Articles are the one room in the Community that feeds your energy, and the very easiest way to draw on that is also the most pleasant: just read. You do not have to write a word to benefit. By settling in and genuinely reading what other players have published, you earn energy for yourself and quietly reward the author at the same time. This lesson is about exactly how that works, and it all turns on a single honest half-minute.
The 30-second rule
When you open an article, a visible timer begins to count. Your job could not be simpler: stay and actually read for at least 30 seconds. The moment that half-minute is up, your reward arrives with a little animation that tells you plainly how much energy you have just received. There is nothing to claim and no button to remember - reach the 30-second mark and the energy is yours.
Five energy per article read
Each article you genuinely read pays you 5 energy, delivered after you have stayed on the page for a full 30 seconds. The visible counter shows you exactly how long is left, so you always know when the reward is about to land. Once an article has paid you, it carries a small green Read badge so you can see at a glance which ones you have already been rewarded for.
Six rewarded reads a day
There is a daily limit on how many reads pay out, and it is a generous one. You can be rewarded for up to 6 article reads each day. At 5 energy apiece, that is a tidy 30 energy a day simply for reading well-made articles about the game you are already playing. Once you have collected those 6 rewarded reads, you are very welcome to keep reading as much as you like - the articles do not lock - but no further energy is paid until the next day.
One sensible detail keeps the system fair: re-reading an article you have already been paid for does not pay you a second time. The reward is for reading something new, not for opening the same page over and over. So to make the most of your six daily reads, spread them across different articles, and you will both earn the full thirty energy and discover what your fellow players have been writing.
- Open any article from the Articles list.
- Stay and read properly - the visible timer counts down 30 seconds.
- When the time is up, 5 energy lands with a small animation and the article gains its green Read badge.
- Move on to a different article and repeat, up to 6 rewarded reads in a day.
Why a whole 30 seconds?
You might wonder why the game asks you to linger a full 30 seconds rather than paying the instant you click. That half-minute is there to make sure a read is a real read. It quietly rules out clicking through a dozen articles in a few seconds to harvest energy without taking in a word. That protects the writers, whose reward depends on people genuinely reading their work, and it keeps the whole arrangement honest. The wait is not an obstacle - it is the small act of good faith that makes the reward mean something.
Reading feeds the writer too
Here is the generous part that makes the Articles room feel warm rather than transactional. When you complete a rewarded read, the author of that article also earns - not energy, but 0.0001 gold, paid straight from the game fund and never taxed. So your single honest half-minute pays both ways at once: 5 energy into your bar, and a little gold into theirs. Every time you read someone properly, you are putting real gold in their pocket, and one day other players will be doing the very same for you.
Leaving early earns nothing
The reward only arrives once the full 30 seconds are up, so clicking into an article and straight back out gives you no energy at all. There is no partial credit. Settle in, let the timer run, and the energy follows - that is the whole trick.
There is a lovely little habit hiding in all this. Reading six good articles is a fine way to open a play session: you arrive, you spend a few quiet minutes catching up on what other mayors have written, and you walk away with thirty energy to spend on your town - all while having supported six fellow players. It costs you nothing but a little attention, and attention is exactly what a good article deserves anyway.
So reading is the gentle, sociable way to earn energy in the Community: 30 seconds per article, 5 energy each, up to six times a day, with a little gold flowing to every author you read. In the next lesson we step to the other side of the page and learn how to write articles of your own - the more involved path, but the one that earns from every reader you attract.