Too low resources, mass production is prohibited.

[Lopar]

So, I tried to make some mass-production and used all sulfur and almost all ore and all fluorite just on 10000 population quest. Now I have low people, no access to NF3 and concrete a-a-and.. i think i'm going to loose and game over.

Game really needs super delicate micromanagement, while cities needs are unlimited, but not the resources. And you cannot stop and relax looking at all you built, you need to put maximum attention on what you produce to stop cities loose population.

Game that looked like easy childish relaxing sandbox at the beginning, surprisingly became hardcore micromanagement long-term planning strategy.

Game balance should be fixed somehow.

[soldier6661111]

Maybe there could be an Easy, Medium and Hard Resource Spawn setting, but hopefully the current setup is the "Medium" difficulty.

Jesus, at that level I had barely touched my resources. How did you waste so much?!!?
What speed did you play at, did you use the recycled metals, what temp did you reach, how many roads and other buildings did you build?

I think, the issue is your strategy, not game balance.

The game does sort of look simple (graphically looks awesome imo) but that doesn't mean it's easy. Look at Armored Commander 2. Very simple looking, but not quite in the gameplay/difficulty.

[Omniconda]

Cities stop requiring Reinforced concrete at 100k pop. So sulfur is used for a few buildings only late game.
Personally ive never come close to running out of sulfer but i know if your not supplying/removing waste from cities fully they will eat resources and not grow.

flourite is only used for heating so if you used it all it should have hit the minimum temps for progression

im guessing its maybe down to AFKing without pausing for large periods

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Lopar:

Game really needs super delicate micromanagement, while cities needs are unlimited, but not the resources. And you cannot stop and relax looking at all you built, you need to put maximum attention on what you produce to stop cities loose population.

Game that looked like easy childish relaxing sandbox at the beginning, surprisingly became hardcore micromanagement long-term planning strategy.

Game balance should be fixed somehow.

Not really. I don't know how you managed to eat through all the sulfur on the map but I've got all three of my cities past the concrete demanding stage and sulfur is still super plentiful on the surface. I maybe used up one sulfur deposit per city and that's it.

If you're letting them sit and continue eating concrete, I could MAYBE see how you could run out, but once you push past that it's fine.

[Lopar]

Originally posted by Omniconda:

if your not supplying/removing waste from cities fully they will eat resources and not grow.

When I have almost 30k population, I have empty waste storages and 98-99% of waste disposal city statistics. City stops growing. Looks like I made everything wrong when built waste disposals one for each waste, so one slot is always full on each building and ghame thinks, that waste problem is not solved. Here, take a look.
https://i.imgur.com/DNTUjZI.png

Originally posted by Bomoo:

I don't know how you managed to eat through all the sulfur on the map

bi-i-ig excavations. ))) here's my current newgame.
https://i.imgur.com/M3PzURH.png

[Flotch]

Waste disposals are like supply centers, each one can handle only a certain level of throughput. At some point you need to stack more next to each other to enable things to move quickly enough. If you had 2 or 3 waste disposals in each location you are removing waste, it'd be enough.

Did you mine sulfur like that on max speed and feed cities concrete for 24 hours of real time? I'm still not understanding how this would deplete the entire planet's sulfur supply...

[Lopar]

I dunno. I have 78k population in biggest city now and most of my productions are 2-3 screens big, and even than that is not enough. And waste.. multiple screens of waste storage because of recycling bottleneck.

100k challenge is really hard\weird. I'm surprised how someone found that easy, and get that milestone without resouce problems.

[Flotch]

Originally posted by Lopar:

I dunno. I have 78k population in biggest city now and most of my productions are 2-3 screens big, and even than that is not enough. And waste.. multiple screens of waste storage because of recycling bottleneck.

100k challenge is really hard\weird. I'm surprised how someone found that easy, and get that milestone without resouce problems.

Not sure what you mean by "waste storage" or "recycling bottleneck." I have certain portions of city's supply systems built directly adjacent to the city in a way that allows waste to be processed directly on-site instead of hauling it away.

