Your main objective in Idle Police Tycoon is to make your police stations grow thanks to your management strategy. You must study how to invest your earnings in your precinct until you get enough shields to travel to the next level. These shields will unlock bigger and more challenging police stations for you. The more you upgrade your objects and areas, the more shields you will get (upper-right corner counter).
This game is more challenging than other idle games, and you should need to pay attention to all the small descriptions that will appear in all the police departments, as well as in all the upgradable objects. Choose wisely which feature you would like to increase before you invest your in-game money. For example, if you want to improve your efficiency in solving scam offenses, you should build the anti-scam department, and upgrade the infrastructure. The small symbols in all the descriptions will be important (a semaphore, a spray can, or a credit card). Stay aware of all the details!
We recommend you to start little by little re-investing your money in basic furniture in all your departments, reducing processing times between departments, and increasing the earnings (look at the descriptions before you upgrade things!). Watch out for your hired employees! If you have too many people working in one department, study the situation and fire or hire workers to balance your payments.
Don’t forget about your energy counter! It will be necessary to upgrade it when you don’t have enough energy to open a new area or upgrade an object. It will also happen with the tech zone, which will have a certain capacity for technological improvements at your departments. Tap on their counters to have extra energy and tech supplies.
Take in mind that your police station is interconnected. All your departments will need to be efficient if you want to succeed. You could have all the vehicles unlocked, but they will be useless until you could upgrade reception, interns dept, detectives, etc. accordingly. Pay attention to possible warnings that could give you some clues about the next step.
Your city map will bring new types of crimes and offenses to be treated by your crew. We insist that you should be aware of the symbols to make your police station grow properly. If you open a new district, you should take into account that new criminals will need new departments at your office.
New “Most Wanted Criminals” will appear in your list as new districts are open. Remember all the things learned, and find the proper department to treat new cases. If you meet all the requirements, you will receive extra rewards!
- How to get 5 shields in my police station?
- Can I transfer money between police stations?
- I don’t have enough energy / purple technology points to build new things!
- How can I unlock new districts and expand my territory?
- Most Wanted Criminals? Tell me more!
- How do the cards work? What are the Premium characters?
- How do I use my gems?
- How do the departments work? Warning symbols? (“Overwork!”)
- How the detention processes work? Warning symbols in my progress bars?
- Why some investigations have a “double” progress bar? (Interdepartmental cases)
- My x2 ad campaign will disappear when I switch between precincts!
- How can I earn money faster?
- My departments still take the wrong cases! (Warning Icon)
- How can I change the language?
- What are the golden shields? How do I get them?
- What does each crime symbol mean?
- I can’t close my city station!
- I can’t get 5 badges!
- I can’t get a Golden Shield!
How to get 5 shields in my police station?
The more you upgrade your objects and areas, the more shields you will get (upper-right corner counter).
If you want to get 5 shields in your police stations, you will be able to max out every object and department in the game, as well as to expand all your coverage areas (map icon). Only when you max everything out you will receive 5 badges.
Tap on the Management button (blue icon in the lower-right corner of the game screen) to see progress bars in all your departments. They should be all in green. If you see a department with a blue bar on it, you should visit it and look for the missing upgrade. Don’t forget your coverage areas, they should be fully expanded.
You must study how to invest your earnings in your precinct until you get enough shields to travel to the next level. Take in mind that the leveling in your departments, the number of most wanted criminals arrested, and higher coverage in city districts will directly affect these progress.
These shields will unlock bigger and more challenging police stations for you.
Can I transfer money between police stations?
Each level has its own economy. Money won’t be transferred between police stations.
The Government was looking for a competitive manager able to make police departments grow starting from scratch, and we are sure that you will do a great job.
We will forward your feedback regarding this feature to the team so they can take it into consideration, but please keep in mind that the main point of the game is to advance into more challenging levels, so this money shouldn’t be so relevant. With your previous experience, you will be able to succeed at higher stages!
I don’t have enough energy / purple technology points to build new things!
