Is it really necessary to play with calculators?

[MarkShot9]

I recently bought the game when it was on sale. I have been playing City Skylines 1, but this game more closely resembles Tropico 1, 4, and 6 which I also have (and maybe Transport Fever II).

I don't want to play with unlimited money. I do want supply chains, but I am looking to relax and not turn the whole thing into MIN/MAX spreadsheet exercise.

Can one play leave economy running and just do it by the seat of their pants?

Thanks.

[KingKickAss]

As far as I know, the numbers and yields in the game are pretty basic. Like iron mine feeds two furnaces, etc. And simple research on a wiki will tell you how many of each factory you need for the chain. Your island will also tell you if you're overall supply is depleting of the product or improving.

[Gregomoto]

You don‘t need additional calculators, just use the statistics screen ingame, that gives you all infos needed.

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by KingKickAss:

As far as I know, the numbers and yields in the game are pretty basic. Like iron mine feeds two furnaces, etc. And simple research on a wiki will tell you how many of each factory you need for the chain. Your island will also tell you if you're overall supply is depleting of the product or improving.

You don't need a wiki for that, the production ratios are shown in the building menu. Example: sheep farm 30 seconds, knitter 30 seconds. Meaning you need one of each.

Also what gregomoto says: the statistics screen tells you everything.

[AJYXQ]

In my current playthrough, I decided to be lazy and turn AI off and have +$7000 coming in with everything sustainable (Artisans). I could leave the game running for months and nothing would change. You don't have to min/max at all, just keep an eye on the production tab and make sure demand isn't higher than supply and you're in the plus.

CTRL + Q or click on ,;| next to your current money to bring it up.

Money not coming in enough? Build more houses and make sure supply is sustainable. Or just leave the game running in the background and do something else for a bit.

There are trainers available for the game as well. Most I tried out had viruses (Malwarebytes) but I eventually came across WeMod and use that for most games.

[MarkShot9]

Well, I found an amazing calculator and videos off of GitHub. It will load saves. I will run an HTTP server and screen scrape as you play; and totally replicated the math/economic engine of the game; it is the game without a UI and 3D.

But what I found when I was playing is that the game is very immersive. The calculator keeping it synced as far as everything but population is a challenge and very immersion breaking.

I doubt I will use it as intended despite setting up, but appreciate the author's work. In one long Web page it makes clear all the math behind the game.

Here are the links to videos, the first appears to be native Australian English, but the second two are a bit more comprehensive from the author in German accented English. (My English is native NYC English ... all accents are easy if you are fluent.)

https://youtu.be/NJFLZemmCYQ?si=FRMa-achkBTed66s

https://youtu.be/YxU-8YCzpec?si=x21ECWWZ5qzsz8YV

https://youtu.be/k4WmgEIkp4s?si=YKMgOdKrBCZIEtXs