For metal waste, you can use the aluminum output combined with the local oxygen supply's polymer output to create the city's own high-tech needs. For growth, you'll need an outside source of aluminum, but the city shouldn't shrink when using only recycled aluminum. Steel can be shipped away to a factory that uses it, or a very simple factory can be made on-site to consume it (turning it into excavators, for instance).

For organic waste, it's a lot easier to ship nitrogen and water in to a farm/composting plant next to the city, instead of shipping tons of organic waste out to a farm that's far away. For growth, you'll need an outside source of compost, but the city shouldn't shrink when using only recycled organics.

TLDR: Produce everything the city consumes (except concrete, nitrogen, and water) directly adjacent to the city, so city-feeding industry can be fed with waste output directly. External resources are only ever necessary for growing a city's population, not for sustaining it.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Lopar:

Originally posted by Omniconda:

if your not supplying/removing waste from cities fully they will eat resources and not grow.

When I have almost 30k population, I have empty waste storages and 98-99% of waste disposal city statistics. City stops growing. Looks like I made everything wrong when built waste disposals one for each waste, so one slot is always full on each building and ghame thinks, that waste problem is not solved. Here, take a look.
https://i.imgur.com/DNTUjZI.png

You need to make multiple waste disposal and supply depot buildings to hit 100% on larger cities. The input/output gets spread between however many there are, making it easier to keep up with.

[Lopar]

Aaaaah! That's endgame play, I thought I was somewhere in the middle, but, as I read, 1M quest is the last one. Now I understand why the gameplay looks hardcore a bit.

Phew, unlocked everything now. That was great two days. )

It was an surprise, that 6 small factories producting hardened concrete and bringing it to one city is far (VERY FAR!) productive than having one gigafactory for everything. Small factories produce faster, consume less so cities levels WAY MORE faster without resources' bottleneck.

>TLDR: Produce everything the city consumes (except concrete, nitrogen, and water) directly adjacent to the city, so city-feeding industry can be fed with waste output directly. External resources are only ever necessary for growing a city's population, not for sustaining it.

Interestng playstyle. I made everything max-away from cities. I'll try that on another save.

[Lopar]

And biggest gameplay error that can ruin everything - supporting all cities simultaneously. Everything become really easy if you forget about all cities and focus on only one.

[soldier6661111]

Originally posted by Lopar:

And biggest gameplay error that can ruin everything - supporting all cities simultaneously. Everything become really easy if you forget about all cities and focus on only one.

What do you mean ? Pause function man.

[Gaddy Games]

The most usual problem is playing at max speed, it's really easier not to
But i'll add options for infinite resources

[Lopar]

>What do you mean ? Pause function man.
It's way easier reaching 100k population quest, when you have one main city and satellites with almost no population, than having all cities grow to 100k. You can lose resources like myself. Looks like it is intended playstyle - rising cities one by one, so you will consume really less resources.
I tried both. On first one you can use all sulfur and loose, on second it's almost impossible to use even half of sulfur on map.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Lopar:

And biggest gameplay error that can ruin everything - supporting all cities simultaneously. Everything become really easy if you forget about all cities and focus on only one.

Yeah it's difficult to juggle more than one. Get one at a time up to a state of equilibrium and you should be good to go.

Originally posted by Lopar:

>What do you mean ? Pause function man.
It's way easier reaching 100k population quest, when you have one main city and satellites with almost no population, than having all cities grow to 100k. You can lose resources like myself. Looks like it is intended playstyle - rising cities one by one, so you will consume really less resources.
I tried both. On first one you can use all sulfur and loose, on second it's almost impossible to use even half of sulfur on map.

It's more an issue of multitasking. If you're VERY good at multitasking yeah you probably can raise all your cities up simultaneously. I'm not particularly, so for me it works to do one at a time.

Re: running out of sulfur, I guess it depends on how long you keep them at the concrete demanding stage. If you focus on one city at a time and zoom past it, they don't end up eating much at all, and all your concrete can go toward manufacturing things like rail segments and dams and whatever else.

[Lopar]

Thats why the game feels more like a puzzle, than a sandbox. You can win using only exactly one predetermined playstyle. When you find it, cha-ching! everything become super-easy.