perfect samurai town during the Edo period in Japan, fill it with houses, castles, and a range of other buildings, and turn it into a prosperous metropolis. 

As with all games from the Game Dev Story developer, this isn't an easy task. So we've put together this guide to help you get started.

You should find enough hints, tips, and general information to build a bustling town.

The Basics 



Oh! Edo Towns gives you 16 in-game years to transform your small town into a hive of activity. Although this sounds like a long time, months fly by in minutes, so you do have to think ahead.

To buy essential buildings and other attractions for your town, you'll have to spend gold. This is earned - among other ways - by attracting new settlers to your town, who will gift you gold based on the 'yield' of the building that they move into.

You can also collect taxes from them every March.

Yield represents the overall wealth of your city or town, which you can boost by constructing new buildings, using crafts, and attracting new citizens. This, in turn, attracts more residents. 

Finally, crafts are special items with a very high yield value. To use a craft, you'll first have to find a craft plan, which can found in buildings near wholesalers. Once created, they can be applied to buildings to boost yield and parameters. 

Get the builders in 



The most important part of any town is the buildings that comprise it, so the majority of your focus should be on constructing a varied selection of abodes, eateries, shops, libraries, and more. 

Unfortunately, building a new house - or Vacant Lot, as it's called in the game - doesn't guarantee a new resident, so you have to attract them to your village. As previously mentioned, a high town yield helps to attract new citizens. 

Each new resident comes complete with four different parameters that will aid your overall mission. These are:

Intelligence - Helps you in discovering new buildings and leveling-up.
Loyalty - A citizen with a high loyalty will work harder and make more money.
Appeal - This helps you meet new people.
Skill - Helps discover crafts and earn research points. 

You begin the game with a limited number of buildings to choose from, but you can begin to research new creations by heading to Menu, and then Research.

This will, of course, require Research Points, which fall into four different categories: Food, War, Technology, and Education. These are discovered randomly as your citizens go shopping, talk to each other, and perform other daily tasks. 

Your experiments will take varied amounts of time - and money - to materialise, and you check out their progress by heading back into the game's menu. You can only research one new building at a time (at first), so choose wisely. 

Oh! Edo Town also features special buildings such as a castle, which you'll have the ability to purchase when you reach a set amount of gold.

A castle receives a slice of the income from all of your citizens' jobs, gives you the ability to change peoples' occupations, and raises the yield of nearby - and relatively far away - buildings. 

Co-co-co-combo breaker!



As in previous Kairosoft title Mega Mall Story, it's possible to give your buildings a boost by placing three of them near each other in a specific order.

This time around, your combos will increase both your yield and product prices. Oh! Edo Town gives you five combos to get you started, but there are plenty of others to discover for yourself. The first five are:
.
Combo NameBuilding 1Building 2Building 3YieldProduct PriceSnack ComboUdon ShopSoba ShopStew Cart+15%+10%Flower ComboDumpling ShopCherry TreePond+18%+5%Sweets ComboBun ShopBean Soup ShopDumpling Shop+15%+10%Plum ComboPubRice ShopPlum Tree+20%+10%Kamakura ComboDaibutsuBun ShopHydrangeas+24%+16%.
If you don't want to discover the rest for yourself, you can find a full list of combos in this handy Google document. It comes courtesy of the Kairospot forums and Wikipedia.

Craft a good craft



As previously mentioned, crafts are special items with a high yield value that can be applied to buildings. 

To begin crafting, you first have to attract an Artisan to your town, who will work in your local wholesaler's. Just like investigating new buildings, crafting will cost you Research Points, so don't forget to balance both. 

Finally, you can level-up a craft to increase its effectiveness and recharge it. 

Keep in mind



Your citizens need paths to travel to all of your different buildings, but even with trails they can only walk so far. Naturally, a horse or some other kind of vehicle will increase this distance. 

Your pal Ohisho - who gives you tips throughout the game - will occasionally pop-up with some extra cash when your funds become low. Don't be afraid spending cash to improve your settlement.