Don’t forget about your energy counter! It will be necessary to upgrade it when you don’t have enough energy to open a new area or upgrade an object. It will also happen with the tech zone, which will have a certain capacity for technological improvements at your departments. Tap on their counters to have extra energy and tech supplies.
Your police station will start with an electricity room, but take in mind that you will need to build your tech zone to generate technology points (purple icon) on your premises. Tap on the “Management” blue button (lower-right corner buttons) and scroll down the list until you find “Resources”.
How can I unlock new districts and expand my territory?
If you tap on the red map icon (lower-right corner buttons), you will be able to expand your coverage and also open new districts to work on. Upgrading these features, you will increase your rate of crimes attended and will unlock new kinds of crimes, respectively.
Take into account that you must have the proper departments and enough employees to attend these crimes, so we recommend you to follow a consistent growth strategy in all your new districts and your premises.
Most Wanted Criminals? Tell me more!
When you unlock new districts in your city maps, new types of crimes have to be managed by your police officers. These new trickeries will involve new famous criminals!
Tap on the brown button (lower-right corner icons) to know more about these criminals. Read carefully all the missions that you have to follow to catch them up.
**EXTRA TIP** These missions will give you some clues of what departments will work better with those specific criminals… Don’t miss a detail!
Moreover, arresting these criminals will increase your income substantially!
Once you complete all the missions, the criminal will be arrested. Make sure that you have unlocked “special cells” in your guardroom for your Most Wanted Criminals (they won’t share normal cells with other detainees).
How do the cards work? What are the Premium characters?
Your police stations will be more exciting thanks to permanent upgrades and characters that will bring new stats. You can spend some gems in buying the basic, advanced, or expert card packs.
They will randomly provide a certain number of card fragments that will unlock and level up some of the permanent features. Some of them will only be available after a specific level, but once you unlock a card, it will work in all your precincts.
To find these cards, tap on the card’s icon on the top right side of the screen. If you tap on the different cards, you can see the different enhancements that they provide. There, you will find a “Get Cards” button on the bottom left part of the screen.
How do I use my gems?
You can triplicate your offline earnings using gems when you open the game.
You could also use gems to skip construction times when you want to build a new area in your precinct. Just select the area that you would like to build and start the construction work. Then, the game will allow you to pay with gems to instantly have your new building.
Moreover, gems can be used to buy card packs (tap on the card’s icon, right side icon on your playing screen) and obtain epic cards. They will bring permanent upgrades to your police stations and special characters. Read carefully their descriptions!
How do the departments work? Warning symbols? (“Overwork!”)
Your police station must grow according to the needs of your criminal investigations.
That’s why we insist on this tip: you must double-check which crimes are under your jurisdiction before you unlock a new department. The small icons (semaphore, mask, spray can, credit card, etc.) in departments’ descriptions will give you a final clue to know which department should manage those cases.
Find all the departments available by tapping on the blue button (lower-right corner)
If one department receives the wrong cases, it will increase the processing time, and police officers will need more time to arrest the criminals (e.g., the anti-scam department needs to investigate traffic offense). We strongly recommend building the proper department to revert this situation as soon as possible.
You will notice that something needs to be double-checked when a warning symbol appears over an officer’s head. You will also see that the progress bar is orange. If you tap in the department which is receiving the wrong criminal cases, a message will appear in the department’s description: Overwork! Processing cases too complex for this department.
When the progress bar is green or orange but without a warning symbol, that means that the case is being investigated by the proper department and it will take less time to be processed.
Once you could solve this situation by building the proper department, it will take some time until the first one could close the pending cases already wrongly assigned.
How the detention processes work? Warning symbols in my progress bars?
The urban security and the intervention unit will hit the streets to arrest the criminals after the interdepartmental investigation of a case.
A progress bar will show up during this process over their lockers. Once they finish their work, arrested criminals should spend some time behind bars in the guardroom cells.
Sometimes you will see a warning symbol next to an orange progress bar, which will indicate that the unit who took the case was the wrong one. Don’t worry, they will do their duty, but it will take some extra time. Take in mind that this could happen regularly if the other units suffer overwork.
