Economic viability? Fuel costs too high.

[Searry]

I managed to get my first city running where people didn't die immediately or something horrible didn't happen or things did not work.
I found fuel costs to be extremely high. My only industry was refined iron which I was exporting to a NATO country for dollars.
I had a lot of busses but these feel pretty pricey since they cost fuel.

When I start a city should I start next to a coal area so I can power my electricity and heating with my own coal and create the public transport system with electric vehicles only?

What sort of an export industry is recommended at the start of the game if you are not next to good natural resources? Should I just buy electric trains to export crude oil for example?

From the first harvest I guess you can export the extra alcohol and food?

I would like to know more tips about minimizing fuel usage if there are any.


In my first proper non-imploding city I had taken a million ruble loan by the October of the first year and didn't see an economic viable way out of the financial ruin since my farms were messed up.

[Silent_Shadow]

Clothes are typically the best industry to start with as it has good returns and doesn't need more than one or two trucks. Making explosives and importing toxic waste to burn are also decent to start with because you don't need a lot of vehicles.

Food, livestock, and booze are also decent starting industries because you can replace your imports, but they need a lot of crops (and thus vehicles) to keep supplied, which you will likely have to import for a quite a while to keep them running constantly at 100%.


You can estimate the ideal (no stopping or turning) fuel efficiency for road vehicles with this equation:
F = S × 56 ÷ E, where:
• F = Fuel efficiency in km per ton of fuel, or meters per liter of fuel.
• S = The expected speed the vehicle will go at (including road limits), in km/hr.
• E = The power rating of the vehicle's engine, in kW.

You can then multiply this fuel usage by the capacity to get the fuel economy in ton-km per ton of fuel or passenger-km per ton of fuel to compare between road vehicles. Typically the most fuel economic vehicle has the fastest speed and biggest capacity truck/bus with the lowest power engine.

Acceleration also uses more fuel, so try to limit the number of stops and tight turns in your trucks' and buses' routes. Weight increases acceleration time but otherwise doesn't matter.

You can use electric vehicles to save on fuel costs, but the infrastructure isn't cheap and you need a reliable back up if you plan on delivering workers to the power plant with it.

If you want to be more fuel efficient, then you'll have to use other vehicles:
Cableways, trains and boats seem to be the most fuel/energy efficient; airplanes and trucks are moderate consumers of fuel/energy, and helicopters consume huge amounts of fuel.

[barry.zandstra]

In order to reduce fuel costs, it's a good idea to pave your roads. You need gravel or better for your main roads.

In order to see which industries are most lucrative, you can check the import/export prices. If you are importing the raw materials, make sure to also check how much product you make for a given quantity of raw material. You mentioned alcohol, for example. It's an expensive resource; every truckload pays a good amount. However, the distillery uses 30 tons of crops (plus water and power) for only 6 tons of booze. If you are importing crops, this might not be worth it.

Plus obviously, starting close to the border means your import/export operations consume less fuel and are more likely to turn a profit.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

Economy in this game is weird, many products have strange low prices and aren't viable to make - like wood, boards, bricks.

If doing them for export, it has to be in -mass- quantities but the type of mass you need to export in any of them, is just better off having the workforce spent elsewhere... which means these are dead products, better off being imported and processed, saving you the workforce and building space.

Cows are also a worthless resource and waste of workers. Better off importing meat if you need it. Cheaper, too, when you consider what the cost of building, maintenance, fuel, and workers labour being put elsewhere would save you.

Crude Oil is only good because it's automatic, no workers.

Quarried Stone could be good if the mine had an actual conveyor slot. but it doesn't, because - who knows why? this makes building worthless as it adds a dumper transporter and QS is useless. but gravel isn't. but gravel is better used internal construction. and production.

Crops can be good, but they very reliant on storage and correct buildings along with micromanagement fields, and again, very low export value, reliant on "Further chain buildings". and can't import anything to assist them, later game, yes, but early game, no.


Only really leaves early game "Cloth" which is just overpowered. and imo, cheat resource. Every other decent resource in-game is locked behind high tech or high resource investment, but then cloth factory.
.. small work force, easy cheap input, high export, high throughput(resource taken, produced for it.)

Every game you start on realistic with any type of debt or not on easy money, you're just on a time limit to get making a cloth factory, because it's the only viable factory, in the entire early game. It's very disappointing, agree with OP.

- so the answer is "cloth".
The answer is always cloth, every restart of a game map, every situation where "How to make more money" is your question.

[Ava]

Well, Clothes are indeed a cheat resource - but when I play I try to not play with it.
An alternative is go loan and build something you consider worth doing. Last time I did buy oil and crack into fuel and bitumen - its pretty good money and you literally *fuel* your economy with it, no need to import fuel anymore.

