How on Earth do you make a building productive?

[harrisone16]

I am very confused on how buildings work in this game. All of my buildings, rural or urban seem stuck at super low productivity, no matter what I do. How do you make a super profitable and productive building?

[The Doctor]

Yikes, that's a pretty big topic but a quick answer is to check your inputs and outputs and see if you'\re using goods that are just really expensive to manufacture something that's not.

You can also reduce the cost of those inputs by importing or producing it in your home market. I'm in the process of doing this with my arms industry just now which I have been subsidising up until now.

If the number of sales is less than the number of buys, the prices will drop as well so be careful not to overproduce something that there's no demand for.

[kezientz]

thats a complicated question: 1) you need the pop to run the building - e.g. if all your pops are illiterate peasants, you will have trouble running "high tech" buildings. 2) you need the resources to run the building... e.g. a steelmill needs coal and iron, if you have to import coal and iron at a high price, you most likely wont make profit...
its about building up a production chain in your market.

[Athmet]

If that helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUiKUsSk0HU

Or you have this series as well:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_3rLv22kp6Rlx4hEmYLM6W8q6rG9JJL8

[Fearbeard]

it's not just the building but the market that the building is feeding in to. For example if you build an iron mine but there is no demand in your market for iron then it's not going to be profitable. So you could increase demand for iron by making buildings that use iron, changing how other buildings function (tooleries making pig iron tools instead of just out of wood) or set up export trade routes into higher demand markets.

[The Void Boy]

I'm not sure if it would work and someone will probably correct me if it won't. You could try exporting the goods from the industry you want to make more productive. That would decrease supply in your own market, raising the price, and allowing your capitalists to hire more workers to increase productivity.

You can also change production method.

You could also try importing the inputs a factory needs if prices of those inputs are high in your own market.