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I'm playing two cities in a private region. One is doing well. The other, well, not so much...

In an attempt to restore some balance, I decided to send 30k to the less fortunate city via the region-based "gift" feature. The money left my good city almost immediately, but hasn't yet (1hr30 real time) arrived. I've tried leaving the game and opening it again, but all I seemed to be able to trigger was a "Your gift has been sent" notification.

How long do gifts take to arrive? Is there a secret trick for speeding up the process?

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  • 3
    Its been immediate in my experience. I fear your simoleons have been lost to the aether.
    – authenticgeek
    Mar 14, 2013 at 1:50
  • Any question regarding regional play issues all have the same answer... the game is still broken. What to do? Wait for the fix.
    – Jeff Mercado
    Mar 14, 2013 at 1:55
  • It depends on server's loading at this point. Some best case could be instant but most of the case is the simolean gift never arrive!
    – neo
    Mar 14, 2013 at 2:54
  • Thanks for the comments guys - even if they all make me depressed!
    – Tom Wright
    Mar 14, 2013 at 3:02
  • I seem to remember somebody mentioning that gifts cannot be received while the game is paused, as it is in bankruptcy.
    – Riking
    Mar 14, 2013 at 15:35

7 Answers 7

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The amount of time it takes for a monetary gift to arrive depends on traffic between your city hall and the destination city hall. Excessive server latency can also cause issues in sending gifts, but these issues are no longer as common.

Sending a gift between cities is not instant. A car with a simoleons icon and a thumbnail of the senders Origin avatar will leave their city hall and make it's way toward the receiving city hall. Funds are deducted from the sender's account as soon as the car agent is generated. It is a good idea to wait for the news bulletin indicating that a gift has been sent before switching cities. Once receiving this notification, switch cities and wait for the car to arrive. If you click on the government icon, you can watch it makes its way into your city to your city hall. At this point, the funds will be added to your treasury. Your city hall must be "powered on" to receive the gift.

Server issues used to prevent gifts from ever arriving, but those issues appear to have been resolved.

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  • In the end, all of my gifts have come through. Some took longer than 24 hours (real time), but they all came through in the end.
    – Tom Wright
    Mar 18, 2013 at 10:41
  • I've found that they are coming through consistently now, just in the early going there were issues. Still, the money has to actually be driven from place to place.
    – Tater596
    Mar 18, 2013 at 12:21
  • trying to send to a city with not connectivity will lead to lose
    – Dickens A S
    Apr 18, 2019 at 19:40
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Which town are you waiting as; the sending or receiving?

When you send a gift, a car leaves your city hall that carries the gift, thus the resources are deducted from your account immediately.

I sent money only once so far, but I also noticed that the money did not arrive instantly. So I switched back to the sending city, switched to region view and tracked a government car from there until it reached town hall in the target town. When I switched again, money was already accredited.

If you don't see any government cars in the regional view (cars with the government icon) as the sending city, I'm afraid your money was lost due to a bug.

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    Maybe it got burgled by robbers ;)
    – Lyrion
    Mar 14, 2013 at 8:47
  • It sounds like it probably was gobbled by a bug. Ah well..
    – Tom Wright
    Mar 14, 2013 at 14:23
  • I always stay in the regional view, watching the car make the trip. When its done I know its safe to switch to the receiving city.
    – mizipzor
    Mar 18, 2013 at 10:23
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When you are in the gifting city and you click on the region view, you will see a government car with the gifting city's player's icon and a little simolean badge in the top left-hand corner. You can watch this little car visit the gifting city hall and travel to the giftee city hall. The car can take a little bit of time due to traffic congestion.

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I had the same problem , lost 1 million simoleons that I gifted to my own city for over 24hrs, however I have found that the gift always seems to come through after I have taken out a bond in the city I have gifted to.

I have no idea why gifting would be linked with this, but it has worked for me every time so far, and also works for my brother.

Hope this helps some people as this was very frustrating for me.

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  • Hello and welcome to stack exchange. In the future, once you have a little more reputation you'll be able to add comments like this one to questions and answers; until then, please don't use the "answer question" function to add commentary, even along the lines of "I'm having this problem too". Thanks!
    – Shadur
    Mar 17, 2013 at 16:24
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    @Shadur This looks like an answer to me. The meat of it is in the first paragraph, once you get past "I had the same problem".
    – Adam Lear ♦
    Mar 17, 2013 at 17:40
  • Yes this was an answer, so seemed fitting to put in the answers box and not the comments box. The point of my comment was I 'had' the same problem, until I found this workaround, you still have to wait for the truck to complete its journey as others have said above, but if like me your gift seems totally lost, try this as it has worked for me every time. I don't mean to be rude, but please read the full comment before correcting me.
    – Colin
    Mar 18, 2013 at 18:50
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If you add a helicopter pad to your city hall then the cash gifts will be pretty much instant.

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As of patch 5, cash gifts are now given electronically (not by car anymore). So, traffic should no longer be an issue.

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I've had this problem as well. I think it has to do with how quickly you switch back to your other city(because as others have mentioned, a car is literally driving to the other city with the money). I sent $6m to a new city I started, and then almost immediately switched back to the new city. It never arrived, I think it disappeared into the aether. I will try another experiment where I watch and make sure the car arrives.

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    You create a good post. but this doesn't answer the question.
    – Michel
    Mar 14, 2013 at 17:36

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