When the progress bar is green, it will take less time to be processed. Other cases could take more time but better rewards, so their pogress bars will be orange.
Don’t forget that officers will accomplish the mission faster if they have enough official vehicles!
Why some investigations have a “double” progress bar? (Interdepartmental cases)
Some cases will be more complex to be solved. On some occasions, a “double” progress bar will appear over a detective’s head.
Those files are interdepartmental: they need to be checked by more than one detective on different investigation areas, so they will take more time to be closed. You will receive more money per hour when your people arrest those criminals!
Don’t forget that a warning symbol next to an orange progress bar will indicate some extra waiting time. Be patient!
My x2 ad campaign will disappear when I switch between precincts!
The temporary income doubler is designed to make higher profits during your online management of this specific police station. It will also double your offline income if you close the game after watching ads (if you leave the app with 1 hour of ad doubler running, this bonus will be applied to your offline earnings the next time you log in).
However, you can lose this multiplier if you visit a precinct right after its activation. We would recommend traveling between levels before you activate the temporary income doubler. In any case, the team is optimizing this feature for further updates.
How can I earn money faster?
Arresting Most Wanted Criminals will increase your hourly earnings significantly. But this could take some time, as well as it could condition your growth strategy. Try to accomplish all the quests given since they could give you some tips to grow faster, open the proper departments, and upgrade the proper units.
Upgrade those objects that will increase your money per hour, and don’t forget to expand the proper coverage areas by tapping on the map icon (check if your departments could investigate the crimes detailed before you open a new coverage area) so you can receive more reports.
My departments still take the wrong cases! (Warning Icon)
There are many factors that can send a case to the wrong department, especially at the beginning of the game, as possibly some point in the work chain is working more saturated than others. Keep in mind that your precinct will work harder at first, and this could easily happen at earlier stages of progress. It is not so much a penalty, but a graphic way of expressing the workload.
The goal is to minimize these inconveniences, and that will happen in more advanced stages of progress. Even if you have the correct department, all the work chain should be properly upgraded. This would take some time and patience!
How can I change the language?
The game is developed in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Russian, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
You need to have your device set up in one of these languages.
What are the golden shields? How do I get them?
The Gold Shields are necessary to unlock some cities (e.g. Haikang). You can get them after completing a city with 5 badges and closing it. You can close it by traveling to another city and going to the list of stations to close the previous one.
Remember that once a city is completed and closed, you won’t be able to come back to it.
You can get more info about badges by tapping on the cities menu (bottom right orange button with a badge) and then on the “?” sign.
What does each crime symbol mean?
The crime symbols are:
-Drugs: syringe
-Forgery: credit card
-Theft: mask
-Traffic: traffic lights
-Vandalism: graffiti spray
-Corruption: money case
-Fight: fist
-Heist: money bag
-Murder: knife
-Kidnapping: person with a question mark
-Shooting: pistol
-Gun trafficking: machine gun
I can’t close my city station!
You will be able to close your station (and get the correspondent gold shield) after completing it with 5 regular badges. You can close it by travelling to another city and selecting the option on the city list. As it’s designed this way, you will have to always keep one last city open to stay in until the next one is available.
I can’t get 5 badges!
If you want to get 5 shields in your police stations, you have to max out every object and department in the game, as well as to expand all your district areas (map icon).
1) Tap on the Management button (blue icon in the lower-right corner of the game screen) to see progress bars in all your departments. They should be all green.
2) Tap on the map icon and make sure that all your district areas are completely expanded.
3) Also, you need to arrest all the most wanted criminals available on each level (brown icon in the lower-right corner).
These shields will unlock bigger and more challenging police stations for you.
I can’t get a Golden Shield!
You can get them after completing a city with 5 badges and closing it. You can close it by traveling to another city and going to the list of stations to close the previous one.
Remember that once a city is completed and closed, you won’t be able to come back to it.
You can get more info about badges by tapping on the cities menu (bottom right orange button with a badge) and then on the “?” sign.