Another way I did it is also loan > build gravel, brick and lumber to offset the cost for all future construction and research chemistry in the time being > build chemistry > another loan and build electronic parts and consumer electronics. After that I had to sit for quite a while to pay off the loan but managed to expand the city with brick flats, so by the end of loan I had enough workforce to take another loan and build something big.

[gwahazar]

I agree, that fuel prices are overestimated if compared to some bulk goods,
making production of boards, bricks or gravel unprofitable (if not produced on site) even for own use.

[Searry]

I cannot play the game on realistic because there is no triple(or even faster) speed. Otherwise I would. I play on the maximum hardest I can without having to build everything for years on speed 2 which is just watching the paint dry. I will of course eventually make my own construction materials in a city where I get far enough and build from that since import costs are so high.

[Searry]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

You can use electric vehicles to save on fuel costs, but the infrastructure isn't cheap and you need a reliable back up if you plan on delivering workers to the power plant with it.

If you want to be more fuel efficient, then you'll have to use other vehicles:
Cableways, trains and boats seem to be the most fuel/energy efficient; airplanes and trucks are moderate consumers of fuel/energy, and helicopters consume huge amounts of fuel.

Yes I was planning to use trains mostly for moving goods in big quantities. For example moving coal to the power plants. Moving crops to the chained crop industries. etc.

My plan was also to buy trains, etc all the costly stuff with dollars and the imported electricity as well as the back up.
If you plan the electricity infrastructure well I think it's a good way to having an alternative to the fuel based public transport system.

The high voltage switch can import to the coal plant and provide a backup to the city.

I'm not sure thought about starting with electric trains due to infrastructure costs.
Diesel trains would make the most sense due to them just idling a lot of the time filling up the huge volumes of cargo they can transport.

I have no idea how cableways work. And there seems to be no info anywhere on it in the game for some reason.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

cableway is like factory connection with forklift, but in the sky, for both people and cargo depending on what 'cars' you put on the lines. very effective, very cheap, worth using.

Originally posted by Searry:

I have no idea how cableways work. And there seems to be no info anywhere on it in the game for some reason.

[MG83]

Dont belive in town myths here are calculated and tested results before waste.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2385995990

[DOA]

Originally posted by Searry:

I cannot play the game on realistic because there is no triple(or even faster) speed. Otherwise I would. I play on the maximum hardest I can without having to build everything for years on speed 2 which is just watching the paint dry. I will of course eventually make my own construction materials in a city where I get far enough and build from that since import costs are so high.

try press Ctrl+1 :)

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by DOA:

try press Ctrl+1 :)

That isn't a speed command...

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Zero, Dark Knight:

Economy in this game is weird, many products have strange low prices and aren't viable to make - like wood, boards, bricks. [...]

- so the answer is "cloth".
The answer is always cloth, every restart of a game map, every situation where "How to make more money" is your question.

Clothing, fabric, food, livestock, explosives, importing toxic waste to burn, and oil are all good options early on that do not need research or much investment. Food, booze, and cloths are extra good because you are eliminating them as imports too. You then have chemicals, machining, and fuel/bitumen with a little research.

Construction materials are good to make on your own to reduce customs congestion or to cut out transportation time/distance. Gravel and boards can be set up with less than 50,000 rubles and less than 20 workers each, which is great because aggregates take a long time to load at customs and you can save a decent amount of money (~3,000 rubles per km) using wooden tied rails instead of importing prefabs for concrete tied rails. You will also save money on construction materials in the long run (albeit after making several thousand tons instead of importing them).

Gravel quarries are meant to emulate a real life quarry where trucks move stone from the working area to a central crusher, which is why only dump trucks can be used. I like it because it makes the gravel industry unique from all the other industries.

[Searry]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by Zero, Dark Knight:

Economy in this game is weird, many products have strange low prices and aren't viable to make - like wood, boards, bricks. [...]

- so the answer is "cloth".
The answer is always cloth, every restart of a game map, every situation where "How to make more money" is your question.

Clothing, fabric, food, livestock, explosives, importing toxic waste to burn, and oil are all good options early on that do not need research or much investment. Food, booze, and cloths are extra good because you are eliminating them as imports too. You then have chemicals, machining, and fuel/bitumen with a little research.

Construction materials are good to make on your own to reduce customs congestion or to cut out transportation time/distance. Gravel and boards can be set up with less than 50,000 rubles and less than 20 workers each, which is great because aggregates take a long time to load at customs and you can save a decent amount of money (~3,000 rubles per km) using wooden tied rails instead of importing prefabs for concrete tied rails. You will also save money on construction materials in the long run (albeit after making several thousand tons instead of importing them).

