Tips to get started....

[KongHarald]

This game looks soooooo coool.
Where do I begin? Should I start with a powerplant like I did in Sim/Skylines?
Please share some experiences with me on how to get started..

[ryantheskinny]

Hmm. I would focus on income first. Power us cheap and can be bought from both borders. Build some oil Wells and start selling oil to which ever side. Then build a storage facility for building material close to the same border your selling oil too. Preferably trade for the currency that your using to buy energy and resources. Next build a construction depot and now you can cheaply build everything. Set the construction depot to get resources from your storage facilities.

Then get fuel and bitumen production going and your set.

[Drop Table Humanity]

I like starting a few construction offices and the supporting buildings, an apartment block, and importing power. Then I manually build logging and gravel chains, then food, alcohol, and clothing chains a ways away and rail construction to export/move workers and bring crops to my factories.

Oil is so OP I'm not even sure why people don't start with unlimited money if they're going to go that route.

[plotz]

- Importing coal, coal ore or power works OK and saves you 200 workers. It also makes you less dependent on a particular location with a good source of coal.
- An easy way to start would also be a clothing factory close to the border, auto-importing resources whilst exporting finished goods.
- If you have enough workers at hand, you can start a steel mill, importing iron ore or iron (using a warehouse next to the border for the imports and a road/rail connection to the steel mill to save on bulk transport costs).

[KongHarald]

Thanks for the tips guys! It's much appreciated.
Cheers

[The_Mask]

I always start with heavy industry so i can export fuel/bitumen/steel . The starting money doesnt go far .

[rkelly17]

I would say start with an export that makes good money. Import raw materials. Build enough housing for workers to run the plant plus necessary amenities. Once your trade balance is positive start substituting your own raw materials for the imports. The one nice thing about generating power and exporting excess is that the income is regular rather than episodic as it is with exports via truck or train.

The technological university seems expensive, but it is the only way to do the research that opens up industries like chemicals and electronics.

[forged73]

First tip:

This is not a game about making money.
When you understand this, you can start playing it.

[Rockrnger]

Conveyers are expensive if you aren’t actually moving that much tonnage (like to a concrete plant).

[DeltaDude]

Originally posted by forged73:

First tip:

This is not a game about making money.
When you understand this, you can start playing it.

Not entirely, but it can still help in trading for things you can't yet provide yourself.

[SBGaming]

From my limited experience, starting with the end of an industry chain and working backwards to the raw resource producer is a good way to start. For example, set up an Oil Refinery, Steel Mill or something that generates an income. Use the building to import resources, and then set up a starting town to populate such industry. Setup a train or trucks to take produced goods to the border.

Use the money you make to expand. If you built your Industry building away from the border, consider setting up a depot or warehouse near the border to instead import goods into and then run a train or trucks to haul goods from that warehouse to your Industry. Delivery costs for imports increase the further away from the border you go.

When you got things stabilized, look to see how you can produce resources locally, and setup transport lines to get those goods to your Industry buildings. When you have that up and running, you can halt imports and thus save on those costs.

There are two main ways to play on a spectrum, you can play with the goal of trying to locally produce, build and distribute everything your people and transport network requires to be self sufficient, or you can import what you need and pay for it by exporting high value cargos, if you can't be bothered to for instance setup trucks to haul food out to remote mining villages to supply your grocery stores or shopping centers. Trucks are going to need Fuel, so do you setup Fuel delivery out to distant Gas Stations, or do you just let the Gas Station import the Fuel and not worry about it.

There are a multitude of aspects to this game that you focus on, or let the game handle it such as by the automatic importing of goods.

@forged73 while the game isn't about making money, money does let you automate certain tasks so you can spend your time doing interesting things. I've been playing the manual construction aspect of the game, and it's interesting.

Another starting tip is to turn off Auto Build by un-selecting the currency being used on the build menu. You can spend hours planning out an entire city with services, housing, roads, infrastructure without spending a single dollar (or Ruble). Then when you are ready to build, you can select the items as desired to have them constructed. Want to plan ahead to have 10 Pre-fab housing units in your future city, but you only need 2 to start off? You can do that easily. I've sunk hours into one map, laying out various industries and haven't even unpaused the game.

Utilize Mud Roads (and foot paths) which are free to build roads out where you want them to be, and then you can go back and 'paint' over them by dragging for instance an Asphalt road to upgrade it later.

As mentioned, a Construction Office with an Excavator and Bulldozer makes Terrain adjustments free within a certain range as long as Auto Build is not selected. The more of each you have, the faster the process is. You can also buy and sell vehicles and get all your money back on them, so no reason not to fill up your first Construction Office with them to do all the Terrain adjustments that you want to do, and then sell off the ones you don't need.

[Satyr]

Search a big city with a lot of oil sources nearby (select oiltower, if the rectangles are green, it means much oil. :)
In the city, place bus-stops to gather workers and bring them to your factories. Build a refinery and sell the fuel to the West or/and the east. Brings a good income to start. :)

Watch out to have some firefighters ready. Your comrades will not work very safe and cause a lot of fires. :P

[Railsplitter]

Originally posted by SBGaming:

From my limited experience, starting with the end of an industry chain and working backwards to the raw resource producer is a good way to start. For example, set up an Oil Refinery, Steel Mill or something that generates an income. Use the building to import resources, and then set up a starting town to populate such industry. Setup a train or trucks to take produced goods to the border.

Use the money you make to expand. If you built your Industry building away from the border, consider setting up a depot or warehouse near the border to instead import goods into and then run a train or trucks to haul goods from that warehouse to your Industry. Delivery costs for imports increase the further away from the border you go.

When you got things stabilized, look to see how you can produce resources locally, and setup transport lines to get those goods to your Industry buildings. When you have that up and running, you can halt imports and thus save on those costs.

There are two main ways to play on a spectrum, you can play with the goal of trying to locally produce, build and distribute everything your people and transport network requires to be self sufficient, or you can import what you need and pay for it by exporting high value cargos, if you can't be bothered to for instance setup trucks to haul food out to remote mining villages to supply your grocery stores or shopping centers. Trucks are going to need Fuel, so do you setup Fuel delivery out to distant Gas Stations, or do you just let the Gas Station import the Fuel and not worry about it.

There are a multitude of aspects to this game that you focus on, or let the game handle it such as by the automatic importing of goods.

@forged73 while the game isn't about making money, money does let you automate certain tasks so you can spend your time doing interesting things. I've been playing the manual construction aspect of the game, and it's interesting.

Another starting tip is to turn off Auto Build by un-selecting the currency being used on the build menu. You can spend hours planning out an entire city with services, housing, roads, infrastructure without spending a single dollar (or Ruble). Then when you are ready to build, you can select the items as desired to have them constructed. Want to plan ahead to have 10 Pre-fab housing units in your future city, but you only need 2 to start off? You can do that easily. I've sunk hours into one map, laying out various industries and haven't even unpaused the game.

Utilize Mud Roads (and foot paths) which are free to build roads out where you want them to be, and then you can go back and 'paint' over them by dragging for instance an Asphalt road to upgrade it later.

As mentioned, a Construction Office with an Excavator and Bulldozer makes Terrain adjustments free within a certain range as long as Auto Build is not selected. The more of each you have, the faster the process is. You can also buy and sell vehicles and get all your money back on them, so no reason not to fill up your first Construction Office with them to do all the Terrain adjustments that you want to do, and then sell off the ones you don't need.

This was EXTREMELY helpful! Thank you.