Gravel quarries are meant to emulate a real life quarry where trucks move stone from the working area to a central crusher, which is why only dump trucks can be used. I like it because it makes the gravel industry unique from all the other industries.

How do you play on realistic? Do you have some mod for speed?

[Krossof]

Originally posted by MG83:

Dont belive in town myths here are calculated and tested results before waste.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2385995990

lets stick to clothing factory...

Your "town myth beating mega file" tells us a clothing factory makes 7,63 Profit per Worker.

A clothing factory produces 1,2 Tons of clothings a day.

A Day has 3 work shifts. so you need 80x3 worker to produce 1,2 tons of clothings.

23.02.1960 clothing sell price = 1.271,71 Rubels * 1,2 = 1.526 "Profit"
for 240 Worker = 6,36 "Profit" per Worker.

Lets assume you have a good setup and 120% productifity in the republic. -> 6.36 * 1,2 = 7,63 Profit per Worker per day. Just as the excel files states...

Well "Profit per worker" is wrongly read by the people. It is just the "tournover" / "Sales" created by the worker.

"Profit" alone indicates something completly diffrent. Here it says 610,11 Rubels per... well what? Days, months, bananas?

1. You dont have 120% productifity at the early stages of the game. nor 100%. Best chance is 80% until you have 5-10 years ingame and reach higher% but then you already dont care about money anyway.

2. buying fabrics costs 375,93 Rubels per ton and you need 2 tons per ton of clothings. = 751,86 Rubels for fabrics to create 1 ton of clothing which sells for 1.271,71 = 519,85 Rubels "Profit".

3. After deducting the materials nessescary to produce the stuff we have a "profit" or rater Turnover / sales per worker at 120% productifity of 2,60 Rubels per worker. Or 2,16 at 100% or 1,73 Rubels at 80%. (7,63 -> 1,73 - slight difference)

4. how much does a worker cost? About 1 Rubel per day.
-> "Profit" per ton of clothings after deducting fabrics = 623,82 - (120% effi. = 160 Rubels, 100% = 200 Rubels, 80% = 280 Rubels) as an early industry i go with 80% effi. -> -280 Rubels. 623,82 - 280 = 343,82 Rubels "Profit" per day. (610,11 -> 343,82 - slight difference)

5. Fuel is missing

6. Energy, Water, Sewage is missing

7. Maintaince or Repair is missing

8. Garbage, Garbage Trucks and Busses and its fuel and maintaince is missing (you dont build the factory in your city)

9. Assuming you need 4 busses to provide enough worker, 2 trucks for buy and sell and 1 truck for garbage.... there wont be much of a Return on investment.

10. And if you get 3 clothing factories you will increase the fabrics price and lower the clothing price. Now come at me and tell me the return of inbestment after you did that for 2 years with 3 full factories.

Short:
Dont build based on that excel file if you have no idea. And for the rest, stop share that excel file if you dont explain it. its a huge diffrence if you calculate your early republic based on 600 profit a day or less then 340 / 100 Rubels a day. You even make a loss if you dont keep 80 ppl in it due to fuel usage of busses.

My opinion:
Build all factories once so you are independent and dont increase the price due to citizens needs. Clothings will increase to 1800 (buy) fast, but if you dont buy them, only the fabrics, it already safes a bit of money.

[Krossof]

Originally posted by Searry:

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Clothing, fabric, food, livestock, explosives, importing toxic waste to burn, and oil are all good options early on that do not need research or much investment. Food, booze, and cloths are extra good because you are eliminating them as imports too. You then have chemicals, machining, and fuel/bitumen with a little research.

Construction materials are good to make on your own to reduce customs congestion or to cut out transportation time/distance. Gravel and boards can be set up with less than 50,000 rubles and less than 20 workers each, which is great because aggregates take a long time to load at customs and you can save a decent amount of money (~3,000 rubles per km) using wooden tied rails instead of importing prefabs for concrete tied rails. You will also save money on construction materials in the long run (albeit after making several thousand tons instead of importing them).

Gravel quarries are meant to emulate a real life quarry where trucks move stone from the working area to a central crusher, which is why only dump trucks can be used. I like it because it makes the gravel industry unique from all the other industries.

How do you play on realistic? Do you have some mod for speed?

We usually think about what we do and watch the republic build our plan. we watch closly and improve where we see ineffienct situations and adjust workers allowed, buildings to build next, import citizen, change lines, update roads one at a time and after that, we lay back and smile.

